
The Occupational Safety Leadership Podcast
Interviews along with a Q&A format answering questions about safety. Together we‘ll help answer not just safety compliance but the strategy and tactics to implement injury elimination/severity.
Latest episodes

Jun 10, 2025 • 5min
Episode 264 - Listen more than you speak
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers discusses a strategy that has worked very well for him when asking employees to identify hazards. Do everything you can to listen more than you speak. Employees have great insights to the hazards and how to correct them.

Jun 7, 2025 • 5min
Episode 263 - Task Competency and Occupational Safety
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers discusses task competency and occupational safety. When do you let a new hire operate on their own? Is passing a test only considered competency or do they need to perform a hands-on demonstration? Please like, listen and subscribe to the Occupational Safety Leadership Podcast.

May 30, 2025 • 24min
Episode 262 - Ken Reed - Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers talks with Ken Reed, VP at TapRoot about Root Cause Analysis (RCA). It's bad enough when an accident/incident occurs but companies should learn from it and make sure it never happens again. The point of RCA is to peel back the onion and figure out the root causes of the accident/incident. Never blame the employee. We discussed the power of root cause analysis along with an incident investigation to get you started. This was a great interview with a lot of knowledge sharing to get safety professionals started on incident investigations.

May 26, 2025 • 4min
Episode 261 - Story Telling and Occupational Safety
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers discusses the power of storytelling when presenting training in occupational safety. Storytelling helps make the safety training personal and helps keep employees engaged in learning.

May 23, 2025 • 6min
Episode 260 - Occupational Safety - Over Commitment
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers discusses the pitfalls of over commitment in occupational safety. A strategy is to use a method to risk rank the hazard or risk. Time, money, effort, etc. is a finite resource. All hazards cannot be tackled at the same time.

May 18, 2025 • 5min
Episode 259 - Expect Hardship in Occupational Safety
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers discusses that as Safety Professionals, we should expect hardship and stop thinking everything is so easy. Get input and buy-in from employees, then implement policies, training, etc. Then the employees have skin in the game.

May 16, 2025 • 20min
Episode 258 - Tracy Krieger - Shelter in Place and 5150 in California
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers talks to Tracy Krieger of OC Safety about an incident she had at a company where an employee was experiencing a mental health crisis. Tracy goes into the response and the lessons learned from the incident. This was a great interview and outlines an area where Safety Professionals should have a plan ready in case such an incident happens in their workplace.

May 11, 2025 • 6min
Episode 257 - Favoritism in Occupational Safety
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers discusses a story with one of his old friends where he was accused of favoritism. We naturally become friends with employees in the workplace, but hazards and unsafe behavior cannot be overlooked just because you are friends.

May 10, 2025 • 8min
Episode 256 - Occupational Safety - Training for a new skill
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers discusses training for a new skill and bringing new hires onboard. Do we actually train employees or just assume they know what they are doing? Or do we put them with an "old-timer" to show them the ropes?

May 3, 2025 • 3min
Episode 255 - Occupational Safety - Beware of Rabbit Holes
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers discusses framing success when answer a safety question and beware of rabbit holes. Dr. Ayers is a recovering "Rabbit Hole Expert".