
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

Jul 6, 2025 • 6min
Episode 270 - Empower Employees to Correct Hazards
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers discusses empowering employees to correct hazards. If they cannot correct the hazard themselves, contact their supervisor and Safety Professional for help. Employees are the true experts at hazards they face along with correcting those hazards.

Jul 5, 2025 • 5min
Episode 269 - Hearing and Listening to Employees about Hazards
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers discusses the difference between hearing and listening to employees discuss hazards. Hearing is passive whereas listening is active. Listen to the employees concerns and solutions and ask any clarifying questions to ensure you (the Safety Professional) clearly understands the hazards and proposed corrections.

Jul 3, 2025 • 34min
Episode 268 - Rod Courtney - 8 Habits of a Highly Effective Safety Culture
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers talks to Rod Courtney about his book "8 Habits of a Highly Effective Safety Culture". I really enjoyed the book and Rod's real world practical knowledge for safety professionals to work with operations.

Jun 27, 2025 • 28min
Episode 267 - Matt Herron of the Southwest Research Institute
On today's episode Dr. Ayers speaks to Matt Herron of the Southwest Research Institute. We discuss ergonomics and awkward postures along with garnering management support for correcting hazards. Matt was also featured on Episode 91 where we discussed the basics of ergonomics and cabinet lasers. Matt is a wealth of knowledge and a legend in the Occupational Safety field.

Jun 22, 2025 • 6min
Episode 266 - Patience in Occupational Safety
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers talks about having patience when implementing safety programs, policies, metrics. Change will not happen overnight.

Jun 22, 2025 • 8min
Episode 265 - Be the Safety Leader that you want to follow
In today's episode, Dr. Ayers talks about important life lessons he learned from former bosses. Are you the Safety Leader that you want to follow?

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.