
Health and Safety Conversations
Conversations centered on safety with interesting guests from a wide variety of industries. Taking safety topics and applying them to real workplaces with real people. Includes safety in all areas including community safety.
Latest episodes

Aug 9, 2023 • 50sec
Question of the Week Season 3 #7
#7 Is safety legislation ultimately tied to politics and or community expectations, or is based on best practice or both?
a) Politics and expectations
b) Best Practice
c) Both
d) Something else entirely
The poll is up on LinkedIn. Feel free to have your say your say and leave a comment.
Thanks for listening. We have some great guests coming up in future pods so get ready to learn. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your week, and stay safe. https://plus.acast.com/s/health-and-safety-conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aug 7, 2023 • 1h 5min
Murray Ritchie
Joining us on the conversation today is the marvellous Murray Ritchie. From difficulties in early life Murray has forged a life full of adventure and learning. Great insights based on both experience and study, I learned quite a bit from this conversation. I know you will too.
Murray Ritchie is an occupational health and safety practitioner, researcher, educator and sought after keynote speaker with 40 years of experience working with various industries, governments and NGOs. He obtained a Master of Science degree in Occupational Safety and Health from the University of Greenwich, UK, late in life following a boots-on-the-ground career in the offshore oil and gas industry. He has worked on five continents consulting to a wide variety of industries, has served on programme advisory boards for two colleges and taught as a contract instructor for the University of Alberta Faculty of Extension.
Links:
Seven Bad Habits of Safety Management - Examining Systemic Failure
LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/murray-ritchie-msc-686a4a255/
Website: https://trilenssafety.com/
Thanks for listening. We have some great guests coming up in future pods so get ready to learn. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your week, and stay safe. https://plus.acast.com/s/health-and-safety-conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aug 2, 2023 • 54sec
Question of the Week Season 3 #6
Do you feel that your employer is doing enough to protect your health and safety?
Yes: I feel that my employer is doing enough to protect my health and safety.
No: I do not feel that my employer is doing enough to protect my health and safety.
The poll is up on LinkedIn. Feel free to have your say your say and leave a comment.
Thanks for listening. We have some great guests coming up in future pods so get ready to learn. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your week, and stay safe. https://plus.acast.com/s/health-and-safety-conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jul 31, 2023 • 43min
Andrew Hopkins
This week on the conversation a real treat as Professor Andrew Hopkins joins the conversation. One of my favourite authors and one of those people who I never thought I would have the opportunity to talk to, this conversation is one of the highlights of the show so far. I know you will enjoy it, I know you will learn from it, and I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.
Andrew was an expert witness at the Royal Commission into the 1998 Exxon gas plant explosion near Melbourne. He was a consultant to the US Chemical Safety Board in its investigation of the BP Texas City Refinery disaster of 2005, and also for its investigation into the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill of 2010. He has written books about these accidents as well as books on the Moura, Gretley, and Grosvenor coal mine disasters.
Over 100,000 copies of his book have been sold.
He has been involved in reviews of Work Health and Safety regulation and regulators and has done consultancy work for major companies in the mining, petroleum, chemical and electrical industries, as well as for Defence. He speaks regularly to audiences around the world about the human and organisational causes of major accidents.
• BSc and MA (Sociology) from Australian National University, PhD (Sociology) from the University of Connecticut.
• Winner of the 2008 European Process Safety Centre safety award, the first in time it was awarded to someone outside Europe.
• Honorary fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers in recognition of his “outstanding contributions to process safety and to the analysis of process safety related incidents”
• Life member of the Australian Institute of Health and Safe and recipient of its highest award for “lifetime achievement”.
• Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in recognition of his “distinguished service to industrial safety and accident analysis”
• Member of the advisory board of NOPSEMA – the Australian National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority
Books by Professor Hopkins:
Making Safety Work (Allen & Unwin, 1995)
Managing Major Hazards: The Moura Mine Disaster, (Allen & Unwin, 1999)
Lessons from Longford: The Esso Gas Plant Explosion (CCH, 2000)
Lessons from Longford: The Trial. (CCH, 2002) Safety, Culture and Risk (CCH, 2005)
Lessons from Gretley: Mindful Leadership and the Law, (CCH, 2007)
Learning from High Reliability Organisations (CCH, 2009). Edited Failure to Learn: the BP Texas City Refinery Disaster (CCH, 2008)
Disastrous Decisions: Human and Organisational Causes of the Gulf of Mexico Blowout (CCH 2012)
Nightmare Pipeline Failures: Fantasy planning, black swans and integrity management. (CCH 2014) with Jan Hayes
Risky Rewards: The Effect of Company Bonuses on Safety (Ashgate,London,2015) with Sarah Maslen
Quiet Outrage: The Way of a Sociologist (CCH: Sydney, 2016)
Organising for Safety: How Structure Creates Culture. (CCH Sydney, 2019)
Credibility Crisis: Brumadinho and the Politics of Mining Industry Reform (CCH, Sydney, 2021), with Deanna Kemp
Sacrificing Safety: Lessons for Chief Executives (CCH Sydney, 2022)
Thanks for listening. We have some great guests coming up in future pods so get ready to learn. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your week, and stay safe. https://plus.acast.com/s/health-and-safety-conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jul 26, 2023 • 1min
Question of the Week Season 3 #5
Do you or the workers feel comfortable speaking up about health and safety concerns?
Yes: I feel comfortable speaking up about health and safety concerns.
No: I do not feel comfortable speaking up about health and safety concerns.
The poll is up on LinkedIn. Feel free to have your say your say and leave a comment.
Thanks for listening. We have some great guests coming up in future pods so get ready to learn. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your week, and stay safe. https://plus.acast.com/s/health-and-safety-conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jul 24, 2023 • 52min
Bob Cummins
This week on the conversation the amazing Bob Cummins joins the conversation in this weeks episode.
Bob Cummins is the CEO and Founder of SODAK Limited, whose goal is to challenge and improve much of the current entrenched thinking about how we live, work, lead and manage.
Bob has been studying and applying behavioural science since 2007 learning directly from some of theleading professors in Behavioural Science in the US.
Bob started his career in construction in the UK in 1989. Moving through engineering, site management, health and safety and several executive roles before leaving ‘normal’ work in 2011 in pursuit of making a
difference to other organisations by helping them apply the principles of behavioural science.
Bob founded Sodak limited, a behavioural design agency based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Sodak’s aim is to help people in business make safer, happier, less wasteful workplaces through behavioural design.
Bob is also the author of Behavioural Science for Business Health and Self, Behavioural Incident Analysis and has developed a number of tools to help people change theirs and other’s behaviours. Sodak work
with businesses in Europe, Canada and the US.
Check out our service and resources and sign up for our newsletter at www.sodak.co.uk and please connect on LinkedIn.
Thanks for listening. We have some great guests coming up in future pods so get ready to learn. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your week, and stay safe. https://plus.acast.com/s/health-and-safety-conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jul 19, 2023 • 1min
Question of the Week Season 3 #4
Do you have access to all the training and resources you need to stay safe in the workplace?
Yes: I have access to the training and resources I need to stay safe in the workplace.
No: I do not have access to the training and resources I need to stay safe in the workplace.
Thanks for listening. We have some great guests coming up in future pods so get ready to learn. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your week, and stay safe. https://plus.acast.com/s/health-and-safety-conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jul 17, 2023 • 1h 13min
Clive Lloyd and Brad Green
Welcoming back Clive and Brad to the conversation for a unique double act. Free flowing, unscripted and raw.
How good is it to just get knowledgable and experienced safety professionals who just want to chat?
If your up for a fireside chat this is the episode to listen to. From definitions, to psychology and sharing of experiences.
The longest pod to date, and with good reason. I hope you smile as much as I did when recording this episode.
Enjoy and learn.
Thanks for listening. We have some great guests coming up in future pods so get ready to learn. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your week, and stay safe. https://plus.acast.com/s/health-and-safety-conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jul 12, 2023 • 55sec
Question of the Week Season 3 #3
How often do you feel safe in your workplace?
a. Always
b.Most of the time
c. Sometime
d. Rarely
The poll is up on LinkedIn. Feel free to have your say your say and leave a comment.
Thanks for listening. We have some great guests coming up in future pods so get ready to learn. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your week, and stay safe. https://plus.acast.com/s/health-and-safety-conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jul 10, 2023 • 55min
Andy Baker and Matt Florio
Doublly blessed this week to be joined by not one but two HOP professionals - The Dynamic Duo of Andy Baker and Matt Florio.
Andy started practicing and teaching Human & Organizational Performance (HOP) principles while working for one of the largest multinational industrial companies in the world. As an environmental health and safety leader of manufacturing, assembly and distribution facilities, she worked through the complexity of adopting HOP principles from the ground up.
In 2014, she was named the HOP leader for one of the company sectors. She taught HOP Fundamentals and Learning Teams around the US and helped develop and implement strategies to anchor the concepts in existing operating rhythms. She began extrapolating these strategies to a larger scale, and in 2015 became the HOP Senior Expert for the company’s 300+ multi-sector locations in Europe. In this position, she coached fatality and serious incident investigations while continuing to train and develop culture change strategies to help embed HOP principles into industrial day-to-day activities.
After hearing about HOP for almost a decade from his sister-in-law Andrea (Andy), Matt left his last role as a VP in the software/start-up world to join the HOP movement.
He has a background in education and training (both virtual and in-person) and experience as an executive in the software industry. His immediate focus is on finding ways we can share, teach, mentor, and coach on HOP concepts outside the safety space.
Thanks for listening. We have some great guests coming up in future pods so get ready to learn. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your week, and stay safe. https://plus.acast.com/s/health-and-safety-conversations.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.