Tom: [00:00:00] Hi and welcome to Health and Safety Conversations. I'm your host Tom Bourne and with me today is absolutely marvellous and highly intelligent Cam Stephens.

Cam Stevens: Cam, how are you? I'm very well, thanks Tom. I'm not sure about the intelligent part.

Tom: Oh, come on. I think there would be a world of people that would disagree with that statement.

Tom: Absolutely world. You are highly respected. In both the safety and technology fields and I'm absolutely honored to have you on the show to be perfectly honest. All right, Cam, for those who have been living under the rock for, I don't know, the last 10 years, I'd suggest. Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you, your professional journey

Cam Stevens: so far?

Cam Stevens: Yeah, thanks, Tom. So look, I. I've always been deeply interested in the human experience. So I studied archaeology, anthropology, human anatomy, physiology at school at university [00:01:00] landed on physiotherapy as a as an initial introduction into professional career. I didn't last too long there but that was a real focus on helping, helping people.

Cam Stevens: But at the individual level I was exposed to workers compensation and, and. Injuries and that got me curious about how systems are designed and created and how they impact the human experience. So I moved into health and safety and did my master's in ergonomics and human factors to learn more about systems.

Cam Stevens: And early in my career, I was exposed to a pretty significant technology project that went wrong. Which set me on the course of being a technology curious health and safety professional throughout my career. I climbed the ladder in health and safety up to, you know, head of safety type roles and still felt that technology had an impact that I just wasn't able to explore because I didn't have enough of a technology background myself.

Cam Stevens: So I moved [00:02:00] in 2019 full time into the technology space to, to learn. And then after a few years in the technology space, I figured I'd put all of that experience together and basically launch full time my own consultancy. And that's what I do now, exploring the intersection of safety and technology and how that.

Cam Stevens: Impacts and the design, the experience and ultimately the safety of work

Tom: is, I would think it's exciting. Is it? Do you find it exciting?

Cam Stevens: Ah, well, I've always found my career and elements of my career to be exciting. Now I get to the whole part. Everything's exciting because I, I can effectively choose.

Cam Stevens: Who I work with them, what I work on based on whether it excites me or not. So yeah, the, there's so much going on in the world of, in the world of work at the moment particularly as it relates to how technology is changing work. So yeah, everything I do at the moment is quite [00:03:00] exciting. So yeah, I'm, I'm really energized at.

Cam Stevens: The type of work that I do and the people I get to work with.

Tom: Yeah. Under the umbrella of technology and being introduced into safety, I'm pretty sure you see the wide spectrum of things. You see things which are fundamental breakthroughs and significantly new technologies. And you see rehashing, rebranding, re, I don't know, slight, small advances.

Tom: Does it frustrate you that along with all the highly impressive new technologies, the breakthroughs, that the field maybe is also awash with, I don't know, minor adjustments which is then rebranded as new technologies?

Cam Stevens: Well, I think, I think there's a, there's a lot you can draw from that question in relation to new abuse safety practices as well.[00:04:00]

Cam Stevens: You know, how much of it is breakthrough versus how much of it is, is rebranded continuous improvement. So, look, I think continuous improvement and evolution in health and safety is important in particular technology led evolution where we're incrementally. Ratcheting up the potential and, and we're seeing that typically follow the, the consumer pathway.

Cam Stevens: So what. The consumer does out in our regular daily lives percolate into business. So things like the use of the mobile phone, for example, but those transformational changes. So you have those evolutionary changes and those transformational changes, I think are what's going to unlock the biggest value in health and safety.

Cam Stevens: And at the moment, there's very little transformational change happening for various reasons. And I assume we'll get into some of that in this podcast today. It doesn't frustrate me as much as it excites me. The fact that [00:05:00] there's so much potential and we're really only at the start. So I think if we can start to align some of those underlying reasons as to why we're not able to unlock transformational change in health and safety in particular, then Yeah, if we can, if we can start working through that, I do think we'll start to see some of those bigger breakthroughs.

Cam Stevens: And again, it's not just about the technologies themselves, but the trend that the technology, the trend of the technology, rather than the individual gadget.

Tom: Okay might get me lots of hate mail, but you know, I'm a big boy, I can, I can handle it. You mentioned about rebranding, new view safety, etc. One thing I've always had been a bit tongue in cheek is I think a little bit what you think. Perhaps it's not. This massive breakthrough, perhaps it's just the continued evolution that we've had along the way, but now it's repackaged and it's shiny and new and it's, it's, it's, it's the catchphrase, new [00:06:00] view, safety to exit is, is, is that reality?

Cam Stevens: So for me, what I really like about the new view practices and. The folks that are heading that direction is mindset. So they all have a mindset for wanting to change and do something different. Hence the brand, you know, safety differently. Personally, I'm not enamored with a lot of the. Activity specifically that gets associated with doing things new.

Cam Stevens: I've been reviewing a few hop strategies recently to technology enable them and the majority of hop starting points workshops. So they're typically a facilitator who's well versed in the, the new view theories providing workshops many of them. Expensive workshops that always done in person and they travel around the world or you know, providing [00:07:00] these workshops.

Cam Stevens: And to me, there's a real inability to scale that impact. But what I do like about the new practices, and so, yes, there needs to be some fundamentals that are in place around, you know, leadership behavior and trust and just culture and response to. And shifting the paradigm, it's a mindset shift that I like.

Cam Stevens: So that mindset for innovation and for change is what I really like to tap into with new safety practitioners. A lot of the professionals I work with now are adopting those practices. And the reason why we get along and work well together is because of that innovation mindset that they have. So I'm not, I'm not so concerned about the work that those folks are doing because Personally, I'm not saying I'm not saying the change that I, that I think that they would like to say and it's really hard work.

Cam Stevens: And I think 1 of the fundamental gaps there is there is the the new view and [00:08:00] hop fields distinct lack of usage of technology to improve system design. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom: Talk scalability and facilitator led. Well, there might be a supply and demand thing there, you know, keep the. If we can, you know, do it small numbers within keeps you in a job for a long time, doesn't it?

Tom: I just, I just wish I'd thought of that and I could travel around the world doing that.

Cam Stevens: It's a bit rich for me to say, because I'm doing a similar thing, but just in digital literacy. So so I appreciate the, the, the consulting conundrum. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Tom: Look, I, the one thing I'd say about. Up new view that bugs me a little bit is.

Tom: I don't think it needs catchphrases and slogans attached to it. I really don't. I think. If you think about the principles involved, they kind of make sense. So when we [00:09:00] have. Catchphrase and slogans like we have with everything else in the past with safety. I started to drop my head and I go immediately the workers here are these catchphrases.

Tom: They switch off. They go, you know, this is rubbish. This is, this is some sort of gimmick. And I, I think it's a bit above that to be honest, or I'd like to think it's a bit above that, but

Cam Stevens: maybe I'm wrong. I think if you, if you draw the parallel analogy to. AI powered safety management platform, AI powered prediction model.

Cam Stevens: It's a little bit like that. To be honest, I think, it's marketing. Yeah, and that's that's important. So marketing is important. Sometimes having. The gimmicky name allows people to latch onto something and to, to make sense of it in some format. I think there's a limit to how you know, when the, once you've got the hook, then it's about, it needs to be about substance and quality.

Cam Stevens: And I think the, [00:10:00] when you scratch beneath the surface of some of the marketing. Like in the AI powered safety management system. And you go, Oh, so it's it's literally just data analytics. We're not you know, it's nothing fancy. So I think there's a, there's a trade off between marketing. Marketing is very, very important in health and safety in all forms.

Cam Stevens: Marketing is, is really important. Andrew Barrett's great at a great professional to, to tell, talk to us about marketing and health and safety. And we just need to be wary about, about what the customer thinks about that marketing message and, you know, back it up with, with something that actually makes impact.

Cam Stevens: Oh, yeah.

Tom: Now, apart from being involved in technology, you've done an extensive amount of work in safety before you shifted, what's the 2019 you said, more into technology. Where's some of the most unusual places you've either worked or managed? Because. I did a little bit of research. I was like, Oh, wow.

Tom: There's a lot of safety professionals who just [00:11:00] haven't gone where Cam's

Cam Stevens: gone. Yeah, I was really lucky early in my career. I went to every shire council in the whole of Western Australia. And every I worked for the West Australian Water Corporation as well. So I went to almost every pump station and every you know, wastewater treatment plant there is across the whole state.

Cam Stevens: The whole state that was really interesting. I think working on an oil rig is always an interesting place to be. If you've ever, ever gone on 1, I lived, I lived and worked on a drill ship. For for month on month off, and when the seas were, you know, 15, 20 meters rolling waves, you had to strap yourself into bed to stop yourself for rolling out.

Cam Stevens: But, but I think the most stark juxtaposition of of work, I was living in Sydney working for an oil company that whose operations were based in Papua New Guinea in the jungles and Alaska up in the tundra. So we did heli helicopter portable jungle seismic operations where we'd get dropped into the jungle on a [00:12:00] helicopter and, and, and sleep in the.

Cam Stevens: In the jungle and in bush camps and and then otherwise we're up you know, flying in a jet north of the Arctic circle and then helicoptering into the you know, into the tundra seeing the northern lights and and it's really is like ice road truckers. So, you know. Pretty phenomenal diverse experience glaciers in India deserts in Bolivia.

Cam Stevens: I've worked in quite, quite a number of places around the world, albeit short durations, but lots of great experiences. Yeah, absolutely.

Tom: Which was your favorite? If you had to, if you had to settle on which was, which was your favorite location

Cam Stevens: you worked at? Oh, that's a subjective one, isn't it? I mean, I thought, I thought Alaska, Alaska was the most different for me.

Cam Stevens: Well, actually, Papua New Guinea probably was different too. I can't, I can't choose. I think Alaska was because of being in Australia and being exposed to, to, to our climate and [00:13:00] our, and our, I think if someone from Alaska came to us, to an Australian mine site, they would probably say the same thing.

Cam Stevens: But Alaska to me was, was just incredible. And being able to. I think it was because, you know, 24, 24 hours a day light or 24 hours a day dark, we'd finish work at 7, 8, 7 o'clock at night and we would then go out to do some skiing or go for a hike in the, in, we'd come back at 2 o'clock in the morning.

Cam Stevens: We might not work until 10 or 11 o'clock, 1 o'clock the next day. It was just, yeah, it was, it was really, really interesting place. All

Tom: right. Speaking of technology, what's on the horizon, what's, what's. What's some of the new technologies which can actually, I don't know, the next big thing in health and safety and technology, what do you think it'll be?

Tom: Don't say IOI,

Cam Stevens: please.

Cam Stevens: Well, the next, there will be no ability for any next big thing in [00:14:00] tech, in technology for health and safety if we don't work on the foundations of our data. So all, all technologies, generally speaking, leverage data and health and safety data is. Historically and currently fundamentally biased, very poor quality, poorly, poorly collected, stored, preprocessed and we cannot leverage the trends that are driving the future of work.

Cam Stevens: So. I always talk about the trends that are impacting health and safety or the technology trends that have the potential to impact health and safety rather than individual gadgets or technologies or brands themselves, because they will change very quickly. So, some of the key megatrends that are shaping the work, they're shaping the future of work the regular industry 4.

Cam Stevens: 0 technologies that have been talked about for, you know, the best part of the decade now. So they, those are those suite of artificial intelligence technologies, but again, they don't work [00:15:00] without. Without good quality data. So advanced automation, which is artificial, artificial intelligence driven automation and robotics.

Cam Stevens: So, robotics and automation that are able to learn and adapt over time. We haven't seen, I think 1 of the things, and I'm yet to fully explore the potential, but what will unlock a lot of significant transformation will be quantum computing when combined with I, but we're talking quite a number of years ahead of us now, but again, nothing can happen if we don't have good data.

Cam Stevens: And there's, there's too much too much going on at the moment where we're trying to seek technology solutions to help us predict and prevent and do these things that can't happen until we have good data. So, there is no technology that's going to improve health and safety and predict and prevent if we don't work on our data.

Cam Stevens: So when you

Tom: talk about [00:16:00] data there or data enunciation,

Cam Stevens: no,

Tom: no, tomato, tomato, potato, potato. Anyhow, when you talk about data, what are you talking about in particular? I mean, traditionally we, we collect, no offense, a whole lot of crap. Yeah, data in safety. You know, we've got all of those lag indicators, which, you know, apparently so reliable about something.

Tom: No one knows what we've also got lead indicators, which, you know, to be honest, look to me like. crystal ball or tea, tea leaf reading a bit like that to me. And we've got data that's actually collected from the workforce themselves, you know, incidents, accidents, hazards, near misses, et cetera. Now let's look at that.

Tom: All of the historical data, the lag data doesn't tend to indicate anything about safety. about safety currently on your site, [00:17:00] hopeful predicting, well, you know, good luck with that, it's a bit like predicting, and collection of stuff from workers who traditionally, no offense, that information we get from them is kind of hopeless because they don't see the importance of it.

Tom: They're incentivized not to report things. You know, and you know, it's too hard or they don't understand the process or the importance of it. So how do we actually collect quality data and even to decide? What data is actually important to

Cam Stevens: collect? Great, great questions. Excellent questions. And the types of questions that I wish more of my safety professional colleagues would would ask.

Cam Stevens: So what is good data? What type of data do we need? What data do we need to improve health and safety? So data and information can be can be effectively replaced as the so let's say what information do we need? So let's talk about critical risk. So let's, and then let's talk [00:18:00] about a critical risk in business, a simple one confined space.

Cam Stevens: First question I would ask someone anybody listening right now, do you have a confined space entry happening in your business right now?

Cam Stevens: So the answer would be yes, generally, well, generally, I don't know. So, so therefore the next question is, well, what information, what data do I need? To know that, and generally the data that we have to understand risk in real time is work order data, work order data or maintenance, you know, work package data.

Cam Stevens: So that work information is typically housed in a electronic database, SAP, IVM Maximo, some other kind of work order management system that will let us know who's, when is it planned, who's supposed to be going in, what's the task, what types of tools and equipment, et cetera. So, then at the front line. So [00:19:00] let's go, okay, we now know that we've got a confined space entry happening.

Cam Stevens: It's happening right now. What information do we need to know about whether this job will or won't go to plan or is going to plan in real time? So we look at the a lot of people will have a risk assessment conducted on a confined space entry task and that will have, you know, gas, the gas testing has to be performed.

Cam Stevens: So typically, and a standby operator needs to be in front of the, the confined space entryway. So, first of all, how do we know the gas inside the space is free? Well, there's a gas detector. The gas detector typically gets the readings get typically gets transcribed onto a piece of paper, permit, which the standby operator has and then, you know, months later, we have a look at that data.

Cam Stevens: So, we have a lot of latent information to determine whether or not that space was free. The work that I do would be working with an organization to go, well, what's the critical risk? What's the critical control? In this case, gas, gas testing [00:20:00] and how do we assure that that control is in place and effective in real time?

Cam Stevens: So what data do we need in real time? So how could we technology enable that? Well, we get an internet connected gas sensor, and that gas sensor is providing me real time readings and anybody from around the world can understand that. And now what I've done is I've done 2 things. If right now there's a confined space that's giving me gas readings.

Cam Stevens: I know a there's a confined space entry happening tick and be I know that the gas is free tick. So then I just need to know other things about that confined space. Do I have a standby breathing apparatus? And do I have an emergency response plan that's available to be enacted if something goes wrong?

Cam Stevens: And that's when we can start further technology enabling all of those different controls. Now, when When a control can't be technology enabled and it has to be human driven, so it has to be a human filling out something or sensing something or looking at something, then we try and make that experience as [00:21:00] delightful as possible.

Cam Stevens: Delight being an experience so that workers want to do it, and they actually like doing it. They That's how we're going to be able to predict and prevent issues. The other thing when it comes to what data do we need is all of the other information and that provides context. What is the weather like?

Cam Stevens: So I should be able to get local weather data. And if I can't set up a local weather station, I should be able to get information about worker hours. So how long, when was the last time that the worker had. A day off. Are they working day shift? Are they working night shift? All of that information is critically important for us to be able to understand the dynamic nature, the systems interaction nature of risk.

Cam Stevens: So that's, that's the type of thing we do when we want to actually get. Data working for us until we can get that kind of information, robust quality data. That's diverse [00:22:00] videos, photos, audio files, sensor readings, plus the manual information that we normally put together until we can get a good comprehensive database of information to learn to put machines to learn from only then will we start to be able to leverage technology for its true potential.

Cam Stevens: Yeah, yeah.

Tom: I, I fully agree with you. I think there's a few challenges here though. That's a, look, let's start with a very basic one, internet connectivity.

Tom: I go out to mine sites regularly in Western Australia, and even some very big Australian mine sites, let's just say that, struggle, struggle with internet connectivity. Going down to Kalgoorlie later this week, and I've been told, you know, good luck with the internet, because it comes and goes and fades and, so, things like that.

Tom: To get, I don't know, effectiveness, I think that's the first challenge we've got to [00:23:00] overcome, some sort of technology with stable internet that everyone can access at any time, that'd be great. There's a, there's a couple of other things I'd suggest. Making something delightful for workers, well yeah.

Tom: Well, I'm hoping that can happen because let's be honest, the current paper based reporting systems that are in place for safety, Number one, workers all view them as a chore that stops them doing their real work. And number, number two, a lot of them don't even fill them out correctly or, you know, the third one is that management tends to only look at those pieces of paper after something's gone wrong.

Tom: Yeah. And that's fundamentally flawed, I believe as well. The last thing I'll say is, your challenge that I think there could be is, you're gonna, you're gonna have some people who forsake it or play devil's advocate and saying [00:24:00] all of this information going back and letting someone else make a decision remotely or be aware of what's happening remotely is effectively, I don't know Denying the workers the ability to think independently, you know, we're basically taking that decision making process away from them.

Tom: I don't have a problem with that because, you know, humans are flawed, humans make mistakes, we all make errors every single day. But do you think you might get some blowback about I don't know, taking the independence away from workers or more importantly, you could see some supervisors on the front line saying you're effectively neutering my ability to manage my staff.

Cam Stevens: Yeah, I mean, again, really great insights and all of them are valid. All of them have mitigations that can be put in place, depending on the context of the organization. A few of them. So, you know, even with paper, [00:25:00] you can make a paper system delightful. So I, I use a paper diary. I use electronic diaries, but I have my paper diary and I, and I have a particular one that I like because of the way that they've designed it for me and I find it delightful to use.

Cam Stevens: So even paper systems can be delightful and paper might be an appropriate medium for certain things, particularly, you know, trying to trying to access some, some contracted systems. Very briefly on, on connectivity. One of the reasons why connectivity doesn't exist. And there's 2 types of connectivity.

Cam Stevens: There's operational technology networks, and there's information technology networks, operational technology networks are for an organization to be able to operate its plant from a control room and be able to actually actuate valves remotely with the network and then Information technology will be things like email and those teams calls and calls, et cetera.

Cam Stevens: And they typically operate separately because of 1 cybersecurity risks and 2, because they have different requirements around [00:26:00] latency and and bandwidth, et cetera. There is 1, there's. There is no reason why we shouldn't have a good quality IT and OT networks on sites. The reason why we typically don't have them is because we are unable to articulate the risk requirements of not having connectivity to the technology teams.

Cam Stevens: So being able to adequately document to them and demonstrate the business case as to why certain type of network connectivity is needed at a particular location. So what I would do with my clients is we do a critical risk connectivity map. So we basically document critical risks geospatially, so where are they in space.

Cam Stevens: And then we do speed tests for, for throughput bandwidth and ping. And we say, Hey, we don't actually have any connectivity here. How are we supposed to be able to do things remotely in relation to, so there's a, there's a body of research that a lot of it is coming out of Europe because of their advanced [00:27:00] automation that talks about, you know, automated systems and Intelligent information being provided losing the decision making latitude and the decision control from the frontline worker.

Cam Stevens: And there's evidence to support that that can be the case. The, what I'm advocating for is, is providing that augmented information to the frontline worker. So, they also then have decisions that can be made by remote support teams at the same time. So, ideally, what you're trying to do is architect a system where the worker is augmented with information that they wouldn't normally have.

Cam Stevens: Because even right now, there's a lot of information that happens in the control room. On a mine site, for example, and the frontline operator has to get a radio call to say, Hey, I'm seeing a pressure spike. Well, I want that frontline worker to be seeing the pressure spike too. And then you've got collective intelligence.

Cam Stevens: Plus, you've got a machine. So, a machine learning algorithm or some form of artificial intelligence that can also support the frontline worker. Now, yes, there's [00:28:00] risks and trade offs around information overload reliance on these systems rather than using your brain. And that's where I think, what, what does the maintenance technician and the operator of the future need to be?

Cam Stevens: What types of skills and competencies should they have? And how should they be starting to get trained and assessed for their competence in, you know, training environments, like registered training organizations? We're not seeing that yet. So I think there's a, there's a big shift to happen. And yeah, I think there's.

Cam Stevens: Definitely all of the things that you suggested can be realized in a poorly designed setup. There are mitigations as I've described, but it is a complex space. Yeah,

Tom: I like what you said about augmenting the information of the worker because maybe we're not taking the decision making away from a worker, but we're actually giving them better information to make better decisions, or more information to [00:29:00] make better decisions

Cam Stevens: perhaps.

Cam Stevens: I think better is The, what you said there was nuance, better decision, better information. Not more information. Yeah. More information would be a problem certainly from a cognitive ergonomics perspective. So, we don't want to have cognitive overload. We want, we want delightful experience, good quality information at the time the worker needs it to make better effective decision making and when they need help.

Cam Stevens: They have, they've got their, their decision makers that need to support them have context because if they don't have context, if you ever try and do a problem solving scenario where you're, you're in the situation, looking at the problem and someone's trying to support you remotely, is it on the left side or the right side?

Cam Stevens: Is it this or is it that, you know, you need to give context before you can help someone remotely. Yeah,

Tom: I must say I'm going out to sites and dealing with companies. In the last 12 months or [00:30:00] so, I'm finding actually there's a significant difference between workers abilities to interact with technology if their company supports them and supports their learning of new technologies, as opposed to companies who basically say, if you want to do that in your time you know, we see no value for that.

Tom: It's a huge learning difference and the skills of the people I see hugely different. We've got some companies where they're, you know, that their employers are up here and you've got other companies, you know, that their abilities to deal with new technology are way down here. And the people who are way down here, I feel sorry for them because they're effectively.

Tom: Being consigned to doing very small roles, which are going to become, [00:31:00] I don't know, less and less available in the future. It's sad to see because they know that they can't do, and I'm not just talking about the, the younger and older worker, you know, generation gap. I've seen significant gaps. I think companies that actually support workers learning and the importance about technology.

Tom: They're doing everyone a favor, but do you see the same sort of thing? Do you see some companies, which I won't say try and hold their workers back, but just don't support their workers learning

Cam Stevens: anything new? Yeah, I think that's not just about technology as well. It's, it's that, you know, that culture of lifelong learning doesn't, or the investment in the work of a learning and fostering curiosity and fostering, yeah, that, that, that thirst for continuing not just knowledge, but skill and, and variety and Those types of things.

Cam Stevens: I mean, the world is and work is changing so rapidly. So anything that you can do, regardless of [00:32:00] what it is, is important to, to get the brain flexing a little bit. I think what, what tends to happen is, is organizations will invest in digital literacy or invest in technology experimentation. Only once they've already decided that technology is going to be used, or it's already been purchased and it's, you know, it's, it's already in place.

Cam Stevens: So then what happens there is you've got a you've got pressure put on the worker to have to learn in a particular time frame. Future focused organizations that have a strategy around the use of technology in their business will educate workers before they make the procurement decision. So, right now, for example, there's a lot of organizations that haven't strategically invested in the use of dedicated artificial intelligence technologies.

Cam Stevens: They're potentially going to get into it, but the ones that are really visionary are training their workers on [00:33:00] All aspects of artificial intelligence systems now, before they make a decision that benefits the organization multiple ways, because it means that the organization can actually have a voice in procurement decisions.

Cam Stevens: So they can actually be, so you go, we always say, I involve the worker in the decision making process, but if a worker has no literacy around the technology stack that you're about to ask them to make a decision on. It's, it's, it's ridiculous. So you have to, you have to invest. And this is the same with all, all of the health and safety practitioners and professionals that are feeling a little bit vulnerable, vulnerable about their own knowledge around health and health safety related technologies.

Cam Stevens: That's a perfect signal to say, it's time to learn because inevitably you'll get to the point where you have to make a decision about a technology solution in your business. And if you don't have that foundational knowledge, you're going to get pressured into making a situation that you don't feel comfortable with.

Cam Stevens: So. There is no better [00:34:00] time to upskill with base level technology, technology, literacy, and to help anybody in the organization experiment and play with these types of tools before it becomes a pressured situation. And it's exactly the same thing with regulators. We get to the point where we're pressured to do something where the regulator then has to make an opinion.

Cam Stevens: One of the big things happened with COVID was remote audit assurance. So can you do a critical risk control audit using video or not? Well, if the regulator doesn't have, you should be able to experiment with that before it gets to the point that you have to do that critical risk control audit before your facility gets shut down.

Cam Stevens: You have to be able to get this stuff happening before that pressure gets put on the business. There's no better time to do it than now.

Tom: Yeah. All right. There's newer technology. If we introduce in the workplace, newer technology doesn't mean less jobs or just different [00:35:00] jobs.

Cam Stevens: Means both in a way depending on the technology we're talking about, but typically technologies that are, that are changing work demographics and work work job profiles are all about task change.

Cam Stevens: So. Usually we're talking about automation and robotics and artificial intelligence systems, typically things like generative AI, the things you're seeing at the moment where content gets created and machine learning is, is applied to be able to enable a machine to sense and do things beyond humans, things that use human vision definitely going to be replaced at wholesale change.

Cam Stevens: So the big, the classic one is a rather than, you know, someone like a sonographer that might be a specialist to review, reviewing a an ultrasound image or a an MRI, a radiological image specialist, you, you would have to [00:36:00] assume that that role will become predominantly redundant because a, a machine can use its eyes and sense and make sense of millions and millions and millions of data points beyond a human's capability Things like autonomous vehicles, like autonomous rail and autonomous haulage in mining clearly replaced a large number of truck drivers because.

Cam Stevens: The whole task is the job, but generally speaking, we will see changes in job tasks and in from health and safety. For example, thankfully, what we will see, and we're seeing it already because I'm working with several clients at the moment on their AI health and safety programs is we are seeing safety admin tasks.

Cam Stevens: Being automated, which, which, which changes the health and safety professionals job profile to something else. Now, what that something else is, is up for us to design hopefully it's higher value than the [00:37:00] safety admin tasks, which we all talk about, particularly in new view safety and hot principles is, you know, we want to go out and learn about what frontline workers are doing.

Cam Stevens: Well, if we can automate some of these reasonably lower value. Safety admin tasks, get ourselves out from behind the desk, then it can only be a good thing in my mind. Yeah.

Tom: Yeah, totally agree. Alright. Future safety and health professionals besides getting out from behind the desk. What sort of

Cam Stevens: skills do you think they'll need?

Cam Stevens: So if I was, so I think there's There's to be mildly effective or to work in this space. So if I was going to hire a consultant to work with, with me and my team, what profile would I look for? If, if, if I was to put out a job advertisement, for example, what sorts of skills and companies do I think someone that really wants to work at that cutting edge?

Cam Stevens: First of all, it was innovation mindset. They have to have the mindset for [00:38:00] innovation and for thinking about doing things differently. They need a background understanding of systems thinking. Absolutely. Now these are a blend of skills competencies and personality traits. So, curiosity, the art of being able to ask really great questions having good observation skills to be able to determine whether or not what you're, what you're Hearing and what you're seeing the disconnect and all the connections between those empathy, clearly digital literacy, and they're on trends rather than on specific gadgets.

Cam Stevens: Ethics and morals so ethics in particular as it relates to technology, but tech ethics, but more broadly professional ethics, there needs to be an understanding of strategic forecasting. So how do you take trends and see how they, you know, potentially look at different horizon forecasting service design.

Cam Stevens: What is the customer experience? So that comes into that delight conversation. We talked about before user experience and [00:39:00] human centered design. So how do you, how do you design for the work or the human in mind? And then probably sort of the agile agile methods of project management that.

Cam Stevens: Iteration, being comfortable with the fact that the 1st thing you put out isn't necessarily going to be what, what it lands with. You don't have to get a perfect now, I think a, an effective health and safety leader should, should have little bits of that. But if you want to work deeply in this space, then you would, you would want to spend.

Cam Stevens: That would basically be a curriculum, spend a lot of time working on on those, you know, 10 or so topics, whatever I rattled off then. I gotta tell

Tom: you, you do understand that's a, a bit of a radical shift than what's actually required now, because I could, I could pull up a, I could pull up a job ad right now.

Tom: And I think I might see one of those characteristics pop up in the requirements.

Cam Stevens: Yeah. Look, I've, I've had, I've [00:40:00] agitated in the recruitment space recently and spoken to pretty much all of the. At least Australian based health and safety related dedicated recruiters. And they're all they're all looking at me going, well, there's no commercial opportunity for us to be hiring in this space right now.

Cam Stevens: Nobody's asking for this. Look, they're all. They're all skills, competencies traits that I think have to only be applied once you have a foundational baseline knowledge. So, look, the Inchpo framework which is being revised to Rev 2. 0 or X. 0, whatever it's going to be has the, you know, the foundations of what you need to be a sound practitioner slash professional in health and safety, but it doesn't get you to be able to compete in a rapidly changing technology enabled world.

Cam Stevens: So these are the. The extra skills, so I think you need a foundation 1st and there are also other things like being able to influence with impact [00:41:00] and influence without authority and all of those other, you know, facilitation skills and those types of things that health and safety practitioners have being a good communicator and all of those things, I think are foundational.

Cam Stevens: These are the things that set you apart as a not so much a visionary, but someone that is able to thrive in this very messy space that we find ourselves in at the moment. I'll call

Tom: it dynamic. How's that? All right. Pocketknife group. How can it help businesses?

Cam Stevens: Yeah, look, so I guess we consider ourselves a bit more than a, than a, just a consultancy.

Cam Stevens: We sort of consider ourselves architects of better work, you know, our mission, our mission is to transform the way work's designed. The way works experienced and the way it's performed we ultimately just want to make work better. So to do that, we, we work with leaders and their teams, typically health and safety professionals [00:42:00] to try and leverage technology in, in innovation to improve work design.

Cam Stevens: So, complex problem solving is what we do best we, we like making critical risk management real. And, and actually leveraging data to, to look at risk in real time. And realistically, we are well suited to organizations that are exploring new view particularly ones that have started the new view journey and realized we're not really getting anywhere, like what's next because what, what we do in, in our pocket knife group is we take.

Cam Stevens: We take that mindset for change and we, we make it practical and we actually put in very robust processes to get things moving forward and ideally enabling an organization to be able to compete in this technology led world. Beautiful, beautiful.

Tom: All right. Lastly, Cam when I last spoke to you, you were off to Turkey.

Tom: So it [00:43:00] seems to be that you, you tend to get around the globe quite frequently. So where are you off to next?

Cam Stevens: My next international trip is actually going to be to Germany. So I'll be heading to Germany for Siemens. So we're developing a A digital safety transformation series for their leaders.

Cam Stevens: So for Siemens leaders to be able to engage with technology led transformation in health and safety, and that's with Andresa Hernandez. She's the head of health and safety there. She's an amazing leader. Before then, I've got the global safety innovation summit. So that'll probably benchmark where we're at what time we're recording the podcast.

Cam Stevens: So that's next week. That'll be pretty great. I'm running a workshop with Andrew Barrett on technology on Wales, ways to scale out new view. I've got a trip to Darwin to work on a, a computer vision project on trying to prevent crocodiles from entering construction sites with computer vision technologies and I've got a a [00:44:00] couple of jobs over East in, in Melbourne and and, and Brisbane and Sydney, and then I'll be fine in Melbourne and I, sorry, to London in April for the for an artificial intelligence panel at as part of the IOSH Knowledge forum at the health and safety event, Birmingham, so flying through London and then up to Birmingham and then yeah, seeing a few clients in, in London before coming home.

Cam Stevens: So pretty busy next few months. But as, as I said before, really excited and get to work on some really cool projects. So, fantastic.

Tom: Fantastic. Thank you for giving us some of your time today, Cam. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you as always, and I look forward to speaking to you

Cam Stevens: again soon.

Cam Stevens: Thanks a lot, Tom. I love your work.