Safety Labs by Safety Products Global

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Dr. Anne Lyren, the Chief Medical and Strategy Officer for the Children's Hospitals Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS Network) - a pediatric healthcare safety collective of over 150 hospitals across North America. Anne discusses the challenges of improving worker safety alongside patient care, sharing her organization’s inspiring evolution from safety sta...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Clive Lloyd, a renowned psychologist specializing in safety leadership and culture development, best-selling author, and founder of GYST Consulting.  Clive returns to Safety Labs with even more evidence that trust is the fundamental driver of safety management success. Where there are low levels of trust, there will be high levels of fear. Workers won’t r...

In this episode, Mary Conquest talks with François Barton, CEO of the Business Leaders Health and Safety Forum in New Zealand - someone who knows exactly how to speak ‘executive’ and how leaders view workplace safety. Effective safety management is very challenging when it simply doesn’t have the budget required to implement meaningful change. François thinks that HSE managers can build stronger e...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Dave Rebbitt, one of Canada's most respected EHS professionals, who is also a safety consultant and best-selling author. Workplace harassment, bullying, violence, and toxic environments are now finally getting the attention they deserve. But are organizations managing harassment investigations effectively? And how can safety managers enhance this process?...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Gill Kernick, a consultant in high-hazard industries and author of Catastrophe and Systemic Change - a book she wishes she never had to write. It analyzes the Grenfell Tower fire, where Gill had previously lived. On the 14th of June 2017, she watched it burn. Seven of her former close neighbors died, in addition to 65 other people. She promised to make th...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Brent Sutton, a safety coach, author and practitioner with over 20 years’ experience, who focuses on worker engagement and operational learning in safety systems. With the rapid adoption of AI in the workplace, Brent explores how this technology will impact human-centred approaches to safety management. After assessing the evolution of Human and Organizat...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Daniel Hummerdal, a psychologist who focuses on the role of humans in safety and organizational improvement. Drawing on insights from his new book, ‘An Invitation to Safety Conversations’, Daniel uncovers how dialogue closes the distance between leaders and workers, creating cultures where truth flows, partnerships develop, and safety performance improves...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Brandon Williams, a speaker, airline pilot and human factors professor with over two decades of experience leading teams in dynamic, complex and high-risk environments. He shares crucial safety lessons from his exhilarating career in aviation and introduces his Six Pillars of operational excellence as a framework for improving performance, strengthening d...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Trevor Farr, a safety manager who only joined the profession 5 years ago - so brings a fresh perspective to the Safety Labs podcast. Trevor advocates a blended approach to safety management, combining human understanding with rules and regulations. Leaning on HOP principles, Trevor challenges traditional accident investigation methods, emphasizing their l...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Domini Montgomery, who leads safety and risk management at St. Louis Zoo, offering a fascinating perspective grounded in biology, public health, and occupational safety. Domini shares compelling stories from managing safety where the needs of staff, animals, and the public intersect, including the pandemic’s contribution to raising awareness of the role o...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Mark Gobert, a seasoned retail safety expert with nearly 30 years of experience managing safety programs at major companies like Macy’s and Williams Sonoma. Mark reflects on how safety has evolved over his career and the specific challenges he faced in retail. He shares his innovative approach to translating the cost of injuries into business metrics that...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Dr. Robert Long, founder of the social psychology of risk and an uncompromising voice in the world of safety. Drawing on over 50 years of experience across multiple careers, Rob delivers a forthright challenge to the safety industry’s status quo, even maintaining that it doesn’t deserve to be called a profession. “Nonsense” ideologies such as zero harm, a...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Mike Fears, who describes himself as a recovering academic and has more than 20 years of experience in occupational health and safety across multiple industries. This is a fascinating deep dive into New View Safety: its principles, how it developed, its originality and, most importantly, whether it improves safety outcomes. Mike evaluates the core tenets...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Brandy Zadoorian, a certified safety professional and CEO of Triangle Safety Consulting, who helps organizations build robust and sustainable safety programs through her expertise in regulatory compliance. Unusually, Brandy is a passionate supporter of workplace safety regulations and highlights OSHA’s key role in keeping workers safe in America. She addr...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Zoë Nation, a human factors and safety expert with over 25 years of design and implementation experience across rail, oil and gas, logistics, mining, marine, manufacturing, and aviation industries. Zoë challenges safety professionals to be more curious, move beyond ‘tribalism’, and adopt more context- and research-driven approaches to safety management: “...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Edward Tenner, a renowned author and lecturer at Princeton University, whose work explores the intersections of history, technology, and safety. Edward draws on his seminar “Understanding Disasters,” examining major events like the Titanic, the World Trade Centre, Fukushima and Covid to expose how hidden risks can break safety systems. He highlights how o...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Sarah Ischer, CIH, CSP, the Senior Director of Expertise at the What Works Institute, who recently published a ground-breaking report investigating neurodiversity in the workplace. Roughly 1 in 5 people are neurodivergent, meaning their brains process information, perceive hazards, or communicate differently. Yet many traditional safety programs still ass...

In this special 100th episode, we look back at the conversations that have shaped Safety Labs by Safety Products Global over the past 99 shows. The series has consistently explored the major challenges facing today’s EHS professionals, providing a platform for expert guests to share candid perspectives on the realities of workplace safety. Inevitably, certain subjects have consistently shaped the...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Nippin Anand, an event investigation expert who founded a consultancy specialising in human-centred approaches to learning. Using the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster, Nippin examines how investigations often produce explanations that satisfy the need for closure but fail to reflect the complexity of events and help organizations actually learn. Drawi...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Doug Parker, former US Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, whose illustrious career has spanned labor law, federal and state oversight, worker advocacy, policy leadership and consultancy. Doug explains why regulators are often seen only through the lens of enforcement and what that view misses. Drawing on his time leading OSHA...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Shawn Connick, a safety consultant with decades of experience across construction and energy. Shawn reflects on why safety professionals are surrounded by ideas yet often struggle to turn them into practice. Drawing on his own experience, he shares his success operationalizing new workplace safety approaches with (all too familiar) resource constraints. D...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Dr. Todd Loushine, an Associate Professor, EHS professional, scientist and Data Analytics enthusiast who has extensively researched how we track safety. Todd challenges the profession’s reliance on familiar aspirations and indicators, questioning whether established goals and metrics actually enhance workplace safety. In this stimulating interview, he exp...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Lori Guasta, a safety leader whose career spans frontline practice, academia and consultancy. Lori reflects on the profession’s obsession with the next shiny object, even though the fundamentals that support safe work have been understood for decades. She explains that chasing the latest silver bullet will actually distract organizations from doing safety...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Crista Vesel, an academic, author and safety communication specialist whose work focuses on how language influences learning and decision-making in safety-critical environments. Crista explores why safety professionals often rely on familiar approaches even though they fail to produce meaningful learning. She explains how language used around incidents ca...

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Dr. Simon Goncharenko, a respected thought leader and author on a mission to make safety management theory more accessible.  He examines why many organizations continue to rely on specific philosophies, frameworks and metrics to manage safety, even as serious injuries and fatalities remain stubbornly high. He questions what established measures, such as T...