Safety by the Numbers

Thank you for viewing this ASSP sponsored webinar, Safety by the Insights from two hundred Industry Leaders.

Thank you to BlackLine Safety for presenting the webinar and providing this valuable information.

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Now without further ado, we will turn it over to our presenters.

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today.

I'm Christine Gillis, and I'm the chief product and marketing officer at BlackLine Safety. And I'm here today with Lori Guasta, and we're really excited together to be sharing insights from our new global research report.

As I mentioned, I'm Christine Gillis, and I head up product and marketing here at BlackLine Safety. And my background spans two decades in technology and innovation adoption.

And for the last five years, I've been focused on connected safety and connected gas detection solutions and how they can transform organizations when they're protecting their people on the front lines and improve operational performance.

And today, I'm very pleased to be joined by a longtime colleague, Lori Guasta. I think Lori and I met approximately ten years ago. Thank you so much for joining us today, Lori, with your wealth of knowledge.

And I'm gonna ask you to introduce yourself, please.

Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Christine. It's really great to be here and with the ASSP community.

I'm Laurie Guasta. I have spent about twenty ish years, a little over twenty years working across government, academia, and industry mainly as a consultant. I have a a master's degree in clinical sociology, which is, organizational sociology. I kinda came into safety a little differently than most.

And then I have a doctorate in organizational leadership. And so for twenty plus years, I've applied that, that graduate level training, in organizations, typically high risk industries, like mining, manufacturing, construction, technology, the utility sector, and all the while helping companies strengthen their safety culture and their leadership behaviors and risk management system. So I am really pleased to be here today because a lot of my background has involved research, data driven insights, you know, kinda translated into actions to help, improve maturity and safety culture within industry.

Yeah. We're so pleased that you were able to join us in unveiling this report, Laurie.

So a little bit about the methodology behind the report and before we start diving into the insights.

So here at BlackLine, we commissioned a third party research firm called Newton x for this study, and we conducted it on a fully anonymous basis. And that was important to us to ensure that, there was no bias and that the research was arm's length. So in other words, the respondents did not know that BlackLine had commissioned the study.

And so the work included a survey of two hundred safety and operations leaders from around the globe, and they came from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.

And the industries that were represented were oil and gas. We had respondents from petrochemical, manufacturing, utilities, fire hazmat, and transportation.

And the company size, what there was quite a range from five hundred employees to twenty five thousand employees.

And in terms of who we heard from, their seniority levels, it was manager, director, vice presidents, as well as c suite representatives, but they had to be responsible for health and safety. So that was a qualification of the survey.

And we also augmented this quantitative research with in-depth interviews in order to get some qualitative insights across industries and regions, and we wanted to make sure that we were able to capture the full and sometimes nuanced picture of how organizations are thinking about health and safety today.

So diving right into the results. Right off the top, we heard that ninety seven percent of respondents, they believe that workplace safety and productivity are not mutually exclusive. Across the board, we heard that workplace safety is indeed fundamental to reliable productivity.

And, Laurie, I'm interested in is that something that rings true for you in your day to day in working with organizations?

Yeah. It's absolutely. And this is a really powerful finding. I mean, you see ninety seven percent, that's almost unanimous.

Right? And it's, I think, really just finally showing up in the data to confirm what we've known for a long time that when people feel safe, they can focus better, they can perform more consistently, and they can deliver more quality work. Right? Because safety is not just about preventing incidents, it's really about enabling all aspects of performance.

And a strong safety culture, there's a lot of research that shows reduces downtime, improves quality, you know, builds trust across teams, and it's really it's it's really, I think, thankfully clear today through research that safety is good for business.

Yeah. You bet. And the actually, OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, also has research, that backs this up.

Fewer injuries, lower costs, and higher productivity are found, as the result of health and investing in health and safety programs. And in fact, the ASSP shows that for every dollar invested in safety, that it yields two dollars and sometimes as high as between four and six dollars in savings, and that comes from injury costs or improved efficiency and better employee retention.

Yeah. Yeah. And, Christine, it's not just about cost savings. You know, the that cost saving or the the return on investment comes in many different shapes and and forms.

Right? The, there was a study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine that showed organizations with strong cultures, strong health and safety cultures, outperform their peers in profitability and employee engagement. So, you know, when when again, when workers know that their well-being matters to their employer, they stay longer. Turnover drops and institutional institutional knowledge grows.

I saw a stat recently that said, for every employee who leaves, the cost to retrain them and re onboard them is one point five of the initial cost. So, you know, you can think about how that adds up really quickly. But I I I'm just really encouraged by this first, data point that the study showed, Christine, because when we say that safety drives productivity productivity, it literally is true. Right?

It's really the foundation of reliability, quality, and sustainable growth in business, and this data, it really does well to to prove that.

And so with that really strong linkage between safety and productivity, it's not surprising to see that ninety five percent of health and safety budgets will be maintained or increased in the next two years.

And so and, also, when we take a closer look at where that budget is being allocated, the top priorities, they focus on people with training and engagement at the top of the list as well as investing in new technology tools.

And was there anything that stood out here on this response, to you, Laurie?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's really encouraging to see how the spending is is going beyond, you know, traditional compliance driven training. Right?

It's people centered, and we're seeing that more with a focus on engagement and looking after the people through infrastructure improvements. You see here technology and then just internal advocacy. And all of these build a stronger safety culture. Right?

We know that safety professionals, they need to, you know, kinda sell safety up the chain and amongst the chain or the organization as a whole. So it's really great to see that business leaders are recognizing this and, you know, seeing it through the ROI of safety, like the last, little bit of data showed on the last slide. And, to me, it's just really encouraging because the shift shows that safety is now becoming part of the business strategy. And it's it's not just about preventing incidents, but it's about, you know, enabling performance from a broader perspective.

You bet. And that's really something that has evolved over the last well, as long as you've been doing this, Lori, the last couple of decades, hasn't it?

Absolutely. Yeah.

And so with that performance piece that you talked about, it's a great segue to this next piece of data.

So we recognize that budgets are up, but there are still some persistent challenges that safety and ops leaders are trying to crack. And we call this the protocol behavior gap.

The data here shows that despite heavy investment in health and safety and understanding that linkage to business health, that sixty four percent of organizations are still reporting a protocol behavior gap.

And that's to say that the systems that organizations have set up to maintain worksite safety, they're just not always followed by people who actually work within those systems.

Yeah. This is so true too, Christine, and these numbers don't surprise me at all. You know, they really reflect what we see over and over with clients every day in the field. You know, many organizations have strong protocols on paper, management systems, elements of life saving, you know, programs and whatnot but it's about translating those into consistent day to day behaviors with the folks that are using these tools, you know, that's still a challenge.

So, this gap definitely exists. You know, and it's one thing to have those procedures, but it's another to make them part of how people actually work. You know, that gap off often comes down to culture, communication, and engagement. It's about leaders getting closer to where the risk lives, closer to the frontline.

And that's I don't know if you've heard about human and organizational performance, but that's at the heart of this leadership philosophy is, you know, kinda closing this procedural and and, behavioral gap. But regardless, you'll to me, I'm pretty encouraged here too that, you know, recognizing the disconnect here is the first step to closing it. Right? A lot of companies are starting to focus on, you know, why people behave the way they do is kind of behavior science, understanding the motivations behind folks' behavior.

And then, you know, as a result, designing systems that fit the real world environment and the real work environment. You know, for leaders, when we understand, when we realize what really is motivating our team members, then we obviously have a better chance to respond appropriately and effectively. And and, you know, it's it's not it's not so much about, you know, making safety part of how work gets done. It's not something separate.

It's it's about bringing those two concepts together and then starting to see real lasting improvement, and it takes both. Right?

Yeah. And that's a really that is that's an excellent point, lawyer Laurie, because when we continue to struggle with that gap between work as imagined and work as done, it has knock on effects, which actually takes us right into our next data point.

So a common knock on effect is that stubbornly high incident rates or incidents that escalate. And the number that I really wanted to focus here from the findings is that fifty three percent of workplace safety incidents result in lost time. I think I was surprised by that. Over half.

Yeah. Yeah. These data definitely stand out with over half of incidents leading to lost time as pretty significant. Right? It reinforces that even with strong protocols in place, there's still a gap between what's written and then what actually happens in practice and unfortunately as a consequence. Right?

And as you can see in the top right hand corner of this slide that seven despite seventy five percent of organizations considering themselves to be very well equipped to handle incidents, that fifty three percent of incidents are still resulting in injuries and lost time. So, like, that really surprised me, Lori. What do you think is going on there?

Well, what this tells us, I think, is that, you know, equipment and, you know, safe working procedures, they're not enough alone, right? It's really about how people interact with those systems and how they interact with those systems under pressure. So, it's the under pressure part that really is key because it amplifies the risk. And this is a term that I've been talking a lot about lately, this this notion of risk amplification in everyday's decision making when folks are exposed to the risk.

And I something that jumps out me to me here, Christine, is this notion of contractors. Right? Total very disproportionately represented in occupational injury and fatality data today, and this is across industries. You know, they face very unique challenges and constant risk amplifiers.

Right? Unfamiliar work sites, different safety cultures they come in and out of, less direct oversight. All of these, whether work related or not, can increase the risk. So I I think very interesting data that came out of the survey here.

And that term was new to me, Laurie, is risk amplifiers. Do you mind explaining that or unpacking a little bit more?

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So it's really just all the elements of our everyday experience. Right? So a huge broad definition.

So there was a model, you know, I think in the early two thousands that I was introduced to at Alcoa when, oh gosh, I was doing some work in the mining industry like I said I have a lot of experience in, but this model is called the WITH model, w I t h. And it's all the things that come with the work environment. Right? That's the w.

The individual capabilities, you know, how people show up, what they're capable of individually for better or for worse, that's the I. And then the t are task demands. It's how your tasks are organized, your shift schedules. I mean, even the lighting and the temperature of your of your environment in which you're, you know, undertaking a task.

These are all exposing us to different types of risk. And then the final one, the h is just human nature. You know, people show up. They want their work to be meaningful.

They, they wanna find a sense of pride in how they spend their time. They don't wanna feel like their time is wasted. Right? This is, like, just kind of behavior science one zero one.

And, you know, people rush when they feel that there's different production pressures. This is just how we respond to some of these amplifiers or the pressures at work. And then, you think of all the things that are happening outside of work with regard to maybe the home environment, our individual capabilities, our test demands outside of work, and then human nature, again, just stack those factors up and have a real chance to amplify the risk and unfortunately, you know, the risk and likelihood of serious incidents and fatalities. So, again, I you know, when I think of risk amplification, it's just all the things, all the things that impact us that could take us off our game or our mind off of our task and amplify the risk that we're exposed to inherently.

So yeah.

Yeah. And, of course, if there are contractors that are working on an unfamiliar worksite that's really just you've mentioned, additional risk amplifiers. And the research in the keeping people safe report does show that contractors are significantly less compliant with their safety protocols to begin with versus full time employees. So sixty eight percent versus eighty four percent compliant. So I could see how having that kind of mixed environment where you have frontline workers that are employees and contractors. This is a consistent challenge for sure.

Yeah. One percent.

Okay. I wanna jump to this next stat for a moment because I found this one particularly interesting.

And and we all I think if you've been in the health and safety sector or you've been in operations for a while, you know that zero incident targets, they they are widely seen as unrealistic. But despite that, many organizations still are using these goals because they're just they're easy. Right? They're easy to promote. They're easy to measure, but it's also likely driving reporting underground and leading to underreporting.

So the incident rates that we just looked at are probably even higher than organizations are aware of, And it becomes one of those things that you don't know what you don't know. And if you can't see what's actually happening on your site, how can you prevent it from happening again or taking it more seriously next time?

Yeah. This is a this is a topic that has come up, I I think, every year that I've been in this field. I it doesn't surprise me either. You know?

Zero incidents, zero injuries. It's a great aspiration. Right? It's what we all want, but we have to, you know, acknowledge it's not always realistic, especially when we're working in heavy industries, right, that carries some inherent risk.

You know, if we just pretend otherwise, we can really erode the trust that we're trying to build, you know, a positive safety culture around. So yeah. And, you know, supporting this data, you know, when organizations promote zero as the only acceptable outcome, you're right. Workers not only feel the pressure not to report near misses or minor injuries, but that trusty roads at the same time.

Right? And so, you know, companies, organizations, safety professionals that are looking after, you know, the the operational learning, they end up with blind spots. Right? If we can't learn from the near misses or the close calls that are happening when we're not there to see them ourselves, like you said You bet.

Because they're not reported, it becomes a lot harder to prevent the next time that that could, you know, potentially lead to a serious event. But I don't know, Christine. I think, you know, a better approach that I've I've, you know, advised clients around is just reframing this message, right, that we're working towards zero. It's still a good goal.

It's still the right goal, but acknowledging that, you know, reality is is here. And, you know, if you do that, you really keep each other honest and keep people engaged. They don't think that, you know, we just have a false goal out there. We're in this together.

We're moving in the right direction, but we understand the inherent risk that we're exposed to. So, you know, the shift can really just kind of open the door a little differently, celebrating different metrics, measuring different metrics about leading indicators, shifting that focus from counting, you know, near hits or incidents or, god forbid, fatalities to a different conversation, you know, things that show proactive safety performance, not just outcomes, whether good or bad. So some of these, examples have to do with near miss reporting. Right?

We can make a robust system around near miss reporting and learning from those events, and this is called operational learning or learning teams, another method that comes from HOP, the field of HOP. But I think what's really key here from a leadership perspective is the follow-up actions. So, you know, instituting some metrics around corrective and preventative actions, time to closure, quality of of of of the action, so to speak. Yeah.

You can also look, at behavioral safety observations, hazard corrections in the field. But, again, it relies on this engagement, you know, in the field to have folks bring things up in safety meetings or toolbox talks.

You can also look at PM completion rate rates, you know, preventative maintenance. They call it wrench time sometimes. Yeah. But, anyways, all of these leading indicators are really important and I think really helpful for us to learn what's happening day to day if we're not there to see it with our own eyes. You know, the the near miss reporting, close calls, the this this insight really can enable predictive insights, right, when we're capturing it and then using AI and other, you know, predictive modeling mechanisms to get a better better understanding and kinda closing that protocol to behavior gap that we talked about earlier.

Yeah. I really like that shift and the framing towards of towards zero. So you're still, of course, you know, celebrating and hoping to achieve zero fatalities. That's a essential goal to have.

But by taking away some of that that pressure, then you actually allow people to feel confident when they can if they want you know, are able to report a near miss and, like you've said, be able to learn and take corrective action.

Okay.

So moving on.

So let's take a look at how organizations can level up their safety programs to close some of these gaps and challenges that we've been talking about.

You have mentioned culture a couple of times, Lori, and that's essential. And here, we see that there are three pillars that make up a strong safety culture, training and communication, tools and tech, and data and reporting. And, of course, most organizations have all three, but very few of them are actually working together.

And as we know, the intent and budget are there. That's definitely not the issue.

It's that each one of these pillars tends to operate on its own, which means that gaps persist even when there is an increase in investment as well as positive intent.

And, so a near miss, in other words, logged in one system, it just might not ever make its way into that training cycle and, maybe protocols are getting updated, and you've got your frontline employees not really having the context or appreciating why.

And so but when these three pillars inform each other in a system in real time, the whole system gets smarter, and the connection between the pillars prevents information from being siloed. And then that's what separates a safety program from a strong safety culture.

Yeah. That's so true, and we often talk about this in terms of management systems too. You know, a safety program is not a management system. It's also not a culture, but we're lead we're we're we're trying to always move in that direction, have a coordination of programs to make a system and the framework from a leadership perspective to build that culture.

But, you know, from from my perspective, this diagram the heart of this diagram is that safety culture piece, which is also really, you know, the the foundation of a human centered approach to safety. You know, humans are affected by training. Humans are part of the communicate communication channels. They deal with tools and technologies.

Right? It all relies on the people, on the humans. So the more that we can include them, the richer, the more the more robust our data will be and the learning from those trends as well.

So just that call to remember, you know, that culture is ultimately and fundamentally about humans and so it's it's encouraging to see it here show up in the data as well.

Bet.

And so I think what we should do here next is just double click on each one of these pillars and take a look at the learning within each part here.

So when we looked at the training piece of this system, we learned that investment alone, of course, doesn't build culture. We've talked about that. And most safety training still runs in one direction, and that is from the top, all the way down, so to speak. So nearly one third of leaders see, quote, unquote, better training as a path to greater trust among workers.

But that leads to the question of what exactly does better training look like. And, obviously, I'm thinking it doesn't mean volume. It doesn't mean more training requiring even more investment, but it would be more data driven training that reflects real time site conditions and worker experiences.

Is there something more that real better training means in your world from your perspective, Laurie?

Yeah. I've spent a lot of time in the training space, and and you're right. Better training doesn't mean more training. I mean, training usually comes with a, oh, man.

More training sentiment. Right? So I think for me and with clients that I work with, you know, it's really just that that more cultural approach that's needed. It's more relevant training.

And this follows adult learning theory. Right? People want training and information that's relevant to them in their their day to day work.

So, you know, also as you mentioned, Christina, a lot of safety training is still very, you know, from the top down. Information goes out. We hope that behavior changes. Yeah.

But culture doesn't always work that way. Right? It's the trust factor that's really key here. So when, you know, if you wanna see trust build, training has to reflect how work actually happens.

So including folks early. This can really significantly impact learning in a in a really powerful way. You know, I did a lot of training in the mining industry and the very first thing I would say is, I know I'm not a miner because that's exactly what they're thinking. Like, you don't look like a miner, know.

I bet. Sometimes talk like a minor, but but it really does, you know, impact the way the information is received. And when we trust the information and how it's presented, like, in a more relevant way, we pay better attention. We become more willing to manage our own behavior, you know, in accordance to what the information or training is trying to get out of us.

But it's up to us as adults. Right?

In my mind, better training is treating workers as participants or as experts. Right? Not just the recipients of information.

This better training uses real site data, near misses, learnings from workarounds, everyday pressures we know are making an impact to make the training feel credible, to make it feel grounded in people's day to day experience. So they need to be able to relate, see themselves in the in the content. And, know, I think in from, you know, like an output standpoint, good training should focus on what good looks like in practice. Right?

It's it's how people make these decisions under pressure, how they spot risk, how they speak up, not just, you know, how well they can repeat a rule or a standard or an SOP. Right? It it's about, you know, how they're going to live it in practice. What is that expectation?

And then, you know, finally, I think, what's so important in training is is a very deliberate feedback loop using the real worker experience and other operational data, like I mentioned, to learn from, to adapt to, to ultimately reinforce the behaviors that actually keep people safe. So key to better training.

Yeah. I like that idea of just having your worker or the human at the center of the training. The recipient at the training of the training is a the champion or a hero really need their voice needs to be included.

Yeah. I I can just see how that shift makes all the difference in terms of effectiveness.

And a relevant point here from our in-depth interviews is that from this research is that safety leaders mentioned that it was the translation of data into decisions and then the communication of those decisions to the workers, to the frontline, that that was the essential key piece that drove effectiveness overall.

Okay. So next pillar, tools and technology.

This one is the one I, of course, get very excited about. When it comes to tools and tech, the trust is not automatic. I mean, we have seen that. Laurie, you've got stories to share here too. We see a general sense of trust, but certainly not, quote, unquote, a great deal of trust.

And this also came out in the in-depth interviews from the research. Adoption increases when the purpose or the reason behind using a tool is clear, and the worker can see directly how it's the tool is protecting them, including the data on how it's actually helping them, making them more safe or more productive. But without that context, the tool just becomes, you know, another checkbox procedure or even worse, something to potentially work around.

And we when we dug into these barriers to tool adoption or tech adoption, things that came up are that, you know, tools can feel cumbersome. They can feel intrusive. They can already add to an already heavy equipment load. That's very common. And, you know, sadly, they don't always work reliably in the field. They can be in just become a nuisance. And so finding the right tools that can address these barriers is obviously that's key.

And then, of course, it's solid training and implementation that also helps teams understand the value of the tool or the technology and, you know, not just the compliance driven rules around using them.

Do you have anything Yeah.

Let I could just jump in. Okay. Christine, a couple of things. Yeah. Trust with tools, trust with technology, very situational. Right? Like like the data suggests, people might generally trust them, but it doesn't mean that they're going to trust them when it really matters the most.

Like Right.

When they're under some pressure, when conditions change, or when they're, you know, working under within undesirable work, environmental conditions, or when just something doesn't seem, you know, quite right or work as expected when folks are trying to make decisions in real time. I I think that, you know, adoption of technology specifically and true buy in really depends on whether the technology has, you know, the workers back, whether they feel like it's really there to help them, not just to surveil them or, you know, make extra work or, you know, to be to slow them down. Because if that's the case, then they'll just work around it.

But if they see that this technology actually helps me to go home more safe or helps me get my job done easier or produces data that's gonna help me, you know, get additional resources to do my job better and more safely, then Right. Then they're going to, you know, buy in. And, you know, part of that buy in factor, though, is really key. Just as important as technology is the implementation of the technology.

So it sometimes matters more than the technology itself. You know, when when workers are involved early, they understand why we're implementing this new tool or this new technological system.

They get hands on training, you know, tied to real scenarios that they can relate to, then that trust is gonna build much more quickly than otherwise.

Yeah. You bet, Laurie. And the well, this is not a plug or a sales pitch for our implementations team. I do wanna mention that our implementations team and our process is very intentional and grounded in change management methodology and in terms of helping organizations roll out the tech successfully and help the workers understand the why, get the right people engaged in order to build that trust. Trust. So it's just it's so so critical just as you've said.

Well, I think it's important to note that you have an implementation team, Christine, because a lot of technology companies I work with are great technologists, but they're not people people. They don't know how to roll that us out. And so Yeah. I mean, it's kinda good good job security for a consultant because I've helped a lot of technology companies implement and sustain the productivity and sustainability, I guess, of their tech with their customers. But, no, that's great that BlackLine has its own team.

Well and we just don't have to think about ourselves. Right? I mean, like, not everyone is wanting to test and trial new technology, even myself is that I think about myself crossing through the technology adoption curve.

When there's a new tool put in front of almost any human, there's only a small percentage of them who are saying, yes. Like, I want to be trialing this and using this. So if you just take a really, like, human centered approach and get the right teams involved, that's that's key. And, again, solid change management is is essential. It takes a little bit of time. You have to slow down to speed up or make sure that you've got a successful technology implementation.

That's so true.

Okay. So now let's take a look. We've we're at the final pillar here, which is data and reporting. This is something as a tech enthusiast that I am excited about because I think most organizations and they and most organizations reckon they recognize this, that they're sitting on a gold mine of really, really valuable data. And they so there's no shortage of data out there for organizations, but it's really just harnessing that data or turning that information into insights and decisions. That's the tricky part.

And one of the challenges is also that while there is tons of data, most of the analytics are looking back on what's already happened.

So leaders are looking at lagging indicators and not leading indicators. And in fact, only a third, just about a third, are spending time on predictive analytics, and that's where there's potential to either forecast or prevent injuries.

So they're sitting on a lot of valuable data from all of the various tools that are collecting data, but without really fully leveraging the data for proactive risk management. And I think we're gonna see a huge shift in how organizations are harnessing their data, utilizing their data.

And what are you seeing from your vantage point, Laurie?

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, totally agree here. We're leaving a lot of value on the table with data nowadays.

I mean, AI is part of every conversation. That means people have wrapped their head around this in very different ways. And I don't even think that anybody knows the capabilities of these, you know, machine learning and and other, you know, advanced predictive modeling systems that are out there to help us learn from the data to prevent incidents in the future. You know, a lot of companies even using AI are still using safety data like a rearview mirror.

Right? Looking at trends from incident reports, recordables, root causes. And these are super important, but they're all after the fact. So it's about, you know, looking using those insights to to to, I guess, inspire action forward to prevent incidents in the future.

The real shift is real is trying to figure out how to use the data to see where risk is building sooner so we can prevent that exposure level, you know, before it rears its ugly head, so they say. Yeah.

Yeah. And I can't help but mention a different study that we conducted here at BlackLine with our own clients.

We and this could be a whole other case study for a future webinar, and and maybe it will be, Laurie, if you're available.

What we found was that forty seven percent of or forty sorry. Forty seven of our client organizations with sustained gas exposure patterns, when those teams had consistent access to that real time exposure data and alerts And by real time, I mean, where, like, the information was accessible and being shared immediately to all of the workers. That risk exposure dropped by about eighty percent over three years.

Yeah. That's huge. That is a huge, reduction in risk exposure. And I think a key point that you should be really proud of from that data, Christine Is that the reduction didn't come from investigating more incidents.

It came from, you know, monitoring the data in real time and then acting sooner, you know, acting earlier. So, again, the what really matters isn't just about collecting the most data, but making it visible, making it usable for workers, for supervisors in real time so that they can adjust to, you know, the exposures before they accumulate or amplify, you know, with with an undesirable result. Exactly. Yep.

You bet.

Yeah. So glad to mention that because that was something we are proud of and something that we we hope to do more of is, again, help companies harness the data for risk prevention.

Okay. So, Lori, you already said AI.

What is a presentation in twenty twenty six without consideration for AI? And, of course, it came up in the research as well.

So and this is where I'm interested in specifically what you're hearing too, Laurie, from your cross section of clients.

But when we asked the survey respondents what they expect to be the biggest area of growth and innovation is, like, in the next two years, it's not surprising that AI came up consistently across leaders. And sixty five percent of respondents expect integrated AI tools that will predict risk to become more prominent. And you can see that there is already a decent amount of trust for AI to be able to do that. So, yeah, I'm curious. What else are you seeing from your clients when it comes to AI?

Right. It's all the rage for sure. We talk about this every day with clients. And, you know, from my experience, AI is super strong analyzing large data sets, right?

Really good narrative analysis that can detect patterns and trends far quickly, consistently more accurately than we can manually, right? Manual coding processes, looking for themes and the data is slow. It's very resource intensive and it's super prone to human error, Right? And at at we have some really impressive case studies working with clients to show this in action.

I had, one client. Actually, it was a a colleague, partner of mine, had a client who took a look, through, I think, eight years of, incident data. And the client was interested to what percentage working working at heights was the, you know, main factor contributing to a serious incident or fatality. And they had already done their manual coding, but the AI agent found it was, like, I it was, like, eighty something percent more accurate than the manual coding, and it, like, revealed that it was a a way bigger risk than they had thought before.

And they were the client was so impressed. They were like, well, can you run that to see how, know, leadership behaviors impact SIF data and careful what you wish for because it was, you know, again, in the eighties or nineties percent was a risk factor that the company hadn't even noted, you know, manually or had that, you know, trend analysis to to point them in that direction of, you know, how key leadership behavior is in, you know, kinda mitigating risk that folks are exposed to. So, anyway, the, you know, the using AI AI is super important, you know, but only where it adds value. So I

know a lot of companies are trying to create the the newest AI tool, and I think that can be a slippery slope and a little dangerous. Right? AI should help to spot patterns, predict risk if possible, mitigate that risk at scale. But one thousand percent, it should not replace human judgment and especially at the frontline.

So, you know, risk field level risk assessments, for example, I feel very strongly need to stay human driven. AI can tell us where to focus, but that's where you need you can't take the human out of that equation. So, yeah, AI can efficiently handle large datasets and do some of that heavy lifting so people can make better decisions earlier before something bad happens. So that balance, I think, is where the real opportunity is, but we lose sight of that using, you know, talking about and, you know, using AI as the next shiny object, which I think can be dangerous.

That's right. And the tools, I mean, they are rapidly evolving, so we are going to all stay tuned.

So and here at BlackLine, we're also working with applying AI to data. And I as you've said, that human intervention piece, at least for now, how the and, you know, until the tools rapidly evolve, like, we'll just all have to wait and see, but that human intervention and the judgment piece is essential.

But if AI can help reduce the manual coding piece of the puzzle and synthesis of data and harnessing reports and insights, yeah, I think we're gonna see these tools really opening up some doors and, hopefully, just giving health and safety leaders stronger predictive insights to be able to action.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, Lori, and I'm just gonna ask you here to take us home and Yeah. Have the key takeaways. Thank you.

Absolutely. Yeah. No problem. So I was really, again, flattered that you asked me to come have this conversation and take a look at the data that you collected.

Christine, it's good to be back together on another webinar. And I so, you could see on the screen here some of the key themes that we discussed. You know, leaders agree that safety is fundamental, especially to reliable productivity, which we know are those business goals. So, connecting those concept is great.

Outcomes are not improving at the same rate as the investment, so Work to do there. That gap between protocol and behavior, safety on paper between what we see in the field in the real world still exists.

Preparedness does not always equal prevention. And how we get there, you know, is not consistent either. We are we should be really encouraged as safety professionals in this discipline that workplace safety is moving, moving, shifting from a pure traditional compliance function to safety as part of the core operating system. I I think in my career, I I almost I feel like I've arrived.

Right? Like, this is what we've been working for for twenty years, and I I truly see it in most every client engagement that I'm a part of. So I you know, for me, Christine, the the biggest takeaway, and I might be biased as a leadership scholar here, but leaders know that safety matters, but outcomes aren't keeping pace with the effort and the investment that these business leaders are putting into safety. So that that gap between the protocols and the behavior is still, you know, it's still real day, real world experience, and the opportunity to move forward, I think, is treating safety like that core operating system.

It's something that has to be looked after, has to be invested in and nurtured and cared for because we know with real with real data that it supports real time decisions and decisions that come from a place of trust and how actually work gets done. And that's at the front line with that human at the center of all things we do with regard to safety. So I just wanna thank you again for, inviting me. Thanks to BlackLine and ASSP, to dig into this data and be a part of today's conversation.

And, well, thank you, Laurie, so much. Again, it is really awesome to be, again, back together doing another webinar. And I always learned from you. You just bring such a wealth of not only practical sort of working on the front lines with clients, but also that scholarly research, that, research methodology.

And and we look forward to working with you further, not only on, you know, activating this research, but hopefully, again, in the future. Again, I I'm always learning from you. I learn a new model, write down something, some new thread to pull on, and, again, just really wanna express my deep gratitude for your time and energy in helping us with this.

Problem. And so yeah. Thank you. You, Laurie. And so for those of you who are interested in the full report, please use the QR code here.

It's a in order to access the full keeping people safe report. It's got a much more detailed and robust look at everything that we talked about here today. And those insights, again, coming from oil and gas and manufacturing, utilities, fire hazmat, and petrochemical as well as transportation.

So you can, as I've mentioned, scan this QR code on the screen, or you can visit the BlackLine Safety website in order to access the report itself.

And, I also just wanted to mention that we are listening, and by that, I mean that we intend on conducting the survey annually. And so if there's something that you would like to see in the report or some kind of curiosity, something you'd like to double click on, please reach out and speak with BlackLine Safety because, again, we're hoping to improve this report over time, and we hope to be able to share even a more valuable report with you in one year for now. And, again, thanks so much for tuning in, and, please continue to put your questions into the chat, and we'll keep answering them.

Thank you so much.

Great. Thank you, everyone. We appreciate you being here.

Just as a quick reminder, we will make this webinar recording available on our website very shortly. Please look for our follow-up email with more information on this.

Also, for those who have attended the webinar, you will receive your CEUs.

You'll find this information in our follow-up email as well.

Thanks again for joining us today, and we will see you next time.