Somewhere along the way we forget that getting hurt... actually hurts.
We forget that even the simplest injury can stay with us for life. Ankles I didn’t rehab properly years ago now make me scan the ground constantly because one wrong step and I’m back there again. Whiplash from a car accident when I was 18 still flares up thanks to compressed nerves in my neck. And never mind the trauma from my father’s simple driving mistake that resulted in a head on collision when I was 6.
We forget that these things linger… getting hurt hurts, in a split second your world can change.
Just last weeks I was reminded of the dangers at work. A man, around my age, fell from the sixth floor of a worksite near our head office. He didn’t go home. It’s permanent. It can’t be undone. That’s why safety matters to me. That’s why I’m writing this.
Why it’s important to me…
I started my career as an engineer but quickly moved into leadership roles motivated by the question… “How do we make it better for people in the workplace?”
Early in my career I experienced a Dupont safety program, little did I know that I would later join them for over a decade and cement my belief that “All injuries can be prevented.”
That became my north star. I wanted everyone I worked with to go home in better shape than when they arrived. Work should add to your life… not be endured.
In my career I’ve held roles in business improvement, operations management and operational excellence, consulting to some of the biggest organisations around the world. Time and again across industries, across roles, across borders, one barrier kept surfacing… “technology systems were getting in the way” .
Despite all the best leadership intentions, despite well-designed processes, progress kept hitting a wall. The incumbent systems couldn’t adapt. They couldn’t give leaders or frontline workers what they needed, when they needed it. Decisions were made on lagging data. Weeks would pass before useful data was available. People became disengaged. And well-intentioned improvements were stalled.
How can we change that tech problem?
Experiencing all of these stumbling blocks and trying to find solutions to them I finally came across Unifii Operations Cloud. It was a simple idea: a platform built to connect people, process and technology in a way that put the user first. It wasn’t about adding complexity, it was about being adaptable to the way your business operated, not the other way around.
Suddenly it made sense… technology that enabled leaders instead of blocking them. A way to get the right information, to the right people, at the right time, informing them in taking the right actions.
I was sold... I first worked with their team as a customer… now I’m part of that team, building the solutions that eliminate the mess, the noise, the paralysis and getting businesses moving forward.
The reality facing Australian business leaders today…
Right now, the Australian Work Health and Safety strategy is almost pleading with us not to become complacent. Every week we hear from businesses battling the same issues:
- Endless spreadsheets (what John Broadbent, an industry thought leader, calls “MESS: Many Excel Spreadsheets”).
- Overwhelmed safety teams spending hours trying to extract data from clunky systems.
- Operations managers who know what needs to change but are too time-poor to wade through 50 options or build a business case.
The end result is that nothing changes... not because people don’t care, but because they’re trapped.
Listen to consultants, marketing sources and social media and you’ll hear that leadership is the answer (and it is). That safety in design is crucial (totally). That AI, IoT, and data analytics will transform safety (they can).
Unfortunately for most leaders, that’s too much, too fast and too disconnected from what they action today, and they end up not even knowing where to start.
Here’s what I think is a different approach…
I’m writing this blog because I feel it’s time to speak up. Too many people are getting hurt or worse, while too many good leaders are being undermined by systems that will never work.
This series is about taking a practical, user-first look at how we can do better. I’m going to share lessons from the field, stories from the front lines and ideas that you can apply without needing an MBA, a $1M budget or a PhD in systems design.
We’ll talk about real barriers, real change and a real path forward drawing from the fundamentals of Lean, the power of engaged people, and the simple truth that when you give people the tools and information they need, amazing things happen.
If you believe in better, frustrated by the status quo but still hopeful, we’re on the same page.
Let’s go!
Subscribe, share, comment whatever works for you. But most importantly, let’s keep talking. Let’s make work better, safer, and simpler, because getting hurt hurts. And it doesn’t have to be this way.
cheers
Paul
