#51 - Declan Davis - Bringing AI and Empathy to the Frontline: On Why Safety Is Human

I don't see technology as a barrier to improving safety. It's an enabler for me. I don't see it as a way to get rid of the humans actually on site. No, I see it as actually as tools to actually help them, help people on site to be more efficient, to be more reliable, and to be safer. And that's what I'm really excited about, is actually finding these technologies, finding tools, To keep things simple for our people, for our operations people on site, for the worker out in the field, give them the tools to make their life easy. Because if their life is easy and more efficient and safer, my life is easy.

You are listening to the Safety Heroes Podcast, the podcast where we delve into the world of safety professionals and explore the critical role they play in ensuring every human goes home safely. Our guests are the unsung heroes and natural leaders of the safety space. If you're in the safety space or have no clue what happens in safety functions, this podcast is for you. Join us as we celebrate these heroes, hear their stories, and discover the human side of safety and make sure it's constantly evolving for the safety of our people. My name is Moussa. I'm the founder and CEO of Pixera and your host for these episodes. Because when it comes to safety, every hero deserves a voice. So welcome to the Safety Heroes podcast. Declan, nice to have you here.

Thank you.

I'm glad we're doing this. We've spoken a few times now. We started working together recently as well, so I'm glad we were able to make it happen.

Yeah, I'm glad, and I've actually been really excited to work with your team. I think bringing this new technology to the workers actually on site in a system that is easy to mass implement, whether it's using mobile phones, tablets, VR, immersive technologies, but it's actually bringing some relative content to make them safe.

Awesome. I love it. I might ask you a few things there because I'd love to just elaborate a few things, but honestly, first and foremost, what's your background? What's your story? How did you get into the world of safety? Help us learn more about you.

A bit about me, with my accent, I'm Irish. I came over to the UK in the '80s, grew up in construction. I did all my training in the UK, went to college on day release, and always been kind of linked with the workers on site. I have a great connection with the workers on site because it links back to my kind of childhood when I was Growing up in Ireland and working with people, working with people actually out in the field.

So, you started off in the field?

I always started off in the field and actually got myself educated, got qualifications in civil engineering, got myself an HNC, HND in engineering, worked all the way through up from a site engineer to a project director, operations director, building large infrastructure projects. In about 2017, '18, I was— I've done it all, but I wasn't getting the satisfaction out of it anymore. And the satisfaction is what I needed to keep me happy, to keep me sane, to keep me motivated. And the bit I love about my job is making human connections, connecting with the people on site, and humanizing safety. So, that's where I saw some of the benefits I could bring in moving into the safety environment. So, that's what I did in around 2012. I just moved over into that area, and I got myself qualified. I got myself to be chartered with IOSH, and I just kept developing, and I kept trying to break down some of the barriers between The theory of safety and actually making it more practical for the people on site to make it more easier. I always look at the people who are exposed to the risks are the field workers. Majority of the time, they are the ones that actually get harmed and they face ill health. And what we need to do is just to break down some of the barriers for them. We give them War and peace in method statements, in briefings, in documents, and we're expecting them to understand all of that. How do we actually make that 100-page method statement down to something more manageable that they can be briefed and actually to manage the risks? So, everything I do is, I used to keep it simple and stupid. Keep it simple for the people. And if it's simple and it's straightforward and it's putting direct controls into managing risk, the people will implement it.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I love that you said that. I think what excites me about this is it's actually very simple to connect with the human on the frontline. It's much simpler than we think, but we just created, as you were telling me before this conversation, we just created so many systems and processes and procedures and steps. which humans tend to do in most industries, like in art, you end up with such, so much complexity away from the artist who's just, you know, creating the art or in most industries. But ultimately we tend to forget through the illusion of corporate reality that it's humans actually. And the funny thing here is they're the ones who are actually doing the work. You know, they're the ones who are actually delivering the product.

Yes.

And they're neglected as part of like all these systems and procedures and processes and are just allowing corporates to say, yeah, yes, we filled these forms, we meet these forms, but that individual just feels neglected as well when you meet them and you see them. They feel like they're not trusted, they're not understood, their time is not appreciated.

And as the corporate side, we're also missing a big trick because who has the answers? It's the person actually in the field. They've got the answers to actually to make it more safer. They've also got the answer to make a better product, and they've also got the answers to actually how to eliminate some of the waste and to make it more efficient. So, getting them engaged effectively and actually understanding the value that they're going to bring can actually offer so many benefits to an organization. It helps manage the risks, it helps manage the production, It helps manage the quality. That will improve. That will actually make us better tomorrow than we are today.

100%. You know something I believe in now? It's when people think about the age of AI and what's happening in AI, I truly believe we're going to go through a big transition over the next couple of years. And organizations that don't connect with the people doing the work, are going to really struggle because your ability to create systems or even build product— like when I look at our ability to build product now, where things that used to take us months take us less than a week in some cases because you can prototype so quickly, you can, you know, deploy super quickly, you can create super quickly— your connection with the frontline worker is going to start becoming more and more and more important because from concept to execution, That time frame is is shortening to something very different than what we're used to. Yes. And and they are the they are the true power of organizations in every field, right? So I think it's a it's a safety person's dream, you know, talking to you and hearing. I mean, what what inspired me about this whole world is it's all about human connection, and it's all trying to bridge that that that gap.

Yeah.

I'm excited about that pattern. We need to build that muscle to. communicate directly with that workforce and have them involved in decision-making as well as part of the organization.

Yeah, fully agree. I'm excited about introducing AI into our operations. I see it as an enabler to actually improve things. Yes, you're going to get certain people actually in the background who says, oh, but it's generating more noise, it's generating more noise. What it can help us do, it can help us To articulate some of the risks more clearer to the people on site, to get rid of a lot of noise, to actually just show them these are the key areas where you are going to be exposed. It can help us condense these 140-page meta-statements, work plans down to—

Micro pieces of information.

Micro information that are needed to actually manage the specific risk. And it can be Delivered in real time.

Personalized.

Personalized. It can be delivered in real time and it actually can show you risks that we might have missed out. And actually, it's always that cycle about getting information to them and actually developing it and actually enhancing it as well.

It can connect with vision, with voice, with text, with phone, images.

Treat it as an enabler. It's going to be an enabler to help us to manage the risk. It's going to be an enabler to help us to be more efficient. And to produce better quality information for the workers. And what you said there was very real, that we're able to condense and get that information out in a shorter time. But what we're also able to do in a shorter time is to revise it, because when we're in a construction environment, things change an awful lot. And in the past, it might've taken us a couple of weeks to get a revised document and revised procedures. We can actually now do it Instantly. Instantly. Might be half an hour, a day, whatever it is, but it's a shorter period to give that real-time information. So the risk is managed as it's going along. That has an impact actually on reducing downtime, improving efficiency. So

it's an

enabler.

100%.

And the other side benefit of this, which I think it's actually, if we look at our industry, we have an aging workforce. How do we attract younger generations into the construction environment? You show them in colleges and schools now, construction is not a low-tech environment. Construction is really a high-tech environment. We have remote-operated excavators, we have remote-operated crane towers or tower cranes. And You go into— I saw something actually last week where a tower crane operator was sat in a control room. Yes, he was on a site, but he was in this really nice control room in his tower crane. He had loads and loads of TV screens all around him, and he was there on his tower crane—

Playing a game.

And it was like playing a game. He had the same amount of control as the crane as if he was sat up on the top. But he actually had greater visibility because he had about 10 TV screens on.

Sensors and sort of things.

And he could actually zoom in to read a barcode on a bundle of rebar that was being lifted up. He could read the barcode, he showed us. How impressive is that? Go on site and sit in a tower crane, you're going to be operating some blind lifts at some times. You're not going to be able to have everything and you're going to be relying on some of the The slinger singlers as well. You still have the slinger singler, you still actually have the crane operator, but the crane operator now is sat there operating his joysticks, gaming, and it's like, that's attractive to a younger generation.

Yeah, absolutely.

So bringing technology like AI or immersive technology can really help.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, a cool exercise is to try to talk through, I don't know how many people try to do that mental exercise to think about what AI can actually do when you think about the frontline worker. I think when I try to paint that picture, for example, where we started off as a company, we started off with saying, let's make, the way we think of the value chain is we say there's competence, which is like training, onboarding. And of course, for you to train and onboard, you need to manage your programs, you need to manage your sites and manage your safety learning matrix and deliver the safety digital passports. There's this whole part. But then once you access a site, you of course do toolbox talks manually. You wish that people do them. In many cases they don't. You have permits, you have risk management, you have all these different parts of the safety value chain and the workforce management value chain. If you're able to have a solution that helps you operate end-to-end where it starts off with adaptive, so you're not wasting the person's time, you're assessing them, you're understanding their gaps in a fun way, and then you're giving them the trainings that they need in micro tidbits. On a monthly, bimonthly basis, they're constantly being engaged with again so that they're always playing this engaging game to keep something simple AI-driven. So you're trusting them with their skillset, reducing their learning time and making sure that you're moving with them where they need to move. And the cool thing with AI is you can give them more content if you see that they're making mistakes and you can go deeper, you can be lighter if they're doing well, just like edtech is doing so well now. Like most, most of the tech solutions do that. And then once you digitize the passport and they can go into sites, once you connect with that individual where when they're doing a toolbox talk, they can do it through audio, you can see if they missed the risk, you can ask them to take a picture, you can say great stuff, but actually also keep in mind that 1, 2, 3, 4 could happen. And when incidents happen and you log them, now you can start having very predictive analysis where you have information on behavior at the forefront and then risks at the end, and you can start predicting what could happen at sites as well, way more in advance at the point of learning and at the site competence data. So you end up with having just all your data into simple AI-driven solutions and all centered around that frontline worker having a simple application on their phone, or in the case where they don't, You know, you figure out ways where they can, where they can access it. But I can talk about so many different things that can be done better, where you move away from this world of forms and complexity into voice and simplicity.

Yeah. And I love those solutions. I'm implementing a few of them.

Yeah.

Um, we're on the road to implementing your product actually within our organization. And actually that's very exciting. And what's exciting for me about it is that I'm able to reach a greater audience, one. I'm able to reach them in different modes, whether it's actually through our learning management systems, through actually mobile phones, and actually I'm able to reach out to our contractors. And so I'm able to get all of those systems in, and I'm actually able to tailor it to actually our specific needs, to actually our requirements. And quite right, what I'm looking forward to seeing is that when I see some of the outputs, and if I see, yeah, that everybody it's got this key area around one of our life-saving rules actually homed in, and actually it's really embedded. I can then see, oh, this is another area I can look at, and actually just kind of pushed us. So, it's pushing those microlearnings that helps us to manage the risks. I think one of the other biggest problems— or not problems— one of the biggest advantages that we have with AI is improving communication. Communication. We have a multilingual workforce. Go on to any site in any geographical area, they're speaking more than one language. Sometimes you've got 2, 3, 4 languages.

Absolutely.

If the predominant language is going to be, let's say, English, and all the messages are going out in English, how do we know that that same message is going out to people who are speaking Spanish or Portuguese or Polish or Romanian? How do you actually transfer that content personalized and personalize it so quickly, quickly, instantly, and instantly to these people?

Yeah,

that's the power of AI is just by pressing buttons, you can actually have these messages going out in multi, multi-languages. And that is making it a bigger impact because the people feel

huge

trust. They're feeling actually that they're being listened to, that they're cared about.

And they're seen as humans. You're not throwing something at me. don't understand, which is in most cases you realize that people are put in classroom sessions for a whole week in English when they barely speak English.

Correct, yeah.

You're just checking a box at that point, you

know? They're just ticking the box. They might be absorbing about 25%. So by putting it in different ways, by putting it in a— the communications in a visual way, by putting it into their own language, And the

dialect as well. You can choose the dialect.

And that's really powerful because one, the people feel respected.

Exactly.

And actually, oh, that company is taking the effort to put into my language.

They care about me as a human being.

They care about me as an individual. Now I can communicate back and we will be able to translate. We're able to translate it back actually. So it's 2-way simultaneous translations. Doing that is, for me, it's just a matter of respect. I respect the individual. I care for that individual. I want to hear from that individual. And I want to be able to get the best out of that individual. And that includes giving them the training, giving them the technology, giving them the tools to do their jobs.

Honestly, like everything you're saying now is the main reason why, like, we exist. You know, the motivation behind why we started the business is Completely about trying to get there, but it is a— I wouldn't say it's a very long journey. I'm so excited about what's happening in AI, but it's like we realize you have to take it in pieces. So like the part we're working with you on, which is the content part, we also started off by making immersive learning that is a bit heavy at the start. Then a lot of the work we had to do is how do you scale it on mobile phones and then how do you integrate it with the right AI? path so that what you said happens so well, where when you deploy it globally, every person has the ability for a very personalized experience. But then what we're working on now is the assessment and adaptive learning piece, like how do you understand the individual so you cut down learning time? But once that's done really well, let's say in the next 6 to 8 months, and we feel we're at a stage where that piece is working so well, most of the work we're putting in is How do you get further down? Because if you're already with individuals and you have their profile and their gaps and an understanding, then you can start helping them with their toolbox. Like, learning doesn't stop at the point of like, here you go, you got a certificate, go for it, and we'll see you again in 2 years. It's an ongoing journey of support. How do you keep that level of support? We're learning every day.

Every day, every day there's some new risk, there's something in there. And if we're not learning something new every day, there's something fundamentally wrong with us. Risks are changing, the hazards on site are evolving, the interfaces with other contractors and everything else is just evolving. And the technology is evolving so fast that it is scary that if we don't keep up with it, we're going to be kept left behind. And that's learning that. And that's one of the key things I look at. In my— in the safety environment is that we have to be curious. And actually, this is all about humble inquiry, being curious, asking people the right questions, and actually trying to get them engaged. And actually, us as individuals being curious how to improve things. If we have actually achieved actually some of our goals, well, set new goals, stretch them, be curious to Continually evolve and be better.

Everyone kind of understands the future of it, like how things are changing, and some people are trying to deny how things are changing, but a few people are taking action quickly. And it's amazing to hear that you're, you know, really thinking about this a lot because I see that it stems from how much you care about that frontline individual. Now, the important question that's good for us to explore is how do you bring the frontline individual with you on that journey? Right. So We need to break this disconnect between a corporate, and by trying to be very clear about what I'm trying to say here, typically a manager somewhere in HQ would say, we need a solution for frontline workers. A frontline worker would only hear about it during implementation. They'd be like, how? Like, what is it? How does this work? How do you really bring them with you along the journey?

The way that it's been successful for me is, Introduce them to the technology slowly. Just show them and actually show them the value of what that technology can bring. Educate them about that it's not there to replace them and actually show them actually how we can actually add value to them, to their work, to their product, to their well-being, to how they're delivering that work. Just plant a seed with them and then Nurture that seed, help it grow and grow and grow. Water it, look after it, prune it, keep feeding it with more information. Keep feeding them actually with the benefits of it all. When they see the benefits, they will then be the champions of it, and they will then actually push it out to their colleagues and everything. So try to find your champions in each individual area or each project and show them, and then let them run with it. Let them take the reward and recognition for actually implementing it. This is not my idea. This is theirs. I'm helping.

I'm just trying to improve your life.

I'm just improving it.

You made this call.

And actually, once they see it and they buy into it and they think that they're the ones owning and implementing it, let them run with it. Let them take all the benefits, let them take all the credits. You as an organization will then see, will reap the rewards. So, try not to push, let's pull, let's work with them to actually implement it. We also need then to look at actually how we actually manage some of the outcomes and the risks actually inside the organizations. Because sometimes we put barriers inside our own organizations to actually implement new technologies. Yes, we have cybersecurity. Yes, we have data protections. Yes, we have legal frameworks that we all have to follow. And I'm not saying knock them all down and get rid of them and let's just open it, but bring them on the journey as well. Bring them actually on the journey of actually show them what the value is. Show them actually how the risks are being managed, and these are commercial risk and data risk and cybersecurity risk, how it's all being managed. Bring them on the journey with you. Don't go to the last day before you try and implement it and actually say, here you go, I need you to sign this off, because they're going to be looking at the risk and say, oh, I don't have enough time to assess it. Bring them on the journey.

That's the thing. It's like if you always go back to how where any of us usually live or sit, we're busy individuals and we have, we have restrictions, we have timelines, we have objectives, we have people to report back to. Yeah, it always needs to be a process that is natural where they, they, they really contribute to, to the design and implementation. I think from a supplier standpoint, from someone who's trying to build tools and technologies for those frontline workers, the biggest gift a company can give us is actually access to time.

Yeah.

And that comes when we are able to build trust with those frontline workers where they're like, oh, we're not wasting our time by talking to them. They really understand us. And the way we have to operate to build that trust is be very quick with implementing, implementing things that we learn from them, communicate so clearly, just show them that you're being heard and what we're learning from you is quickly being implemented in the prototypes we're testing with you. And that starts making them champions.

Yeah.

and making them like people who are talking about the product and they're part of the design and they're part of the development and they're part of the implementation, they're part of the solution.

Well, they're the people that are going to actually push it out because once we've got them on board and we have developed the products in our systems that we're working with you to roll out, once we have all these subject matter experts actually fully embedded and on board and it's their content, we push it out.

Exactly.

They're going to be the champions to actually reach the masses.

It's so important. I think that our example, when I was saying what I was saying, I was thinking more on the AI frontline worker, but yeah, our example on the content side, even where we are today, if we were to build it ourselves and tell you, here's the construction content, you'd be like, ah, but if we're designing it together, you have 10 people involved from your regions, and they're informing their team and we're sending them the right content and the right collateral so they can keep people informed once it's ready, they have developed this. They were part of this project for the whole industry and they're champions. And

bringing them on board, they're gonna get excited about the end product.

100%.

They're gonna be looking forward. I want this end product 'cause I'm gonna go and show it to these people. I've got all of these people waiting for it. And they can tell that they're involved. That will just want, that's just feeding their hunger to actually, to get to the end product and actually say, oh, I can't wait to use this new training that's going to come out.

Yeah, 100%.

Because they say, oh, I know people who has actually helped build it. I'm getting our ideas has fed into that.

So

it's our product.

100%. And honestly, it is true that the level of appreciation that, for example, we have as a product developer is massive because We are learning from people who understand what needs to be taught on the frontline level. And the contribution is something that goes to hundreds of thousands of people. You know, so like on the oil and gas side, when we built the product in the early days with, you know, Graham and Yuri from BP, um, Stephen Haik and Maritime from Shell, and like we had just so many people contribute in the very early days. And now I think, you know, when you have hundreds of thousands of people go into the products, take these trainings, The work they're doing is helping people on the ground. Yes. The feedback they're getting, when they're playing these great simulations that drive emotions and impact, they're telling their friends about it and they're spreading it. So it is creating real value for people. So it's a win. It's like, I love that experience, you know, the fact that we're in this position where we're able to build with the customers. And if you think about it, some businesses would start a business, if you're just thinking of the content side, coming to companies and saying, hey, pay me X amount of money and I'll create a piece of content for you. And that psychologically is like a very bad path to take. I don't know if other companies have a different view, but our view is you need to be part of the investment and you need to have a big part of the ownership because you need to be so invested in the quality of the content and have many people benefit from it. Otherwise, you're just trying to please someone who's trying to hit a few boxes and you're not thinking about the whole market.

Really love that. And what I also love about that is that what you're— we're also trying to do is we're trying to improve the industry. So yes, I could go to you and say, well, I want a bespoke product for me, but— and I would end up paying for that. But working with you in collaboration and actually producing content specific for our construction industry is really great. I'm getting the benefit out of it because I know I'm going to get content that is relevant for me because I'm feeding into it. But I know I could actually give this and introduce this to actually other clients, other contractors in there. And quite recently, I'm involved in the Construction Health and Safety Group charity,

and

I'm introducing Pixera to them because there is a benefit to the wider industry. So it's a really good thing to be involved

in. 100%.

So I feel motivated. I'm getting the right equipment, the right tools for my people, but I'm also feeling motivated and actually a lot of gratification where I'm helping the industry.

Yeah, honestly, I appreciate hearing that. Like, I want to say, I want to say thank you because we, we work every day to try to get to that place because we really believe that the power is in creating things for the industry, by the industry. And hearing you see the same thing and reflecting on it is very powerful. So yeah, thank you.

No problems. It was really good. And I think finding simple solutions that industry, whether they're actually a large-scale contractor or an SME or a sole provider, finding a solution that is easy to implement, easy to update.

Absolutely.

And that is readily available.

Absolutely.

In a mobile, in a tablet, or actually on a desktop or is one of the key things to make it easier for these people.

Absolutely. Yeah, honestly, I'll elaborate on a few things as well so you're more aware of the strategy we're taking when it comes to content.

Yeah, it'd be good to hear that.

As you said, it's so important for it to be very scalable, right? We've built out infrastructure to allow you to play this on any device now, and we've made a huge leap this month. So you're going to see, in terms of localization, we've taken all the questions and answers and UI interactions outside of the content as well, so that no matter what language you are, dialect, it's just so easy for it to be customizable and adaptable. And it all works in this very simple— I won't go so deep into the tech, but a very simple way on any browser. So even if you have low latency, just like YouTube would reduce the resolution for you if you have low latency, that's going to happen instead of you having streaming problems. So it's going to be 10 times more scalable. But I think when you think of the content, what many people don't realize about why the content is effective— I realize that all the time because I'm so involved in design and testing. And I've been doing this for 4 years now, and I've been dealing with so many simulation experts. When you're learning something physical, so you're learning a physical topic, which is like safety or a physical activity, your brain is used to consuming information in 3D. Even if you're looking at it on a mobile phone, or the fact that you're within a context that is relevant to you, so you're in a construction site, relevant construction site, and throughout the scenario you're going through a story, That is constantly part of the same 3D space, and there are characters and individuals, but you're also one of the main characters, the main character actually. You're the star of the show who's making decisions, and your decisions are influencing the outcome, and you're witnessing a very memorable fatality. Like the excavation module, you'll literally be in the trench, and you're going to go through a very dramatic fatality. That's a huge revolution to when I work with e-learning providers or someone like interviewing a designer who's, who creates hundreds of great e-learning content and they show me their best piece of content. I always go like, oh, I get why your quality is high. Even if you're using some of the tools you mentioned before that are more AI-driven for avatars, when you're seeing 2D graphics that are context switching from a picture to a a video to another piece of information, your brain now is looking at it as information and it's now outside of the experience and it struggles to process it in a story and context. So no matter how good an e-learning module I take is, it's missing something. And I think the beauty of games, games just are so good at storytelling and they're so good at putting you within a—

Yeah.

Like characters with personalities and it just becomes so memorable. But Of course, learning in 2D, if you're learning something like Python or a coding language or how to use a specific tool, it makes a billion times more sense. But if you're dealing with something physical, I'm going to go deal with something physical, a tool falling on me, your brain feels so much more comfortable to consume that information, that story in 3D space. So I just wanted to share that for anyone hearing who thinks, what is immersive? Some people think VR is— Yeah. Honestly, virtual reality is cool. And someone who, you know, we have so many clients using virtual reality a lot, I always tell them openly because we're not in this to try to sell something just for selling it. The beauty is in 3D storytelling. That's the real difference we're making here. And it's so much more memorable. You know, we've had so many, just talk to any user who takes it within 2 weeks, they'll remember the story.

I think that's the important bit is the storytelling. And it's actually, that's how you actually get them connected, telling them stories and involving them, being part of it. And it's actually sharing your own experiences as well. And you're doing it in a safe environment. You're showing individuals, like, if you make this decision, this excavation goes wrong, it collapses, and you have a serious injury or a fatality. It's in an environment where nobody's getting really hurt. So you can actually learn from your mistakes without having a negative impact.

Absolutely.

And actually, that's really important because sometimes we tell people all the time about how to do things right, but sometimes we need to show them what can go wrong, of what was— what is the risks that they're really exposed to and the consequences of actually them making the wrong decisions. And doing it in that environment, it's a great storytelling method because they're not getting hurt. And hopefully, that will actually make them more informed when they're in the real world and they're making these decisions. They will be able to take it back and actually make the right decisions so they're not having these consequences. And that's ultimately what we're trying to do, eliminate serious injuries and fatalities. From the construction industry.

Have you ever gone into like memory, memory champion championships and how they operate or heard of the Memory Palace? Nope. You know, so, so going to what you were saying about like showing people incidents, memory championships and like I got, I got into memory just, I don't know, I don't know why I was studying for, for my project management professional certification 15 years ago when, when I was working for BP and I was like, why am I memorizing? Why do I have to memorize so much? It's all about memorizing and didn't make sense to me. And I started learning memory tools. And the brain literally is just extremely good at remembering dramatic, crazy, unrealistic stories that are very dramatic, that are rare to happen. And it's very good at remembering 3D space. So if you go to a hotel and you go to the bathroom in that hotel, if I ask you 10 years later, even if you went to it once, if I ask you 10 years later, have you been to that hotel? And you're like, yeah, actually I've been to that hotel in New York. I was like, do you remember where the bathroom is? You're likely gonna remember cuz like you've had to, like you had to go there, you know? And, and, and the mind, I guess just as we evolved, the mind got really good at remembering like if there's something dramatic I need to remember or, um, so everything that happened, every, every, the whole basis of memory, uh, memory championships, people who remember, you know, thousands of digits. They take everything into a story. and they make it dramatic and unique.

Yeah.

You know, in their heads. And it makes you remember it so well for a very long time. The cool thing about putting someone through an incident, people don't realize that, but if you put someone through an incident in a 3D space where they see a fatality, that's the, that's the hook. If you talk to them 2 months, 3 months, 4 months down the line, if they've taken that excavation training, you're like, do you remember the excavation principles? What are important things to keep in mind? Their brain goes straight to the incident first. They're like, oh, they remember the trench falling on them. They remember the incident they experienced. They're like, oh, and then now that they're back mentally to that location, they trace back the steps that led to that incident. We see that all the time. If we ask someone who took our Working in Height training, they go straight to the falling incident. That's why we always dramatize the incident as much as we can. Because that's your strongest anchor for retention. Just wanted to also share that.

Yeah, that's really good. I think having those anchor points actually, and linking them to SIFF scenarios and linking them to actually offense, it's, it's making people be more curious about how they can, what they can do to prevent them happening. And that then links to actually your standards that you're teaching in your modules and actually your life-saving rules. It's always about, the goal is to prevent these— Incidents. Incidents. And whatever way we can do it and actually get the people engaged, we have to do it, whether it's getting them anchored into it, to those learning, events, to looking at what are the life-saving rules, how we can actually implement, and actually getting them to start thinking about how they can be better.

Absolutely.

Because the risks and everything evolve. What can we do even better?

Our hope and where we're investing heavily is honestly what you said now. It's the adaptive learning. It's empower the individual, reduce the time, and go all the way to helping them with tools. Do you feel like there are going to be restrictions with organizations around the implementation of AI? Do you feel like that's going to break soon and people are going to understand how to implement it safely without the data privacy concerns?

I think it's going to be a journey. It's a journey we are on. I think we have to bring the industry, our stakeholders actually on that journey with us. There is always going to be barriers. Because there could be risks actually being exposed, commercial, financial, or data risk. But if we're doing it in the right intentions and actually let people start looking at the context of what you are doing and actually how you do it and frame it all actually in the lines of how—

Improving their time.

Improving their time, improving the risk, improving the efficiency. I think the barriers can be knocked down, but it is going to be an evolution to get it fully implemented, but it will happen.

Yeah, it will. It's a matter of who's going to figure out how to get there faster.

But yeah, we will get there, but we're going to get there at— it's got to be at a sensible, scalable solution. And it's also got to be taken in the context of actually not exposing organizations to additional risks that they weren't actually exposed to. But we will do. I'm confident of that. What I'm really impressed with about your solutions from what you were talking to me earlier over coffee was this new way for assessing actually people as well and contractors, because we operate as a large global organization. We have lots and lots of contractors actually on board. We have tens of thousands of contractors that's got different levels of maturity in different geographical areas. So how do we actually assess them to get into, to understand our minimum standards, to understand actually our culture, to understand actually our ways of working? And the tools that you're developing, I think, will really go a long way to doing that. Because if we're able to actually just send out a simple QR code for them to do a— Survey. A

knowledge survey, so it doesn't sound so—

Yeah. Well, I'm not talking about knowledge, but to do actually an assessment of actually, do they really understand actually our way of working? And actually, that might actually help us to understand the risk profiles we have in certain areas.

100%.

And what additional support we would have to give. It's not as a barrier to prevent them from entry, it's a barrier to actually say, right, I need to give you, I need to help you to actually move you from this level to that level, because this is the level we want to operate at.

It's the way you brand it. I think if it's branded as like, we're kind of assessing you, they might be, but if it's branded in, we're actually going to just give you the trainings that you need, we're not going to waste your time on other trainings, and we just need to understand where you sit so we get you there faster, people will lean into it, you know? Honestly, I'm so excited, like talking to the team, I'm so excited about that. I feel like that alone being a product that we nurture so well is so important for the market And for people, because every organization will benefit from just understanding what's happening across your sites. I want to give you time if we're able to pull back a bit away from also AI and frontline workers, you as an individual, Declan. So how are you thinking about like the next couple of years? What excites you about, about the space or personally? I'd love, I'd love to help people learn more about, about you and your ambitions and your aspirations for, for the world of safety too.

My philosophy on safety is I like to humanize safety. For the people who know me, I connect with the individuals on site, I connect with the safety teams, I connect with the operations teams. I want to make things easy for people. I see lots and lots of new technologies coming in, immersive technologies, AI, autonomous vehicles, autonomous robotics actually on site. They excite me because they help us to manage the risk. As I said before, I don't see technology as a barrier to improving safety. It's an enabler for me. I don't see it as a way to get rid of the humans actually on site. No, I see it as actually as tools to actually help them, help people on site to be more efficient, to be more reliable, and to be safer. And that's what I'm really excited about, is actually finding these technologies, finding tools to keep things simple for our people, for our operations people on site, for the worker out in the field. Give them the tools to make their life easy. Because if their life is easy and more efficient and safer, my life is easy.

Yeah. And I really, really believe we'll get there. And I'm so happy that people like you exist who are always prioritizing that frontline human and how they make their decisions.

They're the people exposed to the risk. They're the people that are actually hurt. They're the people we have to protect, and they're the people we have to help. And that's my job in life.

And honestly, like, I want to take your advice at some point on how we can connect, how I can personally connect with some of the frontline workers, maybe even have them join me on some of these conversations. But even, you know, I think we all have this role to play to have more conversations with people who are doing the work day in and day out with their hands.

There's a friend of mine in America and he keeps saying one thing to me, Declan, you've got to get out in the field.

Don't bring the field to you.

Don't bring the field to you. Get you out to the field. Go out and talk to them and actually show them and actually let them be inquisitive.

And

actually,

oh, I will.

Yeah, that's the way to connect. Yeah, get out in the field.

Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Anything that you want to share as well before we, before we wrap up, like advice you have for people?

The advice I've got to people, be curious. Look at how the technology can improve your life. Look at how— just be curious.

Love it. Seriously, thank you so much for doing this. I know we're going to be dealing with each other for some time. We'll set up different sessions, honestly, as we evolve with the product. I know it takes some time. Within 6 months to a year, hopefully we'll have a lot more to share and talk through. And I really appreciate you coming. I really appreciate you having this conversation, sharing your experience.

Thank you. Thank you. I loved it.

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