Strengthen Your SIF Prevention Strategy with Human-Centered Safety

Lindsay Friesen | Allteck Ltd. (Quanta Services)

Dr. Eric Rogers | Peak Sleep

Dr. Kevin Rindal | Vimocity

Hello and welcome to the Vimocity Live Event Series. I'm your host, Doctor Kevin Rindal. We're excited you're here as we dive into strategies for strength in human centered safety.

At Vimocity, we believe that safety and performance are deeply connected. And when people are physically, mentally, and operationally ready for the demands of their work, everyone wins. Today, I'm really excited because we're joined by two leading experts who'll share insights on what it really takes to build a culture where people are supported, engaged, and ready to perform at their best. First, have Lindsay Friesen, a safety manager with Allteck, which operates in British Columbia.

And Allteck is an electric contractor and part of the Quanta Services family. She's been a leading voice on how fatigue, stress, and mental health impact crew's ability to stay safe. We're also happy to welcome Doctor Eric Rogers, a former sleep specialist for the Navy Seals.

And Vimocity recently partnered with Eric on sleep and fatigue management educational series. We'll be providing some links at the end of this, to that series so that you can, see what that, is all about.

And if you follow us on LinkedIn, you can also, find some of those clips from this series. Lindsay, I'm gonna turn it over to you so that you can help expand on your background.

Thank you, Kevin. I started out after I graduated, working my way up from the field.

I think I definitely take pride on not just moving into a company and being a manager, but working my way up and building those relationships with our field crews. I'm passionate about psychological safety, culture change, and mental health advocacy.

I'm based in Kamloops, British Columbia, and I'm committed to advancing health and safety standards and fostering safer and more inclusive work environments.

Thanks so much, Lindsay. And Eric, I'll turn it over to you to help fill in the gaps.

Sure. Thanks, Kevin. Yeah. So I'm a psychologist by training. I got into sleep a little bit later.

I'm in San Diego.

And like Kevin said, I I worked most recently with the Navy Seals. I've always been interested in high performance, especially in jobs that are high risk, high demanding.

I got into sleep probably about a decade ago. And what I found is that both personally and professionally, that sleep I consider the, most powerful performance enhancer on the planet.

And, I love talks like these. I'm glad to be here, and spread the message. It's a topic I'm passionate about, and I am hopeful to potentially change a few minds on the topic today.

Thanks so much. We're really excited to, further this conversation with both of you. And, Lindsay, we'll start with you. You said that we oftentimes talk about SIF prevention when we focus a lot on the tools, the policies, the procedures, and all those are absolutely important. But the human aspect and the human factors can also play a really big, role in serious injury and fatality prevention. Can you maybe expand on your perspective on that?

Yeah. Well, the constant variable is people, and that's where the human factors come into play.

From my perspective, some of the most overlooked human factors include cognitive load and emotional strain and the mental health aspect. Our workers are under stress regardless of why we might experience reduced situational awareness or impaired decision making.

Psychological safety and mental well-being are critical to ensuring that people can speak up and stay focused and feel safe while they're in a high risk and high demand job.

I believe that we normalize a lot of risk. Fatigue and sleep deprivation are often normalized as part of the job.

And it's vital to foster a culture where even those small risks are acknowledged and addressed.

Human error and system design we're humans and we make mistakes. I think that that's something that we all need to recognize.

But we need to start building and redesigning our systems to anticipate and mitigate those.

That means looking at how work is actually done, not how it's managed or how it's planned, and involving frontline workers in the safety planning, because our systems need to keep up with today's demands and not the past.

And by addressing the human factors, we can move closer to a culture where serious injuries and fatalities aren't just reduced, but they're also prevented.

From a generational standpoint, one of the biggest challenges in addressing human factors is that shift in how we talk about safety.

We're seeing a new generation of workers who almost expect psychological safety. There's open dialogue and holistic support, and that's a lot different than we saw in past generations.

They're more likely to speak up about burnout and mental strain or needing to take that break. I feel like they're more willing to put their hand up. But when those voices meet legacy systems and leadership styles that haven't evolved, that message can get lost and diminished. So in twenty twenty five, I think the challenge isn't just in identifying human factors, it's creating a culture where every generation does feel safe to talk about what those are.

Lindsay, thanks so much for that. And Quanta has been a real leading voice when it comes to the capacity model in thinking about serious injury, fatality prevention, putting direct controls in place. They've also done a lot in terms of incorporating human and organizational performance principles into the day to day work. Recently, you posted something on LinkedIn that focused on re centering the human element of safety. And I was just wondering if you could maybe talk about what are some practical ways that we can start thinking about dehydration, fatigue management, all these other human aspects that impact safety into the workday and the operational day-to-day workflow?

Yes. At Quanta, we have sticky hazards that refer to stuff that kill you. And while we're on our mission to eliminate life-threatening, life-altering, and life-ending events, sticky is more than just a list, it's a mindset. It's a cornerstone of Quanta's approach to that human centered safety, where the goal is not just zero incidents, but zero life-altering outcomes.

So Qantas capacity model and the sticky controls framework that we have are designed to shift the focus from simply preventing incidents to building that capacity to fail safely. These programs work hand in hand with the adoption of the seven human performance principles, which is what I actually love about it, is they all tie in back together to the people.

Recently I've been facilitating a session called Speak Up. We're traveling around to our operations and holding sessions with our field employees to open our lines of communication regarding psychological safety, workers' rights, and that mental health and wellness piece.

We've been focusing on removing the stigma around mental health, personal life struggles, and understanding that our employees are human and it is impossible to leave our lives at the door when we arrive at work.

Our monthly safety meetings have placeholders for mental health, physical health, and we're really working on removing stigma by having conversations and including information at the field level.

These programs aren't flavors of the month, but they're rather living programs that are going to continue to evolve. And the more information that we share, the more barriers that we remove, the more normal that these items become, the better and more improved we're going to see our systems. And it's about planting that seed, empowering our employees to have the environment that they need to feel safe in all aspects.

So I think that I really encourage people to start those meetings and have that human check-in. Go beyond the task list. How are you feeling today? Did everybody get enough rest?

Asking those types of questions, building that human factor into your job briefings and your hazard assessment process, including that human readiness section based on sleep, emotional state, physical strain, life events that are happening outside of work. And then obviously going back and training our leaders to recognize those signs of strain and empower our peers to be having those conversations with each other.

Lindsay, thanks so much for your leadership in building off of the framework that exists and continuing to advance that. I know there are some great suggestions there.

You mentioned one thing that I think is really important, things like sleep and fatigue. We oftentimes have promoted that like a badge of honor in terms of, like, how hard people are working and we equate it to, you know, I didn't get enough sleep as being something that's, you know, prized almost in the industry. But Eric, you've worked in the most demanding environments in the world. You've seen firsthand and you've researched as part of your PhD just the impact of lack of sleep on cognitive performance, safety. There's so many different aspects. Can you expand on the impact of a lack of sleep and maybe a reframe on how people should be thinking about the importance of that?

Absolutely. This is this is actually my favorite question. I think there's a general understanding by most people that sleep is important.

Why it's so important I think is a little less well understood. It's not, it's not a luxury, it's not a nice to have when time permits, and it's really not about just feeling less tired.

The reality is that there is no other single factor that impacts as much in our life as much as sleep. From a physical standpoint, not sleeping makes you weaker, sicker, less coordinated, more prone to injury, and it takes longer to recover from injuries. From a team or social standpoint, it impacts communication, patience, frustration tolerance, things like that which can then lead to increased sort of conflict in interpersonal conflict at work but also at home. But I think the most important impact especially related to today's conversation is on cognitive performance.

I think whenever you're in a high risk, high demand job, the most important piece of safety equipment or gear essentially is your brain.

Every single decision and every single action begins in your brain.

And there is nothing that impacts the performance of your brain as much as sleep.

Right? So when you are sleep deprived or when you're not getting enough sleep, your judgment is impaired, your decision making, the speed at which you're making decisions is impaired, your reaction time, your focus, concentration, all of these things.

And just as sort of an example that will relate, I think, to a lot of people, when you are awake, not even just working, but awake for twenty four hours or more, your cognitive functioning and your reaction time is similar to someone with a point one blood alcohol level. So we're not talking about, little minor impacts. We're talking about something very significant.

And additionally, a lack of sleep impacts your mood and your mental health. Lindsay brought up mental health earlier.

Sleep dramatically impacts your level of anxiety, your level of depression, but it also impacts your resiliency and how much stress you can actually take. So, essentially, if you think about it like your as like a cup, your capacity, right, your capacity for stress as a cup, you have less room available at the top before it overflows and you become overwhelmed. So these are just some of the ways sleep is important.

But the reality is these are just the wave tops and there's a lot more.

Thanks for sharing that, Eric. I will give a plug. You and I had a conversation on, the WorkReady podcast, which I host, and we spoke for almost two hours about all the intricacies of sleep. I learned so much. But, just the fact that, again, twenty four hours or more of sleep deprivation, which is not uncommon in the trades, equivalent to a zero point one zero blood alcohol level, That's pretty significant, especially when you're working in very dangerous environments, high energy environments, where critical decision making and precision is absolutely crucial.

And so when we bring this information to Cruise, you know, they may be working storms and they have to get that power back on. And so it's a situation where they're like, hey, it would be great to get eight hours of sleep, but it's not even realistic. So what are some practical things that we can do to help guide frontline workers so that they can message to their crews practical recommendations, their kind of best case scenario given the limitations that they have, working, you know, in certain environments?

Yeah. So, I think that's a really key point, because a lot of times I think people look at industries, like this or in my case, coming from the military looking at, industries like the military and and the knee jerk reaction is, well, there's no way you're gonna get good sleep. You have to work long hours.

Your environment is not very conducive to good sleep or you're working shifts and things like that. And the reality is that all of those things do pretty dramatically impact sleep. And I think for a lot of times, people look at that and be like, well, look, there's not much we can do about it. And the reality is, that there is. And it's not necessarily about shooting for that ideal amount of sleep seven to eight hours because like you said, that's not always going to be realistic. But then the question is, all right, how do we then maximize the sleep opportunity that somebody is going to get?

And I know we don't have time to get into the nitty gritty details of how you would do these things.

But, something like thinking about, incorporating breaks, incorporating naps strategically. I refer to them as tactical naps. Right? They are there for a purpose to recover so that you can maintain a certain level of performance, and prevent some of that degradation I was describing earlier.

Or another example is, alright, how can we help somebody, learn to calm their nervous system more quickly, more rapidly so that they're able to fall asleep sooner, when they get home or whenever they were wherever they're gonna sleep that night, so that you're able to maximize as much of the window as possible. And sometimes that's the goal. Right? It's not seven to eight hours.

It's how do I make the most of this five hour window that I have?

Thank you Eric and, we're definitely going to follow-up, with this live event with some resources that are very specific that you can distribute to your your crews as toolbox talks or safety moments and it's just a chance to take some of those practical aspects back to your crews. Lindsay you've been working in the industry for over fifteen years with frontline workers on a day to day basis sharing messages, promoting safety, helping to guide them. How do you see some of the strategies for having conversations about things like sleep fatigue and mental health, what are some best practices that you've found to help communicate with those crews effectively?

Rome wasn't built overnight, and I think it's really important to understand your audience and where people are at and meet them where they're at.

Little changes can make the world of difference. If you go in and you bombard them with information and big programs and it's more work, people are going to shy away from that. They're going to be less receptive to it. So it really starts with the little things.

Like Eric mentioned, planned out thoughtful, proactive measures that are going to provide assistance, not create more problems or hinder processes that are already in place. So I know for us, we're starting small, we're having those conversations.

Instead of it being done to crews or safety being done by it, it's something that's done with them.

Empowering our leaders to have open conversations.

Does anybody need a break? As opposed to making people ask. Trying to have a bit more of an open mind about it.

Really empowering that peer support.

Crews can be trained to look out for each other. It's not just PPE compliance, but it's also signs of fatigue or stress or dehydration, or something as simple as, 'Hey, you don't seem like yourself today. Do you need to take five?

Is there something that you need to talk about? Can I help you at all? It's just starting to have those conversations and modeling the behavior that we want to see from our leaders.

I think that when we as leaders talk openly about our mental state, hydration, need for breaks, in any context, it sets the tone. And it shows that safety includes that self awareness and that care about our people and not just compliance.

And the strategies don't need to have massive overhauls. They just require some attention, consistency and care.

I think people can tell when you're being fake. So if you're going to put on a front, that's going to be detected. But if you can be honest about it and show up truly caring, that's where you're going to build capacity and you're going to see the shift in culture.

Well said, Lindsay, thank you. Eric, one thing that I've been really impressed with you is that you took all of your work, especially working with Navy SEALs and elite military populations. And over the last several months that we've been working together, you've really dug in deep with the utility industry to understand the demands of the workforce.

And just love to hear from you, what are some key takeaways that you have, related to sleep fatigue that you'd like to share with this audience?

Yeah. I think the first thing that jumped out at me because I do come from a military, almost exclusively military background, it wasn't until pretty recently when we started talking that I really started to get, interested in utilities. And I'm I was just really amazed at the overlap and the similarities and the mindset and the mental approach. And I see a lot of the same levels of grit, resiliency, things like that in both industries. But I also see some similar firmly held beliefs that I think you brought up at the very beginning of this in terms of this idea that that, you know, pushing through pain, pushing through discomfort is always a sign of strength and courage, as a heroic effort.

Right? And in some cases that is, I mean, if we talk about, you know, pushing through physical discomfort, sometimes that is a sign of toughness, but it's also usually applied to fatigue and sleep deprivation as well. And I think that's where it becomes dangerous, because there's a perception that that they're sacrificing for the greater good. They're they're displaying their commitment to the mission essentially.

But in reality, what it's doing is putting themselves and those around them at risk. And this is a hard sort of shift in mindset to make it was for a lot of the people I worked with previously. Know it is in this industry as well. But I always try to highlight the fact that there are zero redeeming factors about sleep deprivation.

If we're talking about building capacity and things like that, you know, you think about your you would be the one to speak about this, Kevin, but but, you know, if you're working out and you're stressing your body physically, it will heal and it will come back stronger.

That same thing does not happen with sleep.

You continuously degrade and become weaker over time. There's not a buildup of resiliency. You're not building up, an ability to manage sleep deprivation better. Right? There is that common perception.

I often say that, sleep deprivation makes you, weaker, sicker, fatter, and dumber.

And I know that that's a bit harsh, but I say it that way very specifically.

Because I think if we sugarcoat the message too much, it's easy to brush off or ignore.

And my primary goal is to actually contribute to a change in behavior. And for that to happen, somebody has to remember the message.

So I try not to sugarcoat it as as much as possible.

Eric, thanks for that.

And you make a really important distinction there because everything when it comes to human performance, and again, my background is more in sports medicine, is we always try to push athletes a little bit harder because when you do that, you're exactly right, you build, and sometimes mental resilience, you build physical resilience, you come back stronger. But sleep is that one area where there are no redeeming benefits of chronically, depriving yourself of sleep. So really appreciate that message. And I think it's really good to continue to promote this with Cruise.

Lindsay, I've really appreciated getting to know you. We've known each other for a few years now and just your innovative way to communicate with crews, to reach with them personally, and also share your life experiences because that is definitely a way of creating that psychological safety that you're so good at developing with the crews. But you've gone through some of your own experiences with burnout and you've shared that publicly and with your crews. But can you maybe elaborate on that and how that shaped you and your passion for this subject?

Yeah.

Earlier this year, and I think it had been a long time coming, I experienced what I can only describe as what I would say the lowest point in my life.

After surgery, I had some ongoing health issues as well as stress and burnout. And I felt like I had lost everything, my identity, my strength, my sense of purpose. And I was really struggling.

The weight of all of it was unbearable, but I made a decision that changed everything. I put my hand up and I asked for help, which is something that if anybody knows me, don't do.

I took a break and I went to a mental health and wellness facility, and it was one of the hardest things that I've ever done.

Although it was difficult, I found a lot of healing and clarity and tools to rebuild.

My cortisol levels were dangerously low and my immune system was starting to fail. My body was essentially shutting down. And the experience that I had going away and working on myself, I will say I feel like it saved my life.

As a safety professional, I've come to understand that true safety goes far beyond physical protection.

It includes psychological safety, emotional resilience and the courage to also speak up when things aren't Okay.

I share my story not for sympathy, but to be a voice for those who do feel alone in their struggle. I really truly want to help foster a culture where psychological safety isn't just a concept, but it is a lived experience where we can listen to understand and not to respond, and where we can truly support each other through the hard stuff and not just the highlights.

Mental health is not a weakness. It's part of our human experience.

And I think it's long overdue that we remove the stigma and advocate for better access to care and lead with compassion.

And I feel like if my journey can help even one person feel seen, heard or supported in a way that they needed it, then it was worth it.

So I guess I just want to make sure that we all continue to build cultures of care, connection and courage, because leadership starts with humanity.

I'd encourage other safety professionals to elevate the human element of safety.

A couple of things that I've really started focus and do are to be open, honest and vulnerable. And that was kind of my motto when I came back to work.

When I share my story, I hope and feel that it opens the door for others to share and do the same. And vulnerability isn't a weakness, it's a connection. And that's something that I'm starting to learn.

It builds trust, and trust is a foundation for psychological safety.

When we make mental health part of a conversation, especially a safety conversation, we're talking about PPE hazard controls. Why not talk about hydration and sleep and emotional strain? And if you're noticing a change in somebody, I treat mental readiness as part of capacity and part of our core capacity, because if somebody's not okay, then they're not safe.

And I really feel like it's time where we start shifting from compliance to compassion.

Burnout taught me that people don't need more rules, they need more care.

And I'm really trying to lead with empathy, ask deeper questions, listen without judgment. That's how we're going to uncover the real risks, the ones that aren't showing up on those checklists that we've built.

My struggles have given me a lot of clarity and revealed actions that I need to take, and not only take once, but continue to take.

It's like an onion. As you peel off the layer, there's more things under that, and you don't know what that's going to bring to the surface. But there's actions that I need to continue taking in my own life to keep myself not only physically, but also mentally and emotionally safe. And safety isn't just about preventing incidents or learning events as we're calling them. It's about protecting people. And when we center the human experience, we build cultures where people feel safe to speak up, to slow down and fully show up.

Lindsay, just on behalf of our audience, we're so grateful for you sharing your story and just providing us more insight in your journey. I think so many people are gonna be impacted by hearing that. And I think it really it almost gives us all permission to be able to look deep internally and maybe think about where we can do better when it comes to taking care of ourselves. It's kind of like that airplane mask analogy where you got to put your own mask on before you can help others. And so I think everyone is going to be encouraged by that. And it's a real call to action to be able to open our minds to think more holistically about the crews that we serve with. So thank you so much.

Well, we're going to follow-up here, and we have the contact information for both Lindsay and Doctor Eric. And they've both given permission for us to share that, and it's free to reach out to them if you have any additional questions. We're gonna be posting this conversation, as a recording, so you'll receive an email with that. And you can also find it on our website, Vimocity dot com slash events, and you can share that with others. If you scan this QR code, you can sign up so that you're on our mailing list so that each time we do one of these events, you can receive a notification for that.

And as I also mentioned, we're going to be following up with an email with some real practical resources that you can use tomorrow with your crews to talk about sleep fatigue and some of the other human aspects of serious injury and fatality prevention.

Well, Lindsay and Eric, thank you so much for your time. Thank you to the audience for joining us today, and we look forward to our next conversation.