Takeaways from the 2018 National Safety Council Congress & Expo

Shortly after Anvl’s public launch, we had our live and in person debut at the National Safety Council’s Congress & Expo in Houston, Texas. The ANVL team was able to connect with and meet hundreds of safety’s brightest individuals at the booth, at the event, and during sessions.

Top 3 Takeaways

1. The safety industry is hungry to evolve

We all knew from the data, but it was confirmed in Corrie Pitzer’s keynote on Tuesday, October 23rd, today’s safety numbers, and recordables are hitting a wall. The practices and policies put in place helped to drive down safety issues significantly in the past, but we still have a plateau that we just can’t break through using those old methods and tools.

Pitzer argued that there are three eras of safety. In “Safety 1”, he argues we paralyzed people with protection. It was too heavy and they couldn’t be effective, efficient, or safe.

In “Safety 2”, we started focusing on the new view of safety. Pitzer argues we are on the precipice of safety 2 today, but that it requires cultural change.

 

He went on to argue the value of challenging thinking at all levels of the organization, which maps directly to Anvl’s view on empowering the frontline worker to drive cultural, organizational, and safety change.

Pitzer took the room into the future, too, with a look at Safety 3, where we are able to build resilient cultures with invisible safety.

Anvl’s debut of a workforce-first, next-generational safety software solution is a tool that helps bring companies into Safety 2 today and shepherds them into Safety 3 in the future.

2. Safety is a cross-functional need.

Just like businesses are learning today about security needing to be everyone’s job, safety is another role that has to transition from a silo-ed business unit into everyone’s job in order to drive change.

We spoke with operational leaders, safety leaders, business leaders, financial leaders, and each business that was undergoing an evolution into next-generation safety understood the need for buy-in from everyone, from the front-line through the technology organization, through the operational organization, to the head of the business.

Great companies recognize that being the best in safety keeps workers safe, engaged, and working on your core products and keeping you innovative.

3. Drive your safety organization forward when you test with innovative partners

The NSC expo floor, the Campbell Institute sessions, Executive Forums, and the general talk at the conference encouraged safety leaders to experiment, test, pilot and embrace innovation through trial and error.  

Challenge your team, and yourself to step out of your traditional methods and look to new approaches to solve problems that you can pilot with innovative partners.

It’s going to be an exciting ride over the next several years of safety innovation and technology fast-forwards the drive forward and opens up numerous possibilities.

Did you attend NSC Congress & Expo? What did you see that excited you about the future of safety? Let us know at info@anvl.com.