Rethinking Safety: Clayton Kruger on What Really Works

In Part 2 of my interview with Clayton Kruger, we dive into his second book, The Reality of Safety, and explore what’s really happening in the Australian health and safety landscape.
Clayton shares why many safety systems fail in practice, the growing pressure on supervisors, and how the industry’s complexity is contributing to stalled—and sometimes declining—safety performance. More importantly, he offers practical solutions rooted in presence, trust, and genuine engagement with the people doing the work.
If you work in health & safety, this conversation is a powerful reminder that real safety isn’t built in boardrooms or binders—it’s built in the field.

🎧 Listen to Part 2 and rethink what “effective safety” truly looks like.

Transcript

Welcome to today's Podcast. My name is Pearly Brewer and I will be your host. Today's Podcast guest is very special in that our guest Clayton Kruger is from down under as they say from Australia. Welcome, Clayton. Nice to have you on our Podcast.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   0:38
Thank you, pearly. Good to be here.

Perley Brewer   0:41
So we're going to be doing 2 podcasts with Clayton because he has written not one, but two very interesting books on health and safety. His first book is called The Illusion of Safety, while his second is called the reality of safety. I've read both books and very highly recommend them to any health and safety professional.
Today's Podcast we're going to focus on this first book, The Illusion of Safety, so Clayton for people that haven't had the opportunity to read your books yet, tell us about your background in health and safety.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   1:09
Oh, look it it it goes way back about 35 years, 36 years coming up in 2026. I I cut my teeth in the offshore oil and gas industry. I went to my very first posting was to a an offshore Jack up rig on the northwest.
Coast of Western Australia as a roustabout. But I had a very, very keen interest in in safety and risk at that particular time. So I went off and did a number of courses that that translated into more formal qualifications later on.
And having done about 15 or 2520 years within the offshore oil and gas sector, I then moved naturally progressively into some management roles and and my career expanded from there, working for some blue chip companies.
And having spent time in possibly 25 or 26 countries over that over that period of time.

Perley Brewer   2:10
So where did the idea to write a book come from?

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   2:14
Well, it was sort of completely by accident. I was a a, a victim. Well, I I say lightly a victim of COVID in the fact that I was working for AI had a very senior position with a mining company in China, in Shaman in China.
And when COVID hit at the end of 2019, early 2020, I found myself having to leave China. Now, at that particular time, I couldn't go back to Australia because Australia weren't allowing any flights in from China at that time.
So completely by accident I had some friends that lived in Thailand and they said, clay, you can escape to Thailand. So I did exactly that. Escape to Thailand and then thought, well, what am I gonna do? So the very first thought I had was, OK. I can reinvigorate my consulting business because I'd worked as a consultant.
In the past, and in the meantime whilst I was developing what my consulting business was going to look like, I was often referring to a lot of old notes that I had and a lot of my files on my laptop and my external drives.
A lot of these stories were coming up and I was, you know, some of them were written down on a on a napkin. Some were written in a notepad, some were typed on. And, you know, in a Word document. And as as these notes and experiences started to come together.
So too did the concept of writing a book and turning that book into something, and then look the intention was never for it to be quite as controversial or as in the face to the safety industry as it as it was.
But you know the experiences that's reflected within the book is, you know, can can often be seen as a bit of a slap in the face for safety. And it got to a point after, you know, 3 1/2 four years that I had the makings of a book. And I thought this.
This needs to be told. These stories need to be told, and these experiences, and perhaps some of these views, also need to be told.

Perley Brewer   4:24
So if if you were given 5 minutes to do a prone with your book for anyone that has a chance to read it, go for it. What would you say?

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   4:34
OK, 5 minutes is a long time for a for for something that I spent five years working on. But look, it's it's.
It's waking people up, waking our profession up. I think it's it's a bit of a wake up call and I think in even in one of the introductions on the book it it says it it's a, it's a real wake up call for our profession, for businesses in general.
Regulatory authorities and and, you know, safety organizations, you know like in institutes of safety, etcetera, it's a wake up call in the context of we believe that we're doing the right thing. But I don't think we are.

Clayton's Notetaker (Otter.ai)   5:13
Yeah.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   5:17
Back in the 80s and 90s, the you know the curve of improvement, I guess for health and safety, you know incidents and and you know fatalities the the curve of of reduction.
Was quite considerable. Now introduce the 90s and the early 2000s and then the 2000 and 10s. And I've noticed 11 key element that was that was getting involved in what we were doing and it was more complexity, it was more systems, it was more.
Academia was becoming heavily involved in the early 2000s. Many, many papers being written and yet back in the 80s and 90s, safety was very, very simple.

Clayton's Notetaker (Otter.ai)   6:06
Yeah.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   6:06
In that it was from my perspective and you know I only joined in the 90s. So I I can only go on what I've read in the 1980s, but in the 90s it was very much about establishing relationships. It was very much about building trust with work crews. It was very much about.
You know, communicating different ideas and and understanding what risk was. But as you know, as each decade has passed, we've had, you know, the ISO standards become a a key focal point. We've had safety management systems become almost like the BLA.
And end all that was in the very early 2000s or late 1990s. And then we had academia coming in and sort of stirring up the pot a little bit and saying, no, you shouldn't be doing this. You should be looking at it this way, so I think.
I think we've become somewhat blinded to and, dare I say it, the basics of what really matters in the field because that look, that's where safety happens. It happens in the field. It happens at 2:00 in the morning when it's pouring down with rain. It's pitch black. You're on the middle of a.

Clayton's Notetaker (Otter.ai)   7:19
Yeah.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   7:21
You know you're on a drill ship in the middle of the South China Sea and you know you're working to a timeline. You're working to a budget. That's where real safety happens. So to understand those environments and the potential.
Pitfalls and challenges of of looking to systems looking to documentation, even to mitigate what can happen in those sorts of environments. So I think that's the mistake we're making. The other part of of what illusion does.
Is it also talks about the safety establishment and the establishment being, you know, the profession, the training organizations that the health and Safety Institute's regulatory authorities? It's it's become incredibly monetized.
And, you know, almost every year we see a a new brand or a new label or or or a new silver bullet that are all being monetized. So I think some of the focus has also been lost on what we really need to be doing and what our core intent and purpose is. And our core, our core purpose is to.
Safeguard lives in in either high risk, high risk environments or even non high risk environments. That's that's our purpose. So it's it's a wake up call around those. Those factors I think that was you know that that was the core reason.
For publishing illusion.

Perley Brewer   8:52
So I picked a few of many topics from your book that I'd like for you to comment on, starting with one about you. He's not your typical safety professional. He doesn't hide behind jargon, glossy frameworks, or PowerPoint slides. He's seen what works.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   9:01
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.

Perley Brewer   9:09
What doesn't? And the human cost when systems care more about appearances than people, his approach is grounded in presence, trust, and brutal honesty.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   9:19
Yes.

Perley Brewer   9:20
Comment. Comment.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   9:23
Exactly as you read my my best comment could be exactly as you read. You know I'm I'm working now. I I I obviously have my own consultancy and and we work all over the world. It doesn't matter who the client is, whether it's a AA20 man operation, you know, small manufacturing.
Business or engineering firm to a 1020 thousand employee tier one organization. If I see that metrics theatre and optics are taking preference over.
The safeguarding of lives at work, then I'll speak up and I'll call a spade a spade.

Perley Brewer   10:06
So another quote every story in his book comes from experiences, not theory. He walked through fatality investigations set across from grieving families, been chewed up and spat out by the system, and still kept showing up not because it was easy, but because someone had to fight for what's real.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   10:23
Correct. Once again, I I I think you know I was very careful with how I described my view of safety because look, I ran the risk of of alienating a lot of people than the industry. And I also ran the risk of of forcing my own opinion.
But look after 35, nearly 36 years, I have seen what works, and I have seen what doesn't work. One of the key, I guess, strategies for me is to always go out into the field and gather.
A real understanding as to how they see safety, how they see the organization applying safety. Now there's one thing that I can add to that in regard how I see safety particularly today is that we deny almost or are in denial that there is a.
Resistance to safety at the coalface and there is and it's because of the over engineering of systems. The constant barrage of every 5 minutes, there's a new poster on the wall. There's a new silver bullet. That's the companies paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for. Look, I've attended.
Courses from incredibly reputable and very large health and safety organizations. That and they've sold these courses or should I say these concepts into major organizations for millions of dollars.
And you know, I've I've sat through some of these courses and I've I've I've walked out at the end of day two or day three going. What was that exactly? You know what? What, what do I take away from that? How do I now apply that in the field? What does that mean to the guys that are facing critical risks every day?
And you know, hence the monetization of of our profession.

Perley Brewer   12:19
Safety safety is not a checklist. It's not a PowerPoint presentation. It's not a set of pristine regulations printed on glossy paper.
What is it?

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   12:29
Perley.
It's a conversation. It's having an understanding how risk is perceived, viewed and managed by those performing the work. Now, yes, I understand that safe work procedures and systems play a role. They absolutely play a role. There's no denying that. And I'll never deny.
That, but the conversations and the connection with the work that's actually being performed, that's as I said to you earlier before we got on onto the Podcast, that's where safety really happens, whether it's you know, successfully or detrimentally that's that's where it happens.

Perley Brewer   13:09
So another quote, and I'm sure this one would upset some people, is that I've seen systems that were beautifully designed on paper, Immaculate, the kind of procedures that win awards. They don't stand a chance, too slow, too complex, too theoretical. No one read them.
No one trusted them. And worst of all, they didn't know. Can you give an example from your many, many years of experience where you found that to be the real reality?

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   13:36
Yeah, of course. Look, I I think the best one is a is a general observation. When you look at and you know, let's drill it down to a safety management system. So the safety management system will have a number of elements. It'll have a policy if if it's lucky, it might even have a vision statement overarching.

Clayton's Notetaker (Otter.ai)   13:41
Yeah.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   13:56
And then you'll have multiple procedures that tell us how to do this and this and this. But let's have a think about it. Really. Where do these systems come from, who writes them? It's been a very, very long time and it's only been in recent years that I've begun to see.
People at the coalface contributing to these systems, writing these systems, writing these procedures 80% of the time, these systems are written for the organization to cover the organization's proverbial.
Bum, shall I say, and written for regulatory authorities, 99% of what is written is narrative, with potentially only one to 5% of being practical and and you know applyable.
Work processes that a work crew can actually use. We look at the complexities around a JSA now a JSA for me should have always been a very simple process. What am I doing? What could go wrong?
And what do I have available to me to to prevent what's going to go wrong? Now? It's an incredibly simple process, and yet for some of these very, very large oil and gas and mining companies, I've seen these processes expand into.
Something that's, you know, almost, almost difficult to describe. They've become that complex and that that complicated and it it's that over engineering where I find that's where the resistance comes from, you know, you you hand a welder or a scaffolder or a Boilermaker.
Procedure that's 28 pages long. What do you think his initial reaction's going to be? How do you think he's going to absorb? Sure, there's the compliance aspect. Yes, you must do this. Yes, you must do that. But is that the way to win and to achieve? Except.
Or safety performance. No it's not.

Perley Brewer   16:05
Toolbox talks certainly a key part of any health and safety program. The quote, the quote from your book. I started running every toolbox talk that way. No script, no fluff, just questions. Just honesty. And you know what? Crews responded. They showed up early to talk. They told stories. They shared ideas because.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   16:06
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Perley Brewer   16:24
Someone finally was listening.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   16:27
Correct. And that's what they want, that the the workers that I speak to, whether they're, you know, welders, scaffolders, laborers, cleaners, it doesn't matter, they, you know, any worker. And now we're now we're sort of getting into the deeper psychological side of of what people.
People want and how that can be affected by our approach to safety. But when they're asked questions and their answers are heard and more often acted upon, that's where safety. That's where the rubber really hits the road with regard to safety.

Clayton's Notetaker (Otter.ai)   17:01
Yeah.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   17:06
Look, I wouldn't turn up as an employee for some of these organizations as an advisor. When I was working offshore, I certainly wouldn't go out there with a handful of procedures or JSA forms most of the time, I wouldn't even take a notebook. It would simply be look, guys, I know that we're.
We're running drill pipe today or we're pulling out of the hole today. What are some of the potential concerns that you've got today for this operation? The weather's up the visibility's low. What else do you think?
We may need to look at as a team today and when you involve them on that level, when you include them, that you're not, you're not out there is to say, OK, this is the way you must do things. You know that there's always going to be some pushback, whether it's whether it's spoken pushback or silent.
Back, but it's actually the silent pushback. That's the one that you nearly need to worry about, because that's the one that you can't measure. And that's the one that you cannot deal with.

Perley Brewer   18:13
For the folks that follow LinkedIn, and certainly that's many folks today that work in a variety of professions, and certainly health and safety is one of them. You have a quote in your book, you learn safety by living it, not by accumulating certificates. And that's one, I'm sure probably some people read.
Well, would reading your book and whoa, what's a guy saying here?

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   18:38
Yeah, look and and I in all fairness and you know, humbly speaking, I I do have some very strong views with regard what academics and what education does to safety.
I I I guess it's like you know I I.
Compare the safety education arena to going to school. How many topics and how many lessons did we learn at school that we've never used again in life? My philosophy is and has been for a long, long time. Why aren't we teaching safety?
Real human based skills like communication, connection building, trust, how to build culture within a work group. Why aren't we teaching those sorts of skills? Why aren't we teaching confidence in speaking in large groups? I think I even posted something about that on LinkedIn only last week. Or the.
The week before so.
I didn't win a lot of friends on on LinkedIn as a result of some of those posts that that relate to that particular belief. Look qualifications are necessary. I won't deny that you must have a foundational beginning. You you must understand what risk is you must.
Understand what the control elements look like, their effectiveness, etc etc. But real safety today is far more than certificates. Look I see I'm on LinkedIn daily.
As a confession, I'm on there multiple times a day, some days, and I see so many safety professional that have got, you know, post nominals after their name longer than Elvis Presley's greatest hits, and I'm really wondering, OK.
That's great. And and I applaud you for going down that academic path and wanting to learn and wanting to understand. But my question to them is, look, how do you actually apply this in the field, you know, how do you apply a theory, how do you apply a paper?
How do you apply something you know that was developed by, you know, academics? How do you, how do you actually translate that into the field? So excuse me, I I do. I still to this day and I I don't think it'll change and I stand by it.
I don't believe necessarily that education and qualifications are the key to becoming an effective safety professional. I think the human element of safety really needs to take a front row seat.

Perley Brewer   21:31
Another quote don't confuse speed with progress. You cut corners. Now you pay later. Double later. Actually, if you were lucky.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   21:41
Yeah, absolutely. Timing and productivity pressures and we all know that we've seen an increase in that in a lot of organizations over the last decade. Everyone's becoming more competitive. There's a lot more pressure.
Leadership. Here's one topic we haven't really talked about yet that we may touch on later. But leadership are becoming less and less concerned about safety. It is more of a tick box for them, so they're driving productivity more and more and as a result of that.
Safety is suffering and people are taking shortcuts in order to get their bonus or in order to meet, you know, the the, the, the project timeline or the project budget. And you know I one of the one of the most remarkable men that I follow.
Well followed. He's passed, but Paul O'Neill, the ex CEO from Alcoa at his very first shareholder meeting as the new CEO of Alcoa, which is one of the performing organizations anywhere in the world at the time.
And within a couple of years, he then turned that into not only the safest organization, but also the most profitable. So it's examples like that where I see proof that when you focus on the human element and the safety element and the engagement, the trust, the cultural element of a business.
Everything else succeeds, but when you're pushing productivity, safety suffers, culture suffers, and now you know. Now look, now you're looking at psychological safety and psychological risk in the workplace. You know that that's become another sub industry itself. Another another monster.
That you know that businesses are having to deal with, so yeah.

Perley Brewer   23:34
So you just mentioned a topic, how do you really feel about psychological safety?

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   23:41
Look, it's real. It is. It is real, Perley. And I, I, I I give it that. But the problem I have with it and look once again, you know, for your listeners this is purely clay Krueger's opinion. I don't believe it's been rolled out, particularly in Australia. I don't believe it's been rolled.
Rolled out. Well, I think it's been one of those areas that's been more shoot from the hip than really giving it some thought. The legislation isn't mandated. The Code of practice is contradictory to the legislation and there are other.
Mechanisms that describe what should be happening in that space, and yet they all sort of contradict each other and look. And it's at this point that I do. I start feeling sorry for business leadership because they're having to deal with this whole other realm of potential problems within their organization.
And and you know once again and look for someone to be able to go off. Here's the classic example. And this is what gets under my skin and does get my blood boiling when someone can go off a health and safety professional junior, mid, mid and senior can go off and do a.
One day, psychological first aid course and then all of a sudden be deemed the person that that someone that's suffering a psychological issue can go and talk to. Now psychology as itself is an.
Probably complex science, and yet we we we've all. It's almost like we've dumped it down so that we can monetize all of these consultants. All of these training organizations, we've got new legislation now that you know people, the fines that are being introduced are over the top. So.
For me, there's more of a focus around monetization and and self a self-serving industry as opposed to look let let's let's really get to the pool, the core of the problem, what we're doing is we're putting a Band-Aid on an arterial blade, psychological Safety at Work is a.

Perley Brewer   25:48
Thank you.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   25:55
A societal issue? It's not a cultural issue, it's a societal issue that that can reveal itself in the workplace.

Perley Brewer   26:09
Another quote in your book and and this one I think probably hits to to a lot of people what people think when they they will get away with based on what they have seen. Others get away with.
That's a real issue and a real problem, isn't it?

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   26:21
But.
Yeah, look, it is it is because and I I think one of the culprits here is the over engineering of systems in the over you know the overzealousness of safety in itself within a business.
Getting away with not having to use a procedure or not. You know, I I remember seeing a system Once Upon a time for a for a very large company in the in the European sector and they had a, a, a drilling, a drilling.
Sort of department, mostly a maritime organization and they had a system, a safety management system that was 17 volumes in size. And I'm talking about those big ring binders. You know, those 3 ring binder volumes, 17.

Perley Brewer   27:09
Mm-hmm.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   27:12
Four of which four of which were to tell you how to use and how to find things in the other 13. Now. I'm sorry. Look, even as a ship's captain, as as a as a tool pusher. As a drilling Superintendent.

Perley Brewer   27:20
Wow.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   27:29
Or or an oim on an offshore or installation. Having a having a system whereby 4 volumes tell you how to use the other 13 or sorry three to tell you how to use the other 14. It's just asking for shortcuts and asking for trouble.

Perley Brewer   27:48
People don't resist safety. They resist being ignored when they feel seen, they engage. When they feel respected, they participate.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   27:57
Absolutely, absolutely there there's, there's one saying and one saying that I've used many, many times make a person feel heard and valued and they will deliver to you far beyond expectation every single time.
So a real world of a real world example of that, a mining crew, they were having some real problems with some of their PPE, their gloves, their safety glasses and they spoke up and it went through a process that took.
That crew, about 5 1/2 months before they actually saw the equipment that they needed. Now you know, being heard isn't just. Look, I'm speaking. I want you to hear the words I'm saying. Being heard also means, hey, look. Where as as a.
Crew, we've got a problem. We're we're having a problem with what you're providing us as an organization.
So the bureaucracy, the red tape. Excuse me, that that stops people from speaking up. It's like, oh, well, you know, and and the number of times that I've gone to organize ages and I and and I I think one of the.
One of the key strategies that I like to use when I go to an organization is that I don't go in there with all the solutions. I don't go in there with a Rolex watching a shiny suit, briefcase and.
I go in there with a set of steel caps on and some high VIS and have some conversations at the coalface and I say look, guys, I'm just as miffed and disheveled about safety as probably you are. So let's have some real conversations. Where are the real challenges that you're having?
Within the organization and the fact that they can be heard to, to be honest, you know, nine times out of 10 people are not allowed to be honest because it's going against the company status quo or it's going against their manager or their supervisor or even, you know, worse still, the CEO of the company.

Perley Brewer   29:57
Yeah.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   30:15
So we've got to give them an audience. We've got to open up those channels of communication that they can actually speak the truth and look, it doesn't even necessarily have to be their truth. It can just be the truth about what's going on in the organization and what safety are doing or are not doing what leadership.
Are doing and are not doing and a lot of this is revealed also with some of the work that I'm doing in the cultural sort of understanding. And I'm not. I don't like to use cultural assessment because I'm not grading an organization against a score, but I'm trying to understand where their cultural.
Really sits and when you have some meaningful and open and honest conversations with people at the coalface, you do you, you get to the core of what's going on.

Perley Brewer   31:05
Now one of my favorite quotes from your book to talk to be present. I didn't hide in the office or behind the screen sending memos I showed up. I stood in the sun and I asked. Excuse me.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   31:15
Yeah.

Perley Brewer   31:22
May I ask for you?
You.
Start. Excuse me. Start that one over again.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   31:33
You're you're. You're OK. Perley. Do you want to have another drink?

Perley Brewer   31:39
To talk, to be present. I didn't hide in the office or behind the screen, sending memos I showed up. I stood in the sun. I asked real questions. I let people vent, and I didn't interrupt.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   31:53
Yeah, I I and look to this day, Perley, I I miss those days. I miss having those conversations. I miss standing in the sun. I miss standing up on the drill floor, you know, leaning away from the guys you know, hanging onto a yellow handrail.

Perley Brewer   32:04
Yeah.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   32:08
I miss asking those stupid questions cuz I didn't know much back then. I didn't know much when I first started and look, I'm not a tradesperson, but I talk to trades people. I want to understand what they do. I want to understand the challenges they have. The more I can.
Understand what they do and who they are and what they experience every day. The better equipped and informed I can be for them. So when they're coming up against a roadblock or a speed hump that's preventing them from doing something a certain way, that look may.
May be more productive. It may save the the the company money. It may make an operation safer, but just being present you know, I I I deal with a lot of I I deal with a lot of very, very senior HSE people in the Middle East at the moment and.
95% of their time is sitting at their desk behind their laptop, and I've asked this question of many of them. When was the last time you spent an entire day out in the workshop or offshore? A lot of them can't tell me you know, that they. Oh God, it was a few months ago.
Being present is massive because it shows that you don't only care about what's going on in their work environment. It does demonstrate that the company also cares. So if the company are loading me up as the HSE manager or the V.
Of HSE with documentation, optics, metrics, procedures, systems at what point can I then actually go out and get a view of what's really going on or a snapshot as to what's really going on? Sure, I've got HSE advisors out there all the time, but.
You know that they're there to serve a purpose. They're they're there to, you know, to have a have an eyes view of what's going on all the time. But being present means being present at every single level, whether you, the VP or whether you're, you know, a first year HSE.
Coordinator or advisor being present and just watching and listening and asking questions and there is no question. That's a stupid question. These guys, they like to talk about what they're doing because what that does, it opens a doorway, it opens them up to be able to say.
Oh yeah, by the way, we've been doing it this way for a long time because we haven't received the new equipment that we've ordered. We've recommended this equipment, but it's fallen on deaf ears. It's it's those conversations that reveal so much.

Perley Brewer   35:05
When you talk about health and safety professionals and the need for them to be present, what about supervisors? One of the things I see in this part of the country is is a lot of supervisors that I had that I'm come in contact with and teach at workshops are continually saying to me that they're getting more and more burdened with the same kinds of.
Things that you just mentioned for health and safety people, mentors and and procedures and paperwork on on various aspects. What's your comment there when it comes to supervisors being present?

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   35:27
Yeah.
Yeah.
Look, I I I sympathize with supervisors, particularly today, and I hold regulatory authorities to a lot of accountability on this particular issue because they're forcing organizations to.
Excuse me? They're forcing these organizations and painting these business leadership into a corner to say, look, if you don't do this or you must do this, you shall do this, and you shall do that. So the status quo is your systems must expand, not evolve. And that's another problem.
We can talk about another time, but systems are continually expanding. They're not evolving, so regulatory authorities now are placing such demands on businesses. So and what they're doing is they are demanding that supervisors take.
Possibility.
In accountability for certain components of these new regulations or the systems etc. So look, I understand their frustration and I also hear their frustration all the time. They're caught between a rock and a hard place. They're the middleman.
Really, the meat and the sandwich between company management and the workforce and the coalface. So they have an incredibly challenging balancing act and that balancing act isn't just managing productivity, it's also being supported or working alongside the safety team or the safety.
Manager in bringing those work groups along for that journey and saying, look, we've got all of this stuff, that we've got to do now we've got additional procedures for this. So look, my heart really does go out to a lot of supervisors and I don't think organizations.
Are spending enough time to set them up for success? I really don't. They're giving them the title of supervisor and all of the expectations are based on productivity and sorry, purely the final point, there is also safety performance, so they're burdening them with all of these.

Perley Brewer   37:42
So.
Yeah.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   37:51
Additional safety metrics, optics and and theatre. And yet, if safety performance suffers, they also get penalized, so you know.

Perley Brewer   38:01
You use the term. Excuse me? You use the term in your book. The plateau effect. Can you explain what you mean and and what the plateau effect is?

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   38:06
Yeah.
Yep, around 2000 and 2015, we started to see and I I, I do have a chart I posted a chart on LinkedIn some time ago that, that, that should have showed the the you know, a visual representation, but in.
Between 2015 and 2018, particularly in Australia and and this was obviously the region that I was focused on at the time, we saw, you know, as we as we started out, you know, we saw this massive decline in in serious injuries and fatalities in the 80s and 90s and then.
You know, as the 90s progressed, we started seeing this plateau effect and the plateau is the the the performance now around serious injuries and fatalities is nowhere near what it used to be and now.
In some industry sectors, that plateau effect is not is not a plateau anymore. It hasn't flattened out. In some industries like construction, mining.
Healthcare particularly, we're now we're we're now seeing an increase in those in those statistics or in those incident rates. So look as as a profession, we've been around for a long time, we've been around 40 or 50 years.
But it's only really been in the last 30 to 3540 years that we've really started to make a difference. We have all of this knowledge, we have all of this data, all of these academics working on all of these theories and processes. So my question is, and this I guess this is the pent ultimate question of illusion.
Why aren't we improving? Why aren't we getting any better? Because in some industries we're not. We we we've now gone past that plateau where in some instances we're now we're now seeing an increase. Why, what what are we doing wrong?
So illusion illusion is really sort of wanting to maybe open peoples eyes to, hey, we're we're not getting it right. We're not doing things that we need to be doing. We're not. We're not embracing some of the basics that worked back in the 80s and 90s. We're we're getting science more involved. We're getting complexity.
More involved. We're getting bureaucracy more involved and and what's the effect that it's having? It's having a detrimental effect.

Perley Brewer   40:33
Well, look Clayton, that summary is in that you just gave I think is a great way to finish up today's Podcast and of course a bit of a tease for our upcoming Podcast, the reality of safety. Your second book, just as a you know, a couple of comments that what are you going to?

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   40:40
Thank you.
Yes.

Perley Brewer   40:52
I want to talk about in your second Podcast. As far as the reality of safety.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   40:58
I I think I was a little bit almost insulting, potentially illusion was was was was possibly insulting to some not not not many, but certainly some.
So I thought, look, I really need to follow. I really needed to follow illusion up with instead of just identifying a problem as a lot of business leaders that say in this day and age don't come to me with a problem. Come to me with a solution. So I wanted to create the reality of safety as.
The solution to what was identified in the illusion of safety.

Perley Brewer   41:36
Well, look Clayton, I really enjoyed your book. I think when you summarized your book great at start of our Podcast and you said it's it's illusion of safety that we all think everything is wonderful when the reality is it's it's not. There's there's so much to be done.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   41:48
Yeah.

Perley Brewer   41:53
And I enjoyed your book. You were open. You were honest. You put a lot out there for people to think about whether or not they always agree. It's it's always good to make people think so. Thank you very much for writing the two books today. Of course, it was the illusion of safety.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   41:53
Correct.
Certainly. Thank you.

Perley Brewer   42:11
And we will talk in our an upcoming Podcast about your second book, the reality of safety. So again, thank you very much. As far as a wrap up, as always, we'd like to thank our listeners for listening today's Podcast. Stay safe.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   42:17
Excellent.
Thanks so much Perley.

Perley Brewer   42:27
Have a good week and make sure you tune in for part two of our interview with Clayton Kruger, who's written two books. And by the way, I guess before we we sort of really wrap this up, how can someone get a hold of a copy of your book?

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   42:41
They can go to my website and if they click on the home page there's a drop down menu and there's the illusion of safety and the reality of safety. Two separate pages and they can download both of them for free.

Perley Brewer   42:54
So if you're a health and safety professional, check them out. So worth to read. Thank you very much. Take care.

Clayton Kruger | Safety Consulting Group   43:00
Thank you.