Mr. Thanmai Deekshith, CEO and Founder of SafetyConnect, recently attended the Safety Leadership Conference hosted by EHS Today in Orlando, USA from September 18th to 20th, 2023.
The Safety Leadership Conference serves as a prime hub for exchanging the most recent developments in workplace safety, along with insightful teachings, case studies, and best practices. The attendees were educated by renowned industry experts and officials from America's Safest Companies on how to cultivate and maintain a robust safety culture.
The objective of the conference was to help safety professionals -
- Learn how to encourage best practices in their workplace
- Discover how to implement transformational safety leadership within their own company
- Acquire OSHA compliance guidance
- Improve their knowledge of plant floor safety technology
- Understand the key elements of a world-class safety program
Dr. Ben Andrew, CSP, CIT, Vice President of Occupational Health and Safety at NFI Industries; Richard Fulwiler, President & Instructor at Harvard School of Public Health; and Stephen Jenkins, Director of Safety & Health at Cintas Corporation, were the keynote speakers of the event.
In his keynote address, ‘Mission I’m Possible: Rethinking the Significance of Individual Impact for Greater Outcomes in EHS’, Dr. Andrew delved into strategies aimed at advancing contemporary safety leadership forward. Leveraging his role as the Vice President of Health and Safety at one of the largest privately-held logistics companies in the U.S., he discussed a refined approach to worker safety and overall safety culture.
During the session on "Aligning Transformational Safety Leadership with Corporate Culture," Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Fulwiler collaborated to introduce the audience to the concept of transformational safety leadership (TSL). They emphasized TSL's key role in energizing the workforce and achieving EHS excellence, covering aspects like understanding corporate culture, integrating TSL, and aligning it for success.
Other speakers included Caleb Baker, Operations Safety Coordinator at Kimberly-Clark, Ogden Facility; Andrena Burd, Assistant Vice President of Risk Management at Chesapeake Utilities Corporation; Greg Pass, Director of Safety at YKK Corporation of America; and Rod Courtney, HSE Manager at Ampirical.
‘Enhancing a Safety Culture through Business Transformation and Risk Management’, ‘Rebuilding Safety Culture on the Fly: How Compass Group’s Safety Team Leveraged Technology to Drive Post-Pandemic Recovery’, ‘Predicting Occupational Fatalities: The Common Fatality Factors’, and ‘Work Smarter and Safer: 3 AI-Powered Metrics Your Organization Can Use Today’ were some of the other key sessions of the conference.
While the event provided profound insights into various aspects of transformational leadership and workplace safety, one aspect that particularly stood out was the importance of adopting AI in all aspects of safety, starting from:
- Intelligent data capture through AI-powered connected devices.
- AI-enabled process safety.
- Integrated view from multiple software tools and programs.
- AI-based predictions to prevent incidents and highlight risks.
The conference also announced the 10 winners of the competition, America’s Safest Companies, in order ‘to identify those characteristics that differentiate good safety programs from great ones, and to then celebrate the best practices and procedures that exemplify safety excellence.’
The event was undoubtedly a success, offering valuable insights into the prevailing EHS landscape in the U.S. It served as an excellent platform for forging meaningful connections within the industry. Additionally, for SafetyConnect, a company dedicated to revolutionizing driving safety and workplace safety, the event provided an invaluable opportunity to engage with key stakeholders shaping the safety narrative and learn from the best.
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