The Zero Code for Safety

Shaun: Welcome to this edition of the British Safety Council podcast Health and Safety Uncut.

I'm delighted today to be joined by Rob Doyle. Rob Doyle is a Group Health, Safety and Insurance Director at Amey where he provides strategic leadership across health, safety and assurance within the Amey group of companies.

Rob's responsible for setting and governing enterprise-wide health, safety and assurance strategy, ensuring robust risk management, regulatory compliance and continual improvement across complex, high hazard operational consulting environments.

He's led major programmes to modernise management systems, simplify assurance activity and embed positive safety culture through behavioural frameworks, the focus on real world decision making and leadership behaviours.

Rob’s a strong advocate for digital transformation in his field, championing the use of data, dashboards and emerging technologies to improve visibility, predict risk management and strengthen learning from incidents.

In addition to his corporate role, Rob frequently represents Amey through industry bodies and contributes to thought leadership on safety, culture, operational excellence and assurance maturity.

Great to have you here, Rob. Thank you for finding the time to be with us and, and we're really looking forward to hearing a little bit more about you and the work at Amey.

Before we get into that, can we start by asking what does health and safety or risk more broadly mean to you?

Rob: Yeah, thank you, Shaun.

For me really safety and health isn't just a rule book. You know, it's not just about compliance exercises. It really is about people full stop, right? So, people are at the heart and should be at the heart of everything we do with safety.

Ultimately, it's about whether or not somebody goes home safe and well at the end of every day. So, they turn up for work both physically and mentally sound, if you like, they go home at the end of that day in that same condition.

Where it really started for me, so if I backtrack, probably 20 odd years ago as I came into safety, I always remember a conference and the speaker there, he put a statement out and, and this statement really resonated with me. That statement really was around injury is not inevitable and risks are hard to manage. That gave me a bit of a dilemma, right?

So, it's, I'm just starting out in safety, I had to do a lot of soul searching at that point. I had to really think around that really hard, did I truly believe that injury is not inevitable Question #1. After soul searching, yes, I think it is, it's not inevitable. And then attached to that can we manage risks consistently all of the time? I think we can.

So, then the other question I had, it was a personal question for me starting out on my safety journey. Have I got the appetite, and have I really got the foresight? Can I give something, right, to this really important subject? And the answer to that was yes, I think I had the aptitude, I think I had the energy, which is really, really important.

What's really important as well is not just standing still and not relying on rules, regulations, they are really, really important. But what more can safety bring? And that really is around the people element, which is really strong in everything I believe in.

We all also have to remember risks and risk is everywhere in life, it's not just at work. So, the real question for me as well is how we understand risk and how we talk about it, you know, how do we simplify that dialect, if you like, or that narrative around risk? And I think the moment health and safety becomes detached from real life or it's something that's actually done to people, it stops working, it doesn't work.

At its best, I believe that, you know, it's really about enabling people to do great work safely, with confidence and with the space to speak up and something doesn't quite fit right that that is really, really important.

And again, there's a leadership challenge in there as well. So, for leaders, it's really about how we as an organisation equip our leaders with the right skills. And what drives that is that initial response when something doesn't quite go right, and if that response is negative, you will probably stop hearing about safety or things that have gone wrong in the workplace, and then you become blind to safety. So, that's really what it means to me.

Shaun: Great, and what about Amey then?

So, Amey is a major player in the infrastructure sector, one of the most complex and high-risk sectors in the UK. Can you tell us a bit about how Amey approaches health and safety? What their philosophies are? How you manage up and down that scale from operating a heavy machinery to working confined spaces to office work?

What's your and the organisation's thoughts, views, approaches on safety, health and wellbeing?

Rob: So again, that's a challenge, you know, but also where there's challenge, there's opportunity. And the opportunity for Amey because we are such a complex organisation working in many different environments, it's actually learning from lessons.

So, we've got different business sectors, we can take the good from each of those business sectors, and we can really learn from that and try and deploy into the business sectors. I think at Amey we've got people working on motorways as you alluded to, rail, defence estates, prisons, complex consultancy, confined spaces, we operate in live traffic, we operate adjacent to heavy plants, all very different risks.

So, what we have to recognise is one size doesn't fit all, OK. We've actually got thousands of people turn up for work every single day delivering our work to the best of our ability and work which works for our clients also. So, in that we have a huge responsibility to protect our people with absolute clarity and conviction.

What we're really focused on, to try and sort of distil that, we're really focused on having clear fundamentals and flexibility in our application. So, what we actually do, we set strong core standards around leadership and behaviour, decision making and risk ownership. And then we allow teams to apply that in a way which makes sense for their environment.

And this brings me onto a term I’ll often use, it's called “work as imagined, work as done”. So, my team, you know, we set the direction of travel, safety practitioners in the business, set the direction of travel that's work as imagined. If we don't get that right, often when you start talking about workers who don't know what happens at the coalface, it can be very, very different.

So, you need to have that agility the further you get into the business. And I think the more rigid systems are and processes are all the way through the business, as they sort of permeate into you know a large complex organisation, such as Amey, that can often be missed and then those systems may not work as intended. So, it's actually counterproductive.

Shaun: Actually, and as a profession, generalising here, but as a profession, we can be a bit purist in thinking you just have the system, the policy, the procedure, and that's enough.

I've never heard it coined as “work as imagined, work as done”. But I like that because it's great to kind of think I'm going to write a compliance standard, I'm going to think about 45001 or a particular way of doing something but what's it like when it lands at the operational end? And is that going to be done in the way that we think it should be or could be done?

Rob: Yeah, and you know, really you're wholly reliant on your management chains all the way through the business. Supervisors are super important at that level. You know, you think about culture, I guess within any business you'll have subcultures at contract level all the way up to, you know, through sectors etcetera, etcetera. So, it's only right that we actually recognise that.

And again, that comes back to, you know, safety being about people. You know, we need processes, we need procedures and policies to set the standard and direction of travel. But we can't ignore the fundamental sort of, not challenge, I think the fundamental bedrock to everything we're doing, it's about people.

Shaun: Well, I think it is fair. I think it is both challenge and opportunity and all, everything that's all rolled into one, right?

Because I think back to my time in construction and one of the one of the things that used to infuriate me, for want to a better expression, was the standard “Oh, it's on the Intranet”. I mean, if you are, you know, a guy or a girl on the end of a jackhammer or a dump, you've not got an intranet, you've not got that with you.

So how do you take key messaging out there? How do you empower your supervisors and managers to be equipped to have safety conversations and prioritise things? So I totally, I totally understand where you're coming from and, and totally agree with that point.

OK, so building on that previous point that we made then about standards, policies, frameworks, etcetera, I've been impressed with what I read about Amey’s zero code framework.

Can you tell us a bit more about that please, why that's important to you and what you actually do with that?

Rob: So, yeah, Zero Code's really important. It builds on that, you know, the people element, what we've just discussed, you know, for me, Zero Code's not a rulebook. You know, we didn't set it out to be a rulebook. You know, it really is a behavioural framework.

What we actually did, we had a previous strategy called Target Zero, but Target Zero then started to feel that it's becoming more of the destiny, it's honed in on zero harm, you know, and that level of thinking of that, that period in time, a lot of organisations are going that route.

So, we actually moved away from slogans, and we moved towards something much simpler, you know, and the real question there for me is how do we expect people in Amey to behave when it comes to safety?

And again, it comes back to, if safety is detached from everything we do, it will never flow through our, you know, through our work delivery.

So, all Zero Code actually does, it sets out a small number of clear ,non-negotiable behaviours, things like stopping work when it's unsafe, effectively is being psychologically safe.

That then sort of gives us learning, not blaming. It actually involves the workforce, which is really key, you know. So, it's not just about listening to people, it's about getting them involved from the early adoption or creation of what we did with Zero Code.

And it's really putting wellbeing on the same footing as physical safety. You know, so if we go back to things like the, the Bradley curve, right? And so, we go from a sort of a reactive state to an independent state, the whole philosophy is you get to zero, you get zero harm. If you then overlay that with a 100m runner, that 100m runner will not run 100 meters to smash through that that finishing line. They'll run 120 meters to smash through that finishing line.

And that's where wellbeing comes in, so, the two are intrinsically linked. Without good wellbeing, you can't have good safety in my mind.

And again, back to the point, this is not about chasing zero as a number. And there's been lots of debate in the safety community about zero and can we get there? And, you know, we're pushing people to get to zero, and that becomes the overriding principle.

Shaun: And behaviours that might drive and issues, challenges around reporting, underreporting, focus, etcetera.

Rob: Yeah, so, it's and that we didn't want to set out like that.

We felt there was a need to keep zero in the framework, but really it's about us setting a clear sort of moral sort of moral position, if you like, on harm and empowering people to act accordingly. Where zero comes in, it's zero compromise in its use of Zero Code. That's where that zero comes in.

It is actually driving us to our ambition of getting everybody home safe and well every day. I think that's ultimately what any company sets out to do. We're not there yet, I don't, I'm not sure if any company's there, but if there is, I'd be interested to see, to understand and learn from those companies how they're driving their, you know, performance and their culture as well.

And I guess for me, the ultimate thing with Zero Code and it comes back to being psychologically safe. So, if we went out to our workforce and we spoke to our workforce about being psychologically safe, the conversation then stems around what is being psychologically safe? So, you actually lose focus on what we're actually trying to achieve.

So, at the centre of Zero Code, we've got what, what we call a shout out button. And this is a big red button. You can't miss it, right?

So, the impact of that is that we allow anybody and we encourage anybody in our business, when things feel that they're not quite right, feeling unsafe or see unsafe behaviours, they can push that big red button, they can stop what they're doing. They can have that conversation with a supervisor, the leader, the people manager, whoever they need to have that conversation with. And they will be fully supported in stopping that work. They have the opportunity, if you like, not to start work until I feel safe and we will fully endorse that. And that stems from CEO all the way through our leadership and management chains.

Shaun: And without putting you on the spot, I'm going to ask you the question though. It all philosophically and model wise sounds amazing, just sound amazing but is it actually used? Do people actually use it? Do they feel empowered to use it? Do they, if we were to kind of go into Amey now, could you point out, you know, half a dozen people who've, who've used it? Or is it still in its conceptual phase?

And I'm not pointing any fingers; I'm just interested because I think it's a big leap to go from the concept to the actuality of something like that.

Rob: And I've got confidence that it's being used. I think that the secret is its simplicity of use.

But when we set out the frameworks a number of years ago now, the framework is really, and the brand of Zero Code is really, really, really strong in the business. But then you don't stop, right? You can't stop. You've got to keep challenging the norm.

So about 18 months ago, we sort of bought a well-respected consultant organisation into the business to really test those norms and really test how it's actually applied, you know, through our business. What that organisation actually did was come in and interviewed 500 people across the whole business, all management chains, all the way down to people actually sort of delivering work, you know, on the front line, if you like.

What that did, so again, when we set out frameworks, it comes back to that “work as imagined, work as done”. So, you need to get from safety telling to safety doing, which I think is the point you're making.

What we found is generally the system was being used, or the framework, it wasn't a system, the framework was been used. But we found that in pockets of the business, there's certain parts of confusion. So how do you get from our sort of core values safety first always through to Zero Code through to, you know, getting everybody home safe and well every day in a complex organization where things mean different things to different people depending where you sit in the business.

And what we found is that linkage was potentially missing. So, we then went back and looked through Zero Code and what we started questioning ourselves on was the why? So, we got the what, the Zero Code, everybody knows what they should be doing.

But what's the why? You know, what's in it for me? How can I get up in the morning and go to work, deliver the work package that I have to deliver? But also think about safety in a joined-up way. So, safety is not separate.

So, we thought quite hard and deep on this and then we thought what was the best way of creating that, that why? What's in it for me? And then what we found is quite interesting. So, what we found is that, you know, we live in a, we work in a highly complex sort of organisation, high-risk environments, etcetera.

What we found is that the why has to be extended beyond a person who might have an injury or has to get the work out, you know, so really what does that mean? So, we started looking at the knock-on effects, or the ripple effects as I like to call them.

So, if somebody has an incident, first, it's how we respond to that as a leadership team. But what are those real sort of ripple effects? And usually they effect family, they effect friends, colleagues, notwithstanding that maybe the injury the individuals had.

So, we started looking at it in that context. And then what we did is we produce a comms strategy based around that. And we introduced something that we call “real people, real stories”. Now the interesting thing with “real people, real stories”, we actually went out to our business and we asked people to volunteer to tell their story and what that effect was on their families.

That had a profound effect on the business. And I think the real genuine part of that, the reality was that it was highly transferable messaging is highly relatable to our workforce, which is really, really important. I think in addition to that, we're very strong on leadership in Amey and we undertake it as I guess a number of organisations will do, we undertake what we call employee engagement visits or leadership visits. I go out a lot, as I know all my senior colleagues go out a lot, and all our leadership teams go out a lot.

The question I always ask, and I always look for is, I don't ask the question “what is Zero Code?” I try getting to understanding of you know that into the psyche, you know what people are actually talking about. So, I'll ask a question, very simple, “what does safety mean to you? How can we ensure that you go home safe and well every day?” And I think by just by crafting those discussions or that narrative slightly differently, you're not getting that binary answer of “is there a code” or something that's “it's on your PPE”. Yeah, you get a real view.

Shaun: Yeah, you get more of what it means to them rather than what it says to them, right. Yeah, that's a different thing. So, it transitions it from being a brand or a poster on a wall or something on your PPE to actually the “so what” element? “What does it mean to me? How am I going to apply it?”

Rob: Yeah that's fundamentally what it’s all about.

Shaun: Yeah, when I introduced you, we talked about your being an advocate for digital transformation and the use of data, AI etcetera. What are you doing in that space in Amey in terms of are you using AI or new technologies in the safety, health and wellbeing space?

Rob: Yes, we are. I think as you say, I'm a huge advocate for technology. I think it has a place. I think a caveat to that; it can be dangerous if you're using in isolation. You know, if we use AI, and we are using AI quite a lot in Amey, we've invested quite heavily in AI as I guess any other large organisation has. For me, AI does have a place.

It starts with a vision, right? So, my vision is if we can predict incidents or accidents or events before they happen, that's got to be a good place to go, right? But again, it comes with that caveat that if you wholly rely on AI technology to get you there, it's very, very dangerous. So, with Amey, what we're doing, you know, for me it's not about using technology to over complicate safety. It's about ensuring that we focus on people, not the paperwork.

And that's notwithstanding that we've got solid frameworks around policies and processes.

Shaun: And, you know, but I think those things kind of, sorry to cut you off there, but those things are just considered the norm, right. If you go back, you know, if you go back a number of years, the more progressive companies were putting in place systems standards, policy procedures, frameworks, ISO standards, etcetera.

I think now certainly when I think back to my time in construction as well, that was a given. You weren't going to get any brownie points in inverted commas for that because it was expected that you'd have those things in place. I think that's just what you're saying that you've seen that and now it's you're moving on to the next kind of level.

Rob: It's a next level, yeah. It's evolution, it's not revolution as far as I can see, in my mind anyway. But I think it's about making things easier rather than over complicating things. We're using data, we are using dashboards and we are using AI just to identify trends, predict risk as well, which I mentioned earlier.

And really focusing attention where it actually matters, not drowning people in numbers, you know, so I've always got in my mind that we can often, the safety practitioners, look at risk and we sort of look at that risk across a business in a world such as Amey, a very complex organisation, that can be quite dangerous.

So, we might have specific risks in one area and not another area. And if we broad brush that we might be getting that wrong. And then that again brings you back to “safety telling versus safety doing”. So, for me, you know what that really means, for frontline teams, it means clearer insight. If we can give clearer insight to our frontline teams, picking up on the point you made there around procedures, you know, so if we got somebody working on a rail network at half six in the morning and on Monday morning and the weather conditions are particularly poor, you're absolutely right, they're not going to get a policy out. They're not going to get a procedure out. They're going to rely on experience, what the supervisor tells and the sort of briefings I had before that shift starts.

What AI can give us is, and not just AI but technology can give us, those means of clear insight, earlier intervention as well. So, it's more dynamic in that respect.

And it actually drives, again, if you get it right, it actually drives better conversations, drives more informed conversations rather than, I think we've all seen it when we go out to site, sometimes people listen and absorb information. The sort of, the site induction is written sort of concept, but there's very little room for discussion or genuine conversation, I would call it.

So again, that then brings you back to the supervisor. So, if you're supervisor, you can see those emerging risks and that, before someone gets hurt, that's where technology is doing its job. Again, come back to that caveat, and I know I’ve repeated it a couple of times but it can be dangerous if you're using it in isolation. The reason I repeat that is because it's so important. I don't apologise for repeating that. I think we need to just make sure we get that. Absolutely.

Shaun: I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet on it recently around the use of AI in terms of the risk of deskilling people.

So, when I think back to what you used to do, if you wanted to research or read up on a particular issue, you would get maybe a paper on something, or you'd look on a website or you'd talk to people and you'd formulate your own opinion on things. I think AI and particularly the use of things like copilot, ChatGPT, etcetera, have got a really important role in in informing that.

But I think when the go to is just “tell me my point of view on this” and you go straight to one of these engines. I think if we're not mindful of it, you run the risk of deskilling people and not being able to kind of develop your own thinking and your own point of view. And I've seen it increasing, I would say in the last probably 18 months where when I'm talking to colleagues the go to of “oh, I’ll see what copilot says” or “I went into copilot and it told me this”, which is fine, but how are you mediating that with your own point of view and your own experience and your own research and position?

Rob: Yeah.

So, I think it comes back to, we had a conference, a safety conference last year for Amey. All our safety practitioners were there, our operational people were there, our senior board and our executive team were there. That question came up and the real challenge I think is, it's not about, it's probably not deskilling people. I think the real challenge, well, it's twofold actually. It could be that because people can get lazy and yeah, holy rely on AI.

The other challenge is about, you know, our sort of practitioners who are all very experienced, you know, they've got academia, they've got qualifications, are fully qualified in what they do. It's the challenges around the fear of people being replaced by AI as well. And that's not what AI is about. It's about understanding really how you can exploit AI as a you know, a system, if you want to call it a system, the reality is it's here to stay.

And back to your point, Shaun, which is really important, it's how do we ensure we use that in the right way?

Shaun: Yeah.

Rob: OK. So, you know, what we're not asking people to do is become data scientists. What we're asking people to do is really understand how to use AI.

Shaun: Exactly.

Rob: And we invest quite a lot in that as an organisation, I was at an executive meeting last week and when we were talking about how do we, you know, truly exploit fully AI, understanding the risk and how do we upscale our workforce in that space, a little bit of it about upskilling, I think you're right.

I think if you look at the mainstream AI platforms, ChatGPT and things like that, they're quite binary, you know, and they'll do the searches and things like give you an answer you think you want.

For us, it's about using our data and our intelligence. So if you can tell your data and your intelligence into AI and you can then train AI, you know, around probably the important questions and important queries, you know, so you can sort of front load those into AI and then you'll get a position, and I call it a position, of where, you know, of what good should be, should look like, or maybe does look like. Again, it's like that's where human oversight comes back into it.

So, it will never replace, you know, and it can't replace that human oversight, the true safety practitioners, you know, the personnel in that space and I think…

Shaun: And the application of what it's telling you, you can use it to get some information out, you can run your numbers through it. You can use it as a tool to help with data and insight. But there's, I mean, there's no substitute for a conversation, right? And about the “so what?”, “how this is going to be applied?”

Rob: Yeah. And it will support those conversations.

Shaun: Yeah.

Rob: And the way to look at it is, it supports the right conversations, you know, so that that's important.

I think the other thing you can do if you get your databank's right and we've invested heavily in databanks and making sure that, you know, we're actually managing and delivering the business on facts and intelligence. So, if you get your databank's right, that can then, in the safety world, that can then lead to what I call heat maps, right?

So, if you can look at the contracts and on a contract you got, you know, I don't know, slip, trips and falls is a predominant risk. You don't take that as, you know, as a baseline. So, that drives a conversation about slips, trips and falls.

Shaun: Yeah, Yeah, more broadly, yeah.

Rob: So that brings…

Shaun: And they can mine it down.

You can say, look, we have it, you know, we've got a peak on a Monday morning or a Wednesday afternoon or a kind of what particular age range, what particular site is there any correlation with weather, etcetera.

And use those tools to kind of, those agents, using the AI language to kind of help you get into the next level of analysis.

Rob: Yeah, exactly right.

And then that leads you on to predictability. So then, and that's when it gets really interesting, right. So ultimately, if we can get to a level of predictability by using AI for safety and somewhere those instances may happen and put early interventions in to stop that, then that that's pure, it's got to be a good place to go, right?

But the challenge there is back to what we just discussed. It's all those underlying factors about how we utilise and use AI and, and you know, really understanding, we have a responsibility, you know, safety is deeply human and we can't get away from that. Machines are not going to sort of substitute that. We have to keep bringing it back to that deeply human aspect of the safety.

Shaun: Yeah, very good.

OK, so when we bring these episodes to a close, each episode I like to ask the guest what one take away they'd like the listener to go away and reflect on or have a conversation about. So, what's your one key take away, Rob?

Rob: Can I, I've got a couple.

Shaun: Go on then.

Rob: I promise I won't have a conversation, but I think, and again, I think it’s a nice segue. Don't overcomplicate safety, right?

I've been, I've seen it in the past where we've got safety practitioners and they really overcomplicate safety because it's an interest, it's a subject they're really interested in. But then if the narrative's not right and that translation is not right, it becomes really difficult within the business to apply those principles.

Ultimately, for me, it's really about focusing on people, not paperwork. You know, I mentioned we've got policies, we've got procedures, any organisational being, we've got policies, procedures, you know, we comply with legislation, regulation, we comply with, I don't know, industry standards and contract requirements.

But often we forget about the people in all of this. And that comes back to that “work as imagined, work has done” piece. I think, yeah, we, when we talk about people, we've got to encourage challenge. We've got to create that environment where people can challenge. We've got to really listen properly. You know, listening to our people is absolutely fundamental in everything we do. There's no good somebody tell you something, not listening to them, going off and doing what you think's right. It's about really listening to our people.

And I think again, it's about leadership. It's about leaders being consistent. You know, we spend a lot of time with our leaders. You know, I think we're in a position now where it's come back to what I said earlier where, where we've got Zero Code as a framework. We don't take that as a given and leave that framework, just running along doing it. It's great. We then go back and ask our workforce, “what is working, what's not?”

We're in a mature sort of state now, which is quite an interesting place to be. It's quite an exciting place to be where our leaders right, we're saying to our leaders, it comes back to this “safety telling right versus safety doing” so Zero Code is now taking another, I'd say phase of evolution. The framework will stay the same. But what are the true behaviours we're looking for in our business?

So, we've now got our senior leaders at operational level driving what's important to them, you know, so it's not a safety director doing it within Amey, it's an operational director under, with the support, clearly, from our safety practitioners.

But what that does then it actually, under this solid framework, so, Zero Code and our behavioural frameworks and everything else, all our other control measures we’ve got in place. It allows agility, which is really, really important.

And it's that ownership, genuine ownership because people feel that they own something, they'll apply it more consistently across everything they do. And I think for that, that then comes down to behaviours. So, if you get behaviours right and you focus on the behaviours and the people first, the results will follow. They will absolutely follow.

And again, I think for me really, it's about, it comes back to that word. Safety has to remain deeply human. If it doesn't, we're getting something wrong. So, it's again bringing it back to the person.

So ultimately, just keep listening, keep learning, keep looking at the way you apply the principles. And you know, don't be afraid of trying things new in a sensible manner because I think that will actually push us towards a goal of getting everybody home safe and well every day.

OK, so in summary, we need to listen, we need to learn, we need to innovate, but we need to do that with people.

Shaun: Fantastic, Rob, that's been a really, really interesting session. I wish you and Amey and all your colleagues and supply chain all the very best in everything that you're doing and good luck with it all in the future.

Thanks again.

Rob: Thank you.

 

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