Learning from success? Doing safety differently

Safety regulators frequently find themselves in an environment dominated by compliance and control, where rules and bureaucratic requirements multiply, people’s behaviour is regarded as the problem, and success is measured by the (apparent) absence of incidents.
And yet the empirical evidence is that improvements in safety have plateaued and duty holders have become expert at gaming the performance measures, so the inexorable growth in rules and paperwork is not having the desired effect, and may indeed be actively counter-productive.
Safety differently is a set of ideas which have become a movement. Instead of aiming for as few things as possible to go wrong, it tries to ensure that as many things as possible go right. It works on empowering and learning from people rather than controlling them, and building successful safety strategies on the principles of autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Presenters include:
- Professor Sidney Dekker
Sidney Dekker is a Professor at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, where he runs the Safety Science Innovation Lab. Sidney has won worldwide acclaim for his ground breaking work in human factors and safety. He coined the term ‘Safety Differently’ in 2012, which has since become a movement. Sidney is the bestselling author of, most recently: Foundations of Safety Science; The Safety Anarchist; The End of Heaven; Just Culture; Safety Differently; The Field Guide to Understanding ‘Human Error’; Second Victim; Drift into Failure; and Patient Safety. He is also a documentary maker (‘Safety Differently,’ 2017; ‘Just Culture,’ 2018, ’The Complexity of Failure,’ 2018).
- Martyn Campbell
Martyn is the Work Health & Safety Regulator for South Australia. He has 30 years’ experience working in regulatory compliance and investigation at senior executive level in the UK and Australia. Initially a senior detective in the UK police working on national homicide training and development, he later qualified in law working in the field of regulatory compliance and risk in health and safety, working in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Fiji and Singapore.
Martyn has an Honours Degree in Law a Masters in Law and a Masters in Occupational Health & Safety. Martyn is a Board Member for Safe Work Australia, representing South Australia, an Advisory Board Member to the UniSA Centre for Workplace Excellence, a Fellow and Certified Chartered OHS Professional of the Australian Institute of Health & Safety, Member of the Australian Institute of Health & Safety College of Fellows Executive and a Certified Compliance Professional with the Australasian Governance & Risk Institute.
And is facilitated by:
- Dr Maggie Hardy
Dr Maggie Hardy, Executive Director Office of Licensing and Compliance at the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), has held a range of senior leadership roles in Australia and the United States. Internationally recognised for her scientific and leadership contributions, Maggie is a Fellow of the Institute of Managers and Leaders (Australia and New Zealand) and a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society (United Kingdom). She has experience in risk management, program governance, emergency preparedness, implementing quality management systems (QMS), and using big data to develop metrics to direct and evaluate innovative change management programs.