#94 - Transforming health and safety performance in high risk businesses

Speaker A: Welcome to the Building and Growing podcast. We're delighted to have Matt Taylor from Meta Transform with us. Welcome Matt.

Speaker B: Cheers Lucas. Thanks you for having me. Really excited to be in London.

Speaker A: Yeah, mate, it's perfect weather. It's a perfect day for it.

Speaker B: Too hot for a Scotsman, whereas an Aussie loves it.

Speaker A: I've got jeans on, you know. Yeah, love it. Look Matt, thanks so much for joining me today. Um, you know, you've got a super interesting background, um, you know, both to, you know, yourself and what you've done with Meta Transform. Um, I always think it's best for the guests to introduce themselves. So let me hand over to you, mate.

Speaker B: Yeah, ah, sure. I'm Matthew Taylor. So I guess a, ah, real brief history of me. Um, I left school when I was probably 15 years old. Didn't have hardly any what we call GCSEs, I guess. I don't know if it's the same Australia.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But high school level education, wasn't really interested in school at all. I was um, I was more interested in getting some money so I could build cars.

Speaker A: Nice, nice.

Speaker B: So I left school, um, at 15 years old, actually got a job in my granddad's friend's business.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Delivering oil in Greece to fishing boats. And he used to let me drive the forklift truck, um, in the vans around the yard. Yeah, of course. Fifteen year old kid, just loved that.

Speaker A: Oh indeed. Um,

Speaker B: after that I went to be a forklift truck driver for a company until I was around 18 years old.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: And as soon as I was 18, um, my parents actually bought me my offshore certificate so I could go and work offshore.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: At that time the offshore industry was absolutely booming. You know, there was so much work going on and I actually got offered a day, day before my 18th birthday I got offered a job with my first company. Uh, so started working offshore when I was 18. Um, absolutely loved working offshore. You know, you got all the banter and the camaraderie with the guys and it's just great fun.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But that gave me a really good foundation of how businesses manage safety very, very well. You know, at that time oil and gas was the, the pinnacle of health and safety performance. They, they actually learned from the Piper Alpha, uh, disaster that happened, you know, in the 80s. And funnily enough my, my first boss, um, or the first, the boss of the company who I worked for was actually one of the survivors.

Speaker A: Oh, wow.

Speaker B: Piper Alpha. Yeah. So I worked, worked in a drilling, in a drilling company and um, ended up in a, ah, what they called an STS role. So safety for the rigs. Right?

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Safety training facilitator. Uh, um, and part of their competency program was if you wanted to progress to be like a supervisor, you had to do some time as a safety guy.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Which I still think is a great idea.

Speaker A: Oh, definitely. Yeah.

Speaker B: It could just give you a really good foundation of, you know, what safety is meant to be in the documentation and how it actually helps businesses protect themselves and protect people.

Speaker A: Indeed.

Speaker B: So at that time, um, I was there for, did my six months as a safety rule and were sister oil rig, they actually lost their safety professional. So they asked me if I'd go and cover. Yeah. Which I did. And during that time, um, another company reached out and asked if I wanted to be their European health and safety advisor.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: So I was 23 at the time. They gave me a substantial pay jump. So I was, I was off like a rocket. And, um, that's really when I started working, I guess, internationally, looking at how health and safety management systems.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Um, for various different countries all interact with how a rig performs.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So that was really my first bite up, you know, seeing how my management systems were made to meet different standards for different countries. Um, and also my first experience with working with different cultures.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I was working in the Danish sector, the Dutch sector, um, so it was a real eye opener for me. Real eye opener. But absolutely amazing, amazing time. And I moved from that company, um, to become self employed when I was 24 years old. And I went to work for, um, a company called Optimus 7th Generation, which is owned by the legend Eddie McCulloch. Uh-huh. Who you met.

Speaker A: Yes, indeed.

Speaker B: Um, and that was building, um, helping building better cultures within businesses, better safety cultures, better psychological safety, but not just on oil and gas. So I managed to get out to various different industries, from heavy manufacturing to, to, you know, waste, which was absolutely horrific. Yeah. You know, I was in a waste sorting site in Preston and some of the things that you see coming through there is just unbelievable.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But gave me a really good insight into, um, how different businesses manage safety. You know, how do they look after the people? Um, how do they look after themselves and protect their reputation? Um, from there I actually started working with Shell. So, um, I was on a project called the Sail and Drill Project, which was the first of its kind, based out of, um, based out Holland and Norway.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Probably one of the best projects I've ever worked on in my life. You know, I still, I'm still in touch with a lot of People that I work with there. Um, and it was a new way of doing exploration for oil and gas.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: So we kind of took a. We took a drill ship, we took. We took supply vessels, we took helicopters. We took everything with us and just kind of dotted around. Um, and that's when I first got my experience of working, you know, all over the world in Africa, um, and Benin and Gabon. Um, did a lot of work in Nigeria. But that really gave me a foundation for working with, you know, other companies, doing joint ventures, working with government officials, trying to put together some documentation for allowing the licenses for oil and gas, setting up contracts for the business as it came to country. Absolutely fantastic project. And um, when that ended, so the oil price dropped quite dramatically. So they decided that the project was going to be. Going to be canned for the foreseeable. Um, one of my contractors who we used to work with in Africa and Gabon approached me to be their. Their global health and safety manager.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: So that was based out of Holland. Um, and the role was. Was. Was very clear for me. I had to help them build a M management system.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: For their global operations. We had to look at expanding operations in Africa and in Holland. Um, so that was a really, really good experience for me. Um, in terms of being involved in creating systems that operate globally.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And also driving their health and safety performance down to the best it's ever been. So throughout my career, I've always been involved in helping businesses be better at health and safety. Up until this point.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Um, at this time when I was working for the company in Holland, we were expecting. Were first set, uh, of twins. So my wife. I remember I was in Africa, we already had our first son. And my wife phoned me saying that she was um. She was pregnant again.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And she said to me, I hope you're sitting down. And I said, why? And she Sundays, because there's two. And I still remember that absolute panic feeling.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, when somebody says you're having twins.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You're like, what the. Am I gonna manage? You know? Yeah. So I. We decided, I decided. We decided that wasn't going to work away.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So much anymore because she needed some help with, um, with. With the babies. So I ended up in, uh. In a, uh, Head of health and safety job for a heavy manufacturing company.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Based in Hereford. And my role there was health and safety transformation and deliver better safety performance. Uh, in which we did. We delivered the best performance that. That business has ever had. It was during this time I actively got headhunted as The HSE director for British Steel. Nice. So British Steel was a site based in Scunthorpe. Um, six and a half thousand people on site any one time. Huge, uh, multi major hazard site.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And again, the role was clear. Health and safety transformation. Look at health and safety performance, try and streamline, make the business more efficient. Which we did. Um, after that I decided that I'd been doing health and safety transformation work and health and safety improvement for, for businesses, but doing it for other people, you know. So it was at this point I decided to build Meta Transform.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Which, um, the name comes from. Not only is it my initials, so Matthew Taylor. It actually means that we bring the most effective techniques and technologies to people, to businesses.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, so we'll go into businesses who are either actively struggling with their health and safety performance. They want to be better, um, they want to continually drive and be the best that they can be. Or it might be that they actually need a real fresh perspective on how they do things. So that's the type of people that normally come to metatransform because we bring these techniques and technologies from, from oil and gas, from nuclear, from heavy manufacturing, from military, and we just bring them all into one space where people have got access to them and we help them to improve their safety culture. We, we build businesses to be the best in class.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: What they do. Which we've done for the last five years. So it's been, been really successful and you know, we've got a lot of really happy clients that are, are singing our praises for what we do. So it's been great.

Speaker A: Indeed. Fantastic. Look, Matt, what an introduction. You know, certainly, uh, uh, there's not that many people who are so well traveled. Um, I know you mentioned quite a few different countries and international projects there. There are other ones that, you know, you didn't mention. Like, you know, we, the fact that we've both lived in Turkey before, um, you know, the fact that suddenly, uh, we met out in the, uh, UAE in Dubai. Um, so, uh, you know, a fantastic int. Perhaps a bit understated M. But, um, excellent experience there. Um, and look, thanks for giving us that intro into Meta Transform as well. Um, I think it'd be great to dive in a level deeper there. So what types of challenges do your clients face, um, when you engage with them?

Speaker B: So I'll give you some live examples. I mean, we've had, we've had businesses approach us that have had quite significant events. Now, uh, whether that is a process event or it's an event which has affected A person. So, you know, an accident or an injury that's been, that's been so significant, it's actually been a wake up call to the business.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: A lot of our clients genuinely believed they were doing well at managing health and safety and a lot of businesses do. But it's not until that event happens where you actually realize, hold on a minute, we've missed something.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, we've, we've got to a point where we thought we were doing so well, we've almost taken our foot off the gas a little bit with it and we've had this event. So I've had numerous, com, numerous companies come to me with um, with incidents or accidents that they've had.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: That have leaded to them being in a bit of trouble with either the health and safety executive or, you know, with their, with their business, with their reputation and they just need some help getting things back on track.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So we, we kind of specialize in a number of areas. One, if you're in trouble with a health and safety executive, you know, we can come in, we can build you systems, we can build you processes, we can give your people the right training and education to make sure that that event never happens again. But also put processes and systems and technology in place to ensure no other events happen.

Speaker A: Indeed.

Speaker B: Um, so a number of clients have came to us because of that. Um, we deal with clients who genuinely are, um, what I call a sufferers of something called chronic unease. That's where a business is constantly worried that something bad is going to happen.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And because they're so worried that something bad is going to happen, it, uh, actually makes them be on the front foot with health and safety trying to push the boundaries on what is possible, uh, from a behavioral perspective, from a technology perspective. So we've had a number of companies come to us and say, listen, we're not in a bad place, health and safety wise, but we want to be the best. We want to be recognized as the best in our industry. How do we do that? So we come in, we build them a strategy, we look at all of the elements that I've actually put into one tool which we'll come on to. We look at all these elements, we put systems, plans, um, in place for them, strategies in place for them. We look at resource and we actually look at when you deploy this tool, it actually brings you a return on investment because, uh, by doing things better in all aspects of business. Yeah. Safety is improved as an output of that. So by following The Meta. Transform. Metasense 7 Dimension Tool. A lot of our clients are actually seeing a massive return on investment because teams are working better together. Planning is done well, execution is done well and people are doing the things that we expect them to do rather than what we think they need to do.

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.

Speaker B: So, um, so that's two things, I guess. The third is if they've got quite a poor safety performance. Um, we've had two clients recently reach out to us and just say, listen, I'm unhappy with the amount of injuries that we're having. They're not maybe significant events, but they're events that causes um, a business owner or a company to worry that these little events might add up to become a big event.

Speaker A: Of course. Yeah.

Speaker B: So they just need some outside help and resource to kind of bring in some fresh ideas, maybe some new tools that they've not had access to.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, for example, one of my clients we came into, um, they were really struggling with a permit to work process. They couldn't get people to follow it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And it was just because they were using a system, it was like 30 years old, paper based system, completely inefficient, really laborious to use generally was just a pain in the ass.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: But they'd never seen like an online permit to work system which we introduced them to, and how they could do it quicker through utilizing, you know, technology such as ipods. So for real life, sign off.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, so we've got a number of different ways that clients approach us, but they are probably the main three.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Yeah. And look, just something to um, I guess add to the first point you made, uh, about a conversation that occurred earlier this morning with Stuart from Wrist Talk, who, you know, you're familiar with the legend. That's it, that's it. You know, like the two legends together, uh, you know, like you and him later on. But um, he was talking about, you know, like previously companies kind of only look at things and processes when an incident has occurred or when an event has occurred. Um, whereas, uh, I guess certainly with Risk Talk there's the opportunity to then look at some of those things prior to the event through a dynamic risk assessment. Um, uh, and the data set that you're able to kind of build as a result of that. Um, and so I guess a question for you, um, and you know, for Meta Transformers, how much appetite do you see for businesses to be kind of more data driven with leading indicators beyond just near misses?

Speaker B: You know, massively there is a, uh, there's a huge demand for that and I think, you know, the Guys at Risk talk have got an incredible piece of software that more people should look into in terms of leading indicators. What's happened with the safety industry is it gets measured on its lagging indicators.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So that's how businesses are measured on their health and safety performance, on how many bad things happen.

Speaker A: Yes, yeah.

Speaker B: The whole industry in the uk, I think, needs to, needs to shift its focus to focus on that lagging indicators, to actually looking at what we can do from a leading perspective. That's really valuable information and data for businesses to use. And I think as a, as an industry we start using data better be more informed about the data that actually needs to be put into systems to get a good output and then what to actually do with that data when it's gathered. I think it'll be a huge game changer for the uk. And ah, I know a lot of businesses are investing a lot of time, effort and money into pieces of software that do this and my experience with a lot of these softwares is they're very good at only maybe doing one thing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: There's no one piece of software that kind of pieces everything together.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And gives you some useful data that can actually help you improve from a health and safety perspective.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. And look, that's a fantastic segue now into the tool that, you know, you're building at MetaTransform. So tell us more about the tool.

Speaker B: So the tool, uh, yeah, it's, it's an exciting new development, I guess, for Meta Transform. Um, we've seen that there is a gap in the market for a tool that's actually really useful for health and safety professionals, but not only for health and safety professionals, for business owners. So the tool we've designed is called the Metasense 7 Dimensions Tool M and what that does is it looks at the seven dimensions that we've identified in business performance. So not just health and safety performance, business performance. Um, and this tool essentially is a tool that you can use to give you an indication of where your business currently is and then set a plan to where it wants to be in the future. So for example, if you want to improve your safety performance or just business performance in general, you would plug data into that that would tell the tool this is where we currently are and you could set a strategy within the tool to say where it wants to be. Now we've trialled it with a couple businesses and what it does is once you do this initial diagnostic, you can actually start plugging in all of Your health and safety documentation, which traditionally gets filled out every day.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Gets signed off by various people.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: And then sits on someone's desk till the end of the day where then gets re signed off.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, risk assessments, method statements, permit to works. A lot of these documentations business just do because they have to do it. Right. But what I decided was, what if you had a tool where you could plug all this information into and this tool would then give you very clever and very precise moments within your process that you, for example, have to do an audit.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: You might want to go and check, um, that this element of the task has been completed. It would give you information on who's likely to get hurt, you know, and at what point in the operation. So it's a really powerful tool that business owners can do not only to manage health and safety better, but just to manage doing business better.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So one of the businesses that we trialed and actually seen a 32% return on investment just because of people doing what they expect them to do better. Um, so since final stages of development now, um, we're still trying to plug in some cool new AI features that actually help give not only health and safety professionals data, but business owners data so they can actually do something with that data to make it more effective and more efficient.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: One of the things that's ultimately, um, important to me as a business owner is whatever tool that I developed is that it's very simple to use. It doesn't have to be cumbersome. Um, it's got to be simple, it's got to be effective and it's got to be efficient. And that's exactly what the Metasense 7th Dimension tool does.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: And, um, um, we've still got a few more businesses we're going to trial it out on. Uh, um, and I'll be speaking to Stuart later tonight about risk talk and how we can. How we can slip that in there somehow too. So, no really exciting time for Meta. I mean, it's, um. The interest we've got on this tool, just from conversations that we've had with people, has been incredible.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So there's a lot of hype around it. There's no other tool like it in the market at the moment. Um, and it's just a really exciting time as a business owner to be developing something that's going to bring so much benefit to other businesses and other people.

Speaker A: Definitely. And look, it certainly seems like you're helping businesses move past. Just the goal is to be compliant. Actually, no like the goal is to, you know, generate improvements, um, uh, off

Speaker B: the back of it, I think mainly it's, it's teaching businesses to properly care for their people, for their process and for their business. You know, um, I think there's a lack of care that goes throughout the business world, um, even from health and safety professionals. You know, I think 90% of all health and safety managers that I come across what I would describe as just like keyboard warriors. They're old fashioned, disgruntled people that will just sit and dictate to you how you can't do something in your business.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Whereas the new way of thinking for safety is your business. You can do whatever you want.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: We'll help you do it as safe as possible.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: There's always going to be risks in anything that we do, but it's how you manage that risk and how you move forward with doing what you need to do in a safe way that protects the business, it protects the assets and if followed properly, it'll uh, protect the people as well.

Speaker A: Indeed, indeed. Yeah. Fantastic, Matt, that's great. And you know, one final question. You know, based upon your experience, um, uh, both prior to meta transform and now, um, are there any sort of key takeaways you'd like to share with the audience?

Speaker B: Um, I think one of the most important things. So when I, I used to do a bit of coaching for younger, uh, health and safety professionals.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because I think it's really important that they don't get caught up in this old school mentality of the way that safety has always been in the uk.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, you hear a lot of people talking about the new view of safety and all this kind of stuff.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But it's actually teaching young health and safety professionals how to be operationally efficient and help a business achieve what they need to achieve rather than restricting them.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: You know, we don't want to build a new generation of compliance officers.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: We want to build a new generation of forward thinking, efficient, effective people that can deliver, uh, proper advice and support from a health and safety perspective, use tools and use data in a more effective way where, uh, they're actually pure focuses on the leading indicators rather than the lagging indicators.

Speaker A: Indeed.

Speaker B: And one of the things I always teach my, I wouldn't say students, but uh, the people that I coach is a question I asked them is, when was the last time you did an investigation for a day that went well?

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: And they look at you as if to say, you know, as if you've Got two heads. But if a day's gone well, surely we should be investigating why that day went well so we can learn from that and apply it tomorrow. Yep. So we want to have more days that go well.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Right. Rather than days where we have an event and then the resource that we throw at somebody twisting their ankle, for example, it's just a complete waste of time.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: I think, I believe that any industry where humans are involved, we're still going to have human error. Right. People make mistakes. I make lots of mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Right.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But the mistakes aren't intentional to then affect a business. M. A lot of businesses will blame people for making a mistake and then punish them for doing so.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then they wonder why nobody reports anything from a health and safety perspective. So when I'm coaching young individuals, my focus is always on if somebody has made a mistake and that mistake has led to a bad outcome. Let's not blame an individual. Let's learn from these things that were surrounding that individual at the time that caused an event to happen. And that's basically what hop is. Right. Human and organizational performances is really focusing on all of these things that surround a human rather than focus on the human. And you'll see it a lot in the news where if there's a catastrophe with an airplane, for example, the first thing news outlets do is blame the pilot.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Even though they've no idea what's happening. You know, it could be mechanical failures, it could be electrical failures, it could be a number of things. Bird strike, human. It's. It's our human nature to just blame a person. So my piece of advice, I guess, for or the key takeaways is don't stop learning. Constantly be pushing yourself to learn the new way of thinking. Look at human and organizational performance. Um, look at using some of these great pieces of software that are out there that can actually help you get good data to make informed decisions out of.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, yeah, just carry on doing what you're doing, I guess. And if you need any help or support, reach out.

Speaker A: That's it. Fantastic. Matt, thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker B: My pleasure. Lucas.

Speaker A: Looking forward to, you know, the new tool launching and, uh, and seeing how, you know, you keep progressing.

Speaker B: Excellent. Thank you very much, Lucas.

Speaker A: You're welcome. Thanks, Matt. Cheers.