E015: Standards in Action

Mark McBride-Wright 0:01
Mark, hello. Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I’m your host, Mark McBride Wright, and I’m delighted to be joined today by Martin Cottam, who is the chair of the ISO technical committee 283 occupational health and safety management. So Martin has over 40 years experience in safety management, covering major accident hazards and occupational health and safety, together with experience in engineering, asset management, technical governments start again governments, you name Martin cotton has over 40 years experience in safety management, covering major accident hazards and occupational health and safety, together with experience in engineering asset management, technical governance and quality management, a former group technical assurance and quality director at Lloyds register, he has carried out assessments of Safety Management for organizations across a wide range of sectors in Europe, Asia and the US. He is a fellow and former chair and former president of the safety and reliability society, and is a chartered engineer and registered European engineer. He’s been involved in the development of national and international standards for safety management and asset management for over 25 years, and currently chairs the ISO technical committee for occupational health and safety management. Last year, he was the winner of the wolf Barry medal, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Standards Institution for his contributions to the development of national and international standards the committee he leads. Also won ISOs committee of the Year Award for Leadership and Innovation in 2022 a passionate advocate for effective safety and quality management. Martin continues to influence global standards and mentor the next generation of health and safety professionals. Martin, you are the ideal guest to have on the safe leader podcast.

Martin Cottam 2:07
Well, it’s a pleasure to be here, Mark. Thank you very much for the invitation.

Mark McBride-Wright 2:12
So in the thank you for accepting it. Thank you for accepting it. And what we like doing here on the safe leader is getting to understand a bit about the person, the motivations, hearing the because, you know, there’s a lot of stuff out there that we can we can read about the technical, technical and this and that, but actually it’s the people that make up the profession and the people who who create the culture. So I want to understand that about yourself. So if we take a time warp, go back in time, take a time capsule, go back to the young Martin. What What inspired you to to do what you do today? Talk us through that journey.

Martin Cottam 2:55
Well, it’s a good question mark. And I think I was one of those people who was a late developer in the sense that I certainly had no idea for a long time, through education, what it was I wanted to do in career terms. In fact, I think I was in the second year of my physics degree before it dawned on me, I didn’t while I did want to use that technical knowledge, I wasn’t really sure what, what the opportunities would be for a physicist. Now at that time that the nuclear industry was quite high profile and quite buoyant, and it was certainly it offered good graduate training programs for both engineers and scientists, and certainly it appealed to me that it would put me on the route to potentially becoming a chartered engineer. So I initially joined National Nuclear Corporation and then subsequently worked for a Swiss engineering consultancy, and in both cases, largely because of the NNC graduate program, the focus was very strongly around safety, and so that was how I sort of came to be in safety. I moved to Lloyd’s Register in 1990 hopeful that it would give me the opportunity, which perhaps I was searching for, to diversify that experience outside nuclear. And sure enough, that did happen over time, and I ended up working in oil and gas and transportation and some of the land based major hazard industries, so and also, actually some work in marine as you might expect with large register, I was involved in one of the first applications of quantified risk assessment in the marine sector.

Mark McBride-Wright 4:44
Well, that’s really interesting. So, yeah, I used to do a lot of QRE when I worked in erm, sort of stepping out into safety management from being a university. But tell us a bit more then about the development of some of the. Safety tools that you’ve used, or that that QRA project, can you, can you remember much about it? Well,

Martin Cottam 5:06
it’ll be, it’ll be stretching, stretching my memory to, just to say much about it. But I think it was, it was part of that journey, if you like, of where the QR a methods, which developed, I guess, primarily in perhaps the military and nuclear industries were increasingly adopted elsewhere. Marine probably being one of the later sectors, sort of major hazard sectors to apply QRA and even today, I think its application is somewhat limited. But this was, in fact, application to a large new construction passion, passenger cruise vessel, right? And it was, it was a very interesting thing, because, you know, a lot of the, I mean, the methods are, are standard, but actually working out how to apply it to the situation of a ship brought some particular challenges. And yeah, I certainly enjoyed that piece of work. And I think in a way that’s characterized my LR career is that I ended up staying 31 years because the job changing, wow. That challenges, you know, kept arising. And in the same way, you know, I ended up spending a a secondment about which I had little choice, frankly, in lrq, a the management system certification of LR, because they were looking to develop safety Well, clients were demanding some form of OHS Management System Assessment, because you know that those certifications were already well established for quality and environment, because there seemed to be a gap for OHS, and of course, there wasn’t an international standard. And so certifiers were scrambling around trying to work out how they could provide some form of assessment. Lrq, a was a bit was not a first mover in that space, and then began to see the evidence that, you know, it needed to do something. So I got seconded. I’m sometimes tempted to say, against my will, to one on the six month secondment to lrq A, which ultimately lasted three years to set up the OHS certification, which, of course, now you know, is standard fare for a certifier, but in those days it wasn’t. And so we had to develop an interpretation of BS 8800 the only available guidance standard. And I then led the assessments around the world to sort of establish that capability in Asia and in Europe and in the States, it was across a lot of sectors, which, you know, was eye opening. I’d never in my life expected to be assessing OHS in a pet food factory or manufacturing factory or a paper mill in Poland, but I did all those things.

Mark McBride-Wright 7:55
There’s a few things going through my mind, I guess, with with the QRA element. I always remember when we did Q A, you were relying upon established data sets to then quantify your risk probability, et cetera. But then, if it’s never been done before, then it’s a whole chicken and egg situation. How do you develop those initial data sets that you then subsequently use, and are those initial data sets even representative to be a good first pass. That’s just more of a comment on my mind, really. And then how creating a creating an intern, creating a standard, it’s a, it sounds like a, you know, it’s the sort of thing that ultimately a company is going to be assessed on and accredited against. But to then be involved in the development in the first instance, it must be a very collaborative process to with goodwill, good intentions from everyone, to see the benefit in getting involved.

Martin Cottam 8:56
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the entire ISO process is a is all about volunteers. Yeah, you know, no money changes hands at all. People do it, you know, either with an employer’s blessing in the spare hours of the day, or, more typically, in their own free time, okay, but yeah, you know, consensus is the basis on which decisions are made. And so, you know, you need a diverse population of people involved to get good conversations. If you start with diverse views, it always is a challenge then to emerge with consensus, and then the consultation process is, of course, the key really to the success of ISO standards, which is that, you know, it’s not just the 3040, 60 people in the working group who actually do the drafting, who make the decisions. The standards then passed out to national standards bodies. There can be public consultation national standards bodies. Maintain mirror committees as well, which monitor and shadow the work of a committee like like like mine, and so effectively, there’s a network of I was thinking the other day, it’s well over 1000 people I would expect on, on one of our standards, who routinely, you know, the expectation is you’ll get the document. We would expect to have comments back, but then, of course, the public comment process can amplify, amplify that significantly.

Mark McBride-Wright 10:26
So talk us through the ISO 45,000 series that you’ve been working on most recently, I believe, yeah,

Martin Cottam 10:35
sure. So ISO 45,001 itself was published in 2018 by a project committee, which ISO set up explicitly for that purpose, and that, you could say, was ISOs first foray into developing standards in the field of OHS. And the nature of project committees is when the jobs done, they’re shut down. So when that happened, I so established a permanent technical committee to see 283, which, which, and so I became the first chair of that committee. So since so 45,001 was already there, if you will. From that point on, we’ve published a number of things. First off, a handbook aimed at smaller organizations explaining the implementation of 45,001 in enough, you know, in a language and in a style that’s more appropriate to small organizations, because, you know, they have their own challenges. The the moment, the first standard that we developed was 45,003 on psychological health, safety and well being, which is probably the best known of our guidance standards. And that was published in 2021 which was great timing, in a way, more by accident than design, because at that point, you know, I think the factors like the global pandemic had really opened people’s eyes and brought, you know, broken down some of the taboos around that, that whole area. So that was fortunate. We also in the pandemic as a sort of Fast Track project produced ISO past 45,005 which was guidelines on the management of the risks of COVID 19 in the workplace, which we’ve subsequently extended on to produce 45,006 which is a general guidance standard on the management of infectious diseases in the workplace. Okay? And the one I missed out, if you’ve been tracking the numbers, is 45,004 and that’s a guidance standard on OHS performance evaluation. And then we’ve recently kicked off a whole suite of further work which will extend long beyond my period as chair of TC 283, the revision of ISO 45,001 is the big ticket item. But then new guidance standards as well. ISO powers, 45,007 on the OHS impacts of climate change, okay, 45,008 on OHS aspects of remote working. And that’s all types of remote working, not, not sort of just working from home or in a coffee shop. Yeah, yeah. 45,010 on menstruation, menstrual health and menopause in the workplace, which is a really one, I place, great store buy, I think, very, very important for us, and we’re just doing preliminary work before formally starting the clock on 45,009 which will be a guidance standard on OHS leadership and governance. Oh, right.

Mark McBride-Wright 13:54
Interesting. So, so I So, yes, I wanted to pick up on them, the 45,010 I’ve seen LinkedIn activity on that, that and eco engineers, we have a menopause network as well. So it’s, it’s a very growing area where there’s much, much need and much focus needed. I was so, so, yeah, how is that? How is that progressing? Then That, is it quite early days, or is it, is it quite should

Martin Cottam 14:24
be published within, I think, about 12 months, and that sounds like it’s a long way off, but actually, in ISO terms, when most standards development is a three year track, getting into the final year feels like that. You know that the last, the last few yards, and also that last period. I’ll put it the other way around the front end is where all the difficult work is done, I would argue, which is you start from, you know, not quite a blank sheet of paper, but you bring a group together and that, you know, we’re taking. As a starting point, in fact, a British a BS standard that was published in 2023 but then you bring an international group together to say, well, let’s develop this on to be an ISO standard. And of course, potentially you’re opening Pandora’s box at that point as to where the conversation could go and where the document, how the document might evolve. But the the last 12 months or so is very much that final consultation and voting phase which I described. And so there kind of three months devoted to a ballot which will include public consultation. And then, obviously, the committee may well be faced with, you know, 500 800 comments Yes, to methodically process and consider and tweak the documents. So it’s all about sort of refinement at the final stages, and the sort of the more creative part of the work goes on at the front end. And

Mark McBride-Wright 15:55
what does the 45,010 hope to achieve for women in the workplace, or, you know, people who menstruate, what does it hope to seek out to achieve for them? I think,

Martin Cottam 16:11
on the one hand, the sort of easy answer is it provides guidance on what organizations can and should do to, you know, to support women in the workplace, through, through, through with those issues. Yeah, I think the other way I’d answer it, though, Mark is that I think the creation of standards, you know, why would you choose to have a standard? I think it does a number of things. It in some ways, the factor standards brought into being often can contribute to legitimizing conversation, yes, breaking down taboos. I think it can serve also to put onto the radar of senior leadership in organizations the fact that this is a topic, you know, that’s current and that they need to be considering. So I think it does quite a lot to legitimize discussion and also hopefully to provoke discussion. But most of all, of course, what we want it to do is to provoke action where organizations actually, you know, take the steps which will enable them, ultimately, to, you know, retain more female talent, and indeed, to, you know, make sure that they’ve got that the female colleagues in their workforce are well supported and engaged and able to perform to their best

Mark McBride-Wright 17:28
and also to help men talk about it, because it can often feel like a conversation because it doesn’t link to directly to what you do or go through. It’s like you don’t have a have a say, or have a have the right to have an opinion or, you know, a viewpoint, or to take, even just take part in the discussion. But actually that that’s in the movement that I’ve seen so far, we absolutely need men to be part of it, because men need to be part of the whole gender equality movement. And you can tell when someone’s nervous about talking about a topic that they don’t have any personal relationship to directly themselves. Their voice goes shallow, they feel like they’re walking on eggshells. And I think, personally, I think that’s probably a reason why we’ve had a lot of inaction over a long period of time, because we just haven’t been having the conversation about the barriers that women have faced as they’ve got further through their career and or it’s been trivialized their symptoms, what they’ve gone through at this stage of their life, or at whatever stage, because menopause can happen at many different ages. It’s not restricted to a later life thing. These are exactly these are things that I’m learning as as our menopause network grows. You know, we’ve got a fabulous co chair in the network who’s very open about making a decision to have a hysterectomy early on in her life in her 20s, and so she had induced menopause at a very young age, and she speaks openly about how that’s affected her, you know, and but by having role models that can then speak openly about this, but then also be supported culturally within the workplace, with Having very formalized things like standards mirror the conversation that they are then open about. It must be a really great conduit for for culture change.

Martin Cottam 19:27
Yeah, and I completely subscribe to your point about needing men in the workplace to advocate for this standard. In fact, it’s one of the key messages I’m delivering to our whole TC at its upcoming plenary meeting, and it’s why I’ve been particularly keen to make sure that we were actively promoting the standard in the period while I, as a man, am still the chair of the committee, because I’m handing over to a woman, okay? And the there could be that perception if people start to hear about. At the standard later. Oh, well, you know, that’s why TC 283 is developing committee that we know with a woman leader. Well, that’s not the case at all. You know, it started under my leadership. We’re irrevocably committed to it under my leadership, and we, you know, it’s been really interesting, I think, to see the the journey that some of the men who have participated in the working group, yes, gone on. And I think that’s you know, you say people you know maybe don’t have life experience and therefore are limited and feel trepidation, yeah, I think the most important thing about that is to accept that that’s life yes, there shouldn’t be a barrier. Just be curious, just be supportive, and learn as you go. The one thing you shouldn’t do is close your mind to the possibility that, because you haven’t experienced it, it doesn’t exist. But I do feel so strongly about this issue of gender, the historic gender imbalance in OHS, you know, I still find it astonishing that here we are in the 21st century, finally working out that it might be a good idea to have PPE that’s designed around the female physique. And as opposed to, I just can’t, I can’t get my head around how we have, for so long, apparently, tolerated the idea that, well, it doesn’t fit women, and therefore it doesn’t give them the protection that it would give to a man who’s of the right size that was designed for but somehow, that’s okay. It’s got through how interestingly, you know, we’ve had some pushback on this 45,010 standard. It’s quite unusual in 23 when we go out for, you know, comment from national standards bodies for anybody. I mean, they may have strong views about what should be in the standard and yeah, quickly do, but it’s relatively rare that anybody writes back as a comment and says, Well, this standard shouldn’t be being written. Yeah, do it or it’s fine if ISO wants to do this, but it’s got nothing to do with OHS, so don’t put it in the 45,000 series, yeah, you know. And I just find it astonishing. I think if these health effects were ones suffered by men, yeah, they would have been part of our age, you know, dealing with it would have been part of OHS from the get go. And we won’t be having the debate in in, you know, here we are in 2025 trying to persuade ourselves that it’s part of OHS when it blindingly obviously is, where

Mark McBride-Wright 22:28
are you? Where are you seeing? So firstly, given the work that I do in diversity, equity and inclusion, that doesn’t surprise me that there are some pockets or regions or entities that have a viewpoint that what you’re doing shouldn’t even be relevant, and it’s good on you and the committee for you know, making it so that you’re still pushing through despite those, those those sort of headwinds. And that’s actually a litmus test for progress such that over time, if you start bringing in more standards that link to things that are culturally coming up, and part of the common discourse in society nowadays, seeing a lessening of resistance, is a good is a good benchmark. And

Martin Cottam 23:18
I think standards have a you know, can play an important part in in and it’s important standards lead, you know, and they’re not a rear view mirror on OHS, you know, as it was practiced previously. You know, this consensus process can be, you can, you can fear that it will produce, if you like, a sort of lowest common denominator solution, because all the, you know, are all the more radical and interesting ideas going to get, get, you know, watered down or squeezed out. I find it very reassuring to see, you know, there may be a few lone voices of the type I mentioned, but there’s also an awful lot, huge majority of people involved in our committee who are fully behind this and know that it’s actually there to help, to challenge and to push the barriers forward.

Mark McBride-Wright 24:07
So we’re recording this in March 2025, so just to give a bit of a timestamp there, and you mentioned about, you know, the slow progress, glacial progress, on women’s PPE, and even the fact that it’s taken so long to be part of the this the dialog, and it’s only of recent that it’s starting to filter through. And I know some amazing campaigners that work in this area, and bold as brass is a great organization in the UK that that push for this, I have to ask the question, though, around the recent change in leadership in the United States, and the erasure, like the just the blatant erasure online of programs that. Talk about women’s PPE and things like that. Do you see, do you see this having a longer term effect, or us, like halting the progress that’s being made?

Martin Cottam 25:14
I suppose, at one level, you know you can’t, but feel it’s not helpful. But in another sense, I also question, certainly from the standardization point of view, which is, I think, you know, the area we’re talking about, I don’t think it’ll make much difference, to be very honest. You know, interestingly, that the US, you know, is just one country in ISO terms. Yeah, you know, one vote. We have 100 countries involved in the committee. And besides, and of course, the other thing to say is, you know, the political agenda in a given country doesn’t necessarily flow through directly into the views which the national standards body would choose to contribute to, or individuals would from that country would contribute, yeah, into work such as ours. So in that sense, I don’t, I don’t have any concerns specific to our ability to do what we want to do it, except for the fact that, of course, it may affect the impact and the way those documents are received in certain countries. Yes, and that that’s obviously, you know, that bit is a concern, because, I guess standards to be embraced,

Mark McBride-Wright 26:23
you know, I guess it’s about the like, the availability of data, you know, we agree, yes, it’s a good thing, and now there’s a standard for it. And where there then would have been referenced data, or places that one could go to, and one of, you know, the world’s largest economies and industrial players, it’s then absent. The only reason I asked the question is because I question is because I was on a recent EHS, like a new think tank that’s been set up by John Donny from the What Works. What works?

Martin Cottam 26:53
Yeah, chess, yes, something very dear to my heart.

Mark McBride-Wright 26:56
Yes. So yeah. I met Johnny at an event last year, two years ago, and we’ve kept in touch. I’m going to see them shortly, actually, but that that that caught my ear, if you were on that same webinar, then it was, it was part of the conversation, talking about the erasure of all those data and OSHA, it being out the scope eventually. And it just, it feels to me like it, where do we, where do we save this data, you know, for so it’s still accessible, even though it may not be on the primary domain where it would have readily been held. Yeah,

Martin Cottam 27:33
and I think it’s interesting, you know, to note that, you know, the works Institute in the US is part of, I think, a pattern of emerging interest in evidence. Yes, the lodge register foundation is establishing a global Evidence Center for safety with a very similar sort of ambition to put more of a spotlight onto the question of, you know, what is the evidence for particular OHS interventions and their success? And I think that, you know, that’s a very positive trend for the OHS profession or community, shall we say, not least because, of course, it creates a demand for data, yes. And so maybe that is, in some ways, a counterbalance, which is, well, okay, you know, there may be some parties who are not particularly keen for this data, or don’t see the need for it to exist, but, but there’s clearly a pull for evidence and data from other sources. And so maybe that, you know, maybe that will, will fill the gap

Mark McBride-Wright 28:45
where, where else? So, so I did. I interfaced a bit with Lloyd’s Register. When I was part of the Royal Academy of Engineering. I took part in some focus groups with the safer complex systems. Were you part of that work at all,

Martin Cottam 29:00
or no, I’ve had some involvement with the the world. Well, this commenting on the world risk poll, which I think is one of the foundations, you know, most important contributions, certainly from a TC 283 perspective, we found it hugely informative that such an enormous global survey is pulling up some, some really interesting results. I mean, last year’s results in particular highlighted what a small proportion. In fact, it was just, I think it was hovering around 50% but actually possibly just slightly under, right off the work of the popular of the world’s population have had, OHS training, right, full stop ever at a time. Yeah, and that was a bit of a wake up call, I think in my mind, thinking, you know, are we in advocating for, effectively, advocating for complete management systems? Are we actually being, you know, too ambitious? Us when, in some ways, there’s a whole swathe of the world’s workforce where, if you, if we put our advocacy purely around, just do some safety training, basic train, actually, and that’s that’s influencing our thinking quite a lot now about what, what is the offering that we should have for smaller enterprises in particular, and do you, do

Mark McBride-Wright 30:22
you get to help? So for where those are, not where those where people maybe aren’t, well, not maybe, where they’re not receiving training, would it be a case of help and support those SMEs within certain communities, certain countries, to help roll something out like it may. Maybe it’s because it’s not a legal requirement from the National Executive. Maybe there’s no health and safety executive equivalent in that geography, and so it just Yeah, I think our,

Martin Cottam 30:57
you know, our the levers available to us as a standards committee or to ISO as a standards writing organization, are quite limited. It’s all about trying to influence Yes. So, you know, I think the the best hope in my in my view, would be if we could produce documents which are well received and which lay out both, you know, the importance of but a sensible, pragmatic, maybe step wise, approach to the hope is that that encourages both governments and individual organizations, you know, at an individual level, to take some action, and then You know, I’m sure others will, you know, other agencies, or indeed, consultancies, can potentially provide the support then on the ground to kind of make that happen. I think we’re more trying to kind of influence the parts and minds piece and give somebody a sort of a milestone to try and achieve. You know,

Mark McBride-Wright 32:00
where so you mentioned. Was it 45,008 or seven? I forget the list. One also. So do I mark one of them? One of them was on, like leadership 940,

Martin Cottam 32:14
5009

Mark McBride-Wright 32:16
so that that, that squares right into the, you know, the themes in my book, The Safe leader. So my work’s all about trying to leverage the familiarity that engineers have with physical safety and extend that into psychological safety. And ultimately, what we do then is speak to our shared common humanity. Ultimately, because in research that we’ve done at equal engineers, we found in our masculinity and engineering research, we found quite a high instant rate of suicidal ideation and self harm within the respondents and also people experience and work colleagues who’ve lost their life due to suicide. It mirrored the Office of National Statistics data sets which have come out, you know, the years that we’ve done it. So this, this has now become a sort of longitudinal study for us as an organization, but that when I uncovered the first set of data, it really was like a light bulb. Aha moment for me with my two hats on being a safety engineer, thinking about risk and managing out hazards, designing out hazards and managing residual risk to as low as reasonably practicable and culturally organizations like understanding that wholeheartedly it was never even questioned, and then putting My diversity and inclusion practitioner hat on, trying to make advocacy for the needs to bring your whole self to work and be your true authentic self. When I saw this data coming through, I was like, Well, hang on, if we were getting inclusion and belonging right, then everyone would be able to be open about whatever root causes that might be driving this high instant rate suicidal ideation and self harm, which disproportionately is affecting the men in the engineering industry. So maybe this is a way in which to frame dei as being linked, then to physical safety and psychological safety, and this is the way we we nucleate the conversation in a non threatening, non polarizing way which it’s being which which counteracts the way it is. Typically, we’ve typically had the conversation up until now. When we focus on each demographic identity, it takes the conversation to a very shallow them and us. What about me is um, type mindset, and so I wonder, then, in your leadership ISO standard that you’re developing, like, what, what? How does it layer in the blend between like, personal identity and personal values, and bringing your whole self to work like and then linked to a. And just good technical leadership, you know, and being a good mentor and stuff like that.

Martin Cottam 35:05
Well, several things you prompt me to say there, and I’ll try and not forget the second while I tell you about the first, just to mention because it will be of interest to you. You’re perhaps aware of it, but certainly to listeners that there is a current initiative at BSI to produce a guidance standard on suicide prevention, and I was directly involved in the early discussions. In fact, I facilitated the meetings that developed the scope for that document. And again, I think that’s, you know, that points to the same thing about where having a standard could, you know, serve to shine a spotlight on something, legitimize conversations, and draw it to the attention of organizational leadership, that, actually, you know, there’s a standard on this that kind of suggests you by finding a bit some attention. So I think that’s the first thing, perhaps, to say the second, I think the broader question was, was, how do standards address this issue? We’ve we’ve learned as we were going, I think with the 45,000 series in 45,001 I think it would be fair to say it’s pretty weak on the issue of need of the organization needing to consider and address the full diversity of its workforce and the associated needs for that. There was some interesting ISO research, which, which kind of was a bit of a wake up call for us, because, you know, when you’re trying to craft a standard to be sort of as economical as possible and succinct and so on. You know, whenever you get laundry lists of examples, they get challenged us, did you need all these examples? And why do they occur in 16 different places, and it’s not quite the same list? And so that tends to produce a pressure to sort of simplify down. And so we ended up with phrases like considering the needs of of all the workforce, or all workers, I think was the phrase the ISO research, which was done specifically on our standard and on some other standards, told us that actually, that’s, That’s, that’s a fatally compromised approach, because the people who already fully understand what diversity is about, we know what the different attributes would be that you would need to consider and so on. And you know, know that you’d include, you know, older people, younger people, get people with disabilities, neurodiverse on you. The people who know know that. You know they know it anyway, so that you achieve nothing. And the people that you’re trying to influence who don’t get it, that kind of wording just goes straight over their heads, because you haven’t put in all the examples which would trigger them to think, Oh, I didn’t realize it should be include this and that. So we’ve moved now to what? Well, the last standard we published had a dedicated section specifically on the need for the organization to consider the diversity of its workforce and the and the and the implication is, well, that that section sits right at the top of the standard alongside two other sections in the called the context section, yeah, effectively, the message is in that section is the organization needs to understand its internal and external environment in which it’s operating, yes, and the needs and expectations of stakeholders. And the punchline really, is all of that needs to then be taken into account in designing the management system, right? That’s the driver of exactly how you then implement the, you know, all the elements of the management system is you have to take that stuff into account. Well, we’ve now added the a third, a third thing to consider as a driver, and that’s the diversity of the workforce. And we did that in ISO 45,006 and I’m expecting us to take the same approach in the revision of 45,001 interesting. So that will then become, if you like, a requirement that it is a driver of what of the way the organization then goes about developing and implementing the management system. Yeah, no, that’s great. I’m hopeful that that will will be more effective, in a sense that delivering a stronger message. I mean, obviously we’re revising the standard after five, five or more years in use, we’ll consider more than five and in some cases you enter revision is about rewording things which weren’t well expressed before or didn’t didn’t get understood. But it’s also, I think, about, you know, trying to make sure that you’re pushing the frontiers forward and raising the challenge for. Organizations in a in a sensible way,

Mark McBride-Wright 40:02
yeah, yeah, no, I think it will have a feed forward influence on a sort of medium term time scale as it gradually filters through to certification requirements. You know, you need to be ISO 45,001 accredited in order to be on this framework. Exactly, your next accreditation review is coming up in three years time. Then that has the these elements in it, addressing it, yeah, and then, and then you see these elements in it. And for the organizations that haven’t been on it, they’re like, oh my goodness, we need to do something about this. How do we do it? Right now. Let’s go to market to try and find some consultancies or whoever that can support us. And then you have the, you know, that’s then the framework to do it. But then you’ve got the whole internal cultural need that that to go through as well, yeah, and

Martin Cottam 40:57
I think it’s, I’m very content with the way we’ve the team has come up with this solution of how to place it in the standard because I think it’s it then becomes very I think we’re sending a very clear message, which is that you’re considering the diversity of the workforce for a very specific purpose, which is to make sure that the management system supports them and their safety, health and well being. You know, in other words, it’s, it’s all about safety. It’s not a piece of kind of, you know, fashionable woke, that it just is a good idea to be wind up. Why should we, you know, everybody else talks about Dei. We should be talking it’s not that at all. It’s actually about safer outcomes, healthier outcomes, and better well being for people, it makes me know which is why you have an OHS management system, isn’t it? So if you’re not doing that, why bother having a management system? Well,

Mark McBride-Wright 41:50
it also excludes people. It also makes me think about, you know, I’ve been part of a group right now where we’ve been looking at how safety is understood as today’s engineering students. And of course, today’s engineering students are tomorrow’s engineering leaders. And what my chemical engineering bias, I’ve found, is that I perceive that everyone understands safety as process safety, about fire mitigation and blasts and all that, you know. But actually safety means something different to an electrical engineering student compared to a civil engineering student, to a chemical to, you know, mechanical, etc. And so even when we were looking at process safety courses, you know, the relative proportionality on what’s focused on management systems and process safety management versus the more technical side of things like actual process safety calculations, in that there was less of understanding in process safety management, I think it was a longitudinal study that Imperial College did. That’s where I went to quantify the impact, to look at the impact for alumni that had gone off into industry did what we taught you on process safety actually help you now that you’re in technical roles, and there was some feedback on how to sort of change the relative proportionality. And one of the feedback points, I think, was about the need to it would have been useful to have understood more about what active process safety management was. And I remember being that student, well, being a graduate, going into industry to be a technical safety engineer, and then starting to understand about the HSE and the goal setting resume versus OSHA and more, you know, tick box or checklist type regimes in the US and how that didn’t even understand what ISO standards were, to be honest when I was a student, or how they’re used and applied. So if you’re bringing all these things in now, if we then couple that with more active education on what process safety management systems are and also do a little bit of education on bringing closer together workplace safety and technical safety, process safety, so the Venn diagram of overlap is a bit tighter, and the fact that includes culture and psychological safety, and that the culture of the team that you’re In and who’s represented on the team that you’re doing the engineering with. I think it’ll go a long way to really embedding dei just as part of how we do our work. So no, I think it’s great. It’s good that the team are that you’ve done that. And

Martin Cottam 44:38
I think there are some, some universities. Well, I know, I know of one or two specifically who are teaching about management systems, about standards and about management systems. And certainly, I mean, I share your feeling in a way. I mean, I think it would have been a very useful part of my education to have. Add something that was more about if you like the management processes that sit around, but if you like the technical safety elements, because it’s it took me quite a while, I think, in my career, to really kind of get under the skin of what a management system really can be. Yes, you know, I think too many organizations still don’t actually see it as a system. It’s just a set of processes, and it took me a while to understand actually, it’s called a system for a very particular reason. It’s about information flows between processes and interactions between processes. And I think, you know, I’ve come to see management systems over over the years, I think increasingly, because of my risk management background, you know, the all the elements of a management system, to me are the control measures. Yes, the management system is effectively the Swiss cheese model exemplified, and it’s, it’s affected the way I’ve sort of looked at things like technical governance in my role at large Register was actually thinking, you know, this is a whole series of controls around particular risks. In this case, the risk of releasing work, containing technical errors, to a client, you know, and applying that sort of risk lens to it, of thinking, well, the risk is higher with some services than others, and therefore the controls need to be stronger in some areas than others, and you’ve got front end controls and you’ve got back end controls. What’s the right blend under different circumstances? But we tend to compartmentalize these things, don’t we? There’s risk management over here and technical safety, sitting somewhere else, and management systems, another thing when actually that they’re all, as you say, it’s a Venn diagram.

Mark McBride-Wright 46:47
Hard, the same thing, right? Okay, quick fire questions, so okay, what is the one Bucha resource that has deeply influenced your career?

Martin Cottam 46:59
Investigation reports, definitely, I find them so compelling to see what really happened. You know, I think it brings you back to reality sometimes, doesn’t it to sort of understand, actually an organization had all this in place, but actually, this is what happened

Mark McBride-Wright 47:15
on the day coffee or tea.

Martin Cottam 47:19
Always, do calf coffee black.

Mark McBride-Wright 47:23
If you could implement one global safety rule, what would it be?

Martin Cottam 47:29
I’m tempted to say, Stop talking about compliance, and focus on performance. Focus on effectiveness. You know, there’s that myth that management systems promote a well, people say they promote a culture of compliance. Well, if they do, you’re not reading it properly. You know, it doesn’t talk about compliance. It talks about making your processes effective.

Mark McBride-Wright 47:54
What’s a project you’re most proud of?

Martin Cottam 47:57
I think, well, I guess it would almost have to be, and especially in the sort of Twilight weeks of my time chairing TC 283, it’s been such a pleasure and privilege to see that committee grow from from where we started to where it is. And there’s a lot more still to do. You know, there’s no room for complacency, but I think particularly winning the Lawrence D Iker award the Committee of the year on the committee’s fourth birthday. But it was quite an achievement, you know, because we’re so often compared with much better established committees, you know, that have been around 20 or 30 years for quality, for environment, right? And it’s a hard comparison when you’re the new kid on the block. So I took some comfort from that. That

Mark McBride-Wright 48:44
award brilliant. Are you a morning or evening person? Definitely morning, one word to describe your leadership style

Martin Cottam 48:56
when I left. LR, I remember the remarks, a speech made by one of my team members who said that I gave them a lot of space and trust, but was very firm if it was, if it wasn’t, if they got off the off the track, that I believed we’d agreed. Okay, so I guess it’s a bit of a blend.

Mark McBride-Wright 49:21
What’s the biggest myth, what’s the biggest misconception about occupational health and safety?

Martin Cottam 49:28
It’s got to be that it’s a cost to business, isn’t it?

Mark McBride-Wright 49:33
And what’s one piece of advice you’d give for aspiring leaders?

Martin Cottam 49:38
That’s tricky. I think, from my own experience, be open to opportunities that seem a bit, you know, left field. As I’ve I’ve assembled knowledge from a rather, you know, meandering path. But actually, when it all, I bring it all together, and I find it’s now quite, quite used. For. But I think in terms of the other thing quickly, if I may, Mark would be, I think from the thing, I’d say for most young engineering safety professionals is focus on or develop your communication and influencing skills. I think that’s really something to work on from the get go, yes, it can be a, you know, it can be game changing.

Mark McBride-Wright 50:25
Yeah, that that is, that is really good advice. Certainly, I’ve found bringing, you know, I’ve done some investment in public speaking, and I’ve done some investment in myself and about being an entrepreneur and growing a business, you know that there is real strength and being able to, like, land your point, communicate with different stakeholders, and push yourself out of your out of your comfort zone, so on and so forth. So thank you so much. Martin. Really enjoyed the chat, and if people want to get in touch with you, how can the how can they do that?

Martin Cottam 51:05
Well, linked. I’m on LinkedIn, so you’ll certainly find me there, and I’m happy for you to put my email address in the show notes. If you’d Mark

Mark McBride-Wright 51:15
Absolutely, we will do that. Well, thank you so much, Martin. It’s been a pleasure. Well,

Martin Cottam 51:22
thank you for the invitation again. Really enjoyed it. Mark,

Mark McBride-Wright 51:28
great. Oh my.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai