Jill:

This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded July 28th, 2021. My name is Jill James, HSI's Chief Safety Officer. And today I'm joined by Erin Balen. Erin is an EHS program and management professional with 19 years experience developing and managing programs related to safety and well being. Erin studied sociology and psychology as an undergrad and has a master's degree in business administration. Erin joins us today from Wisconsin. Welcome to the show, Erin.

Erin:

Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

Jill:

Well, I am excited to hear your story and excited to hear about sociology and psychology too. But it's your story to share. So tell us how did you... What's your winding path into this profession?

Erin:

Well, having the opportunity to be on this podcast, has given me some time to reflect on how did I get into the safety profession. And it has been definitely a journey. As you said, I went to school for sociology and psychology as an undergrad. I went to the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. When I started at the university, I thought I was going to be going into the social work program. So my goal was to be a social worker, I really wanted to help people and connect them with resources and make sure that they were cared for, that they had their basic needs met and felt connected, and had support systems. And so that was really a driver for me. I always thought I was going to be a social worker since I was middle school high school age.

Jill:

Yeah. Why did you think that back then?

Erin:

I just really had a passion for helping people. I felt like there was a disproportionate allocation of resources. And I wanted to make sure that people had the things that they needed to be successful in their life. That they had opportunity to live their full potential. And without some of those things, those needs being met and having connections to resources that would allow them to strengthen themselves and their families, I thought they were already limited, they were already at a disadvantage. And so making sure that we... I was a part of a system that could intervene and connect was really important to me. And the only way I knew how to do that at the time, or thought I could do that the best was by being a social worker. And when I went to UWL, as an undergrad, they had the program and then eventually they removed the program from their offerings. And I was not able to enroll in it, which was a hidden blessing, I suppose. Made me choose something else.

And so I thought the closest thing to social work seemed to be sociology and so I jumped into that. And that sociology really got into my brain in a way that allowed me to be more science based with that social part of it as well. And so it stretched that research part of me, that analytical part of me that I wanted to... That probably needed to be strengthened and probably needed to be tapped into. And so I really enjoyed the science side of it and understanding how social systems work. It gave you more of a foundational understanding of social systems. Yeah, it was a very good program, completely enjoyed it had no clue what I was going to do with it.

At that point, I knew I wasn't probably... I could have probably gone on for a master's in social work, but just really did not know and thought, you know what, I'm just going to enjoy the moment, and so I did.

Jill:

That's pretty insightful for a young person.

Erin:

It felt good, it felt like the right thing to do. And I just remember going to class every day feeling hyped. I loved class, I loved being in a room of people who were picking apart all of our social constructs, all of the things that were created by design, by access to resources, by our human nature, by our sociological nature, our psychological nature. And so it's just fascinating to me to sit and pick apart everything historically for where we are today, as well as what are the things that we're continuing to do that are going to create our future? So it was just great to be in a classroom like that. And so I just really enjoyed. I've just really enjoyed sociology a lot. It was a great learning experience.

Jill:

You graduate, you're not sure exactly what job you can get, your family's probably asking you the same thing.

Erin:

Exactly. Exactly.

Jill:

I know mine was too. What happens next?

Erin:

I graduated and decided that I was going to do a year of AmeriCorps, which is a United States stateside program where you volunteer your time, your services, and the program that I was involved with, focused on youth services. And I knew that that was something I wanted to do, because it was going to help me better understand the type of work I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to help. That social worker part of me was still there. That part that I wanted to connect people to resources was very much still there. And so I did a year of AmeriCorps. And some of the opportunities that I had were working at homeless shelters and food banks. I worked with youth programs like mentorships and I worked in the school system as a tutor and as a mentor, at the Boys and Girls Club as a mentor. And so I really enjoyed working in youth services. I always thought that was where I would probably end up if I was a social worker. And so that was excellent because it led me to my first job working at a community action agency.

Jill:

It was your AmeriCorps work in Wisconsin, or was it in different parts of the US?

Erin:

Mine was actually all in Wisconsin and it was all based in La-Crosse where I graduated. We had a youth experiencing success AmeriCorps program here. And so I hopped into that thinking, I wasn't making much money as a college student, I can probably go another year without making much more money and give back to my community, meet some people, connect with some organizations that are doing work that I really believe in and try to find myself a little bit, what was I going to do with that sociology degree?

Jill:

And you really learned a lot more about your own home essentially?

Erin:

I did.

Jill:

Your own home community. Yeah.

Erin:

When you're a college student, and you're on campus all the time, and you're working all the time, you don't really get to know the community that you're living in, you're a guest sometimes. You're a visitor even though you're here in your community, at your college community for a long time. A lot of times you don't venture off campus, and you don't get connected to the resources that are out there. And this was a great way for me to get connected after college, with the resources in our community and just realize what a great community La Crosse is, and how resource rich we are, which was amazing to me that I could be a part of that. Yeah, but AmeriCorps led me to my first job.

And I worked at a community action agency on youth violence prevention. I also managed a program for foster care transitional housing, where youth in foster care were transitioning out of the foster care system into living on their own and needed to find ways to take care of their basic needs. And then we also had a mentorship program that I supervised. I got to work a lot with youth, but it was a lot about the basic fundamental needs that people have in order to feel connected, safe and secure in their communities. And so I after thinking about this podcast and thinking about my work history, I started to realize how important those needs are to be met for people to feel safe and secure.

Jill:

And valued.

Erin:

And valued. And a valuable contributor to their community and to their families. And so all of those things, just started to feed who I was as a person and really spoke to me. And so I did that for two years. And then I went on to become a manager at a health care clinic for low income populations. Again, making sure people have safe affordable health care and connecting them with resources, educating them on what their options are and their opportunities are making sure that they understand the health care system and insurance and just how to take care of themselves, their whole well being. A lot of times low income populations don't have access to fulfilling those needs. I'm fortunate enough that I live in a community where we have a lot of resources for people who may not seem-

Jill:

Sounds intense.

Erin:

... to have access. Yeah.

Jill:

But fulfilling.

Erin:

So fulfilling. Completely fulfilling. Very good work and all in the nonprofit sector. And it seems to be sometimes not always, but it seems to be sometimes that in the nonprofit sector the skill set that is appropriate for the nonprofit sector doesn't translate well into the for profit sector.

Jill:

Isn't that true.

Erin:

Yeah, it's unfortunate because nonprofits are businesses like any other business, and they have resources where they have to balance, income and expenses and their service is just a little bit different. It's not to make a profit, it is to help people better themselves and have access to resources. That's their service. And unfortunately sometimes I think we undervalue the expertise and the skill sets that's required to manage programs like that. Talk about being financially responsible.

Jill:

That's right. That's right.

Erin:

Shoestring budget for sure. So you get very creative and innovative in those areas.

Jill:

I know that when I want to learn about creativity and innovation in terms of accessing resources or asking for resources, I'll go to one of my friends who is the Executive Director for the community in my state that aids people who are in housing instability situations. She knows how to connect people and to resources better than anyone I've ever met. If I'm looking for some ideas, how would you navigate this? I call Rhonda. Rhonda, explained to me how you'd go about this. She always has some ideas that I never thought of.

Erin:

It is amazing how resourceful people in the nonprofit community have to be, and learn to be, just to get the job done. Because they're really... Hopefully everyone's living their passion, but usually they're living their passion on, lower wages and just are living through their hearts in ways that they just really want to help people. And so, yeah, it's at all costs trying to get things done.

Jill:

And I bet that really translates to your work and safety. I'm not trying to pull you ahead in your story, I want to hear it. But so many of us in this professional practice of health and safety don't have access to funds, or don't have a budget. And so, you can deploy those same methods that you learned working in the nonprofit world, who am I going to align myself with to be able to fund this program, project piece of software, whatever it is.

Erin:

Yeah. And how can I get it done without maybe even asking for financial resources? There's so many great opportunities, avenues, resources that companies have available to them that I'm not sure that they always lean into and get connected with. And so yeah, for sure, it's absolutely translatable. And that's where I saw, when I looked at, what is happening in the communities that I was working with when I worked in nonprofit? And how could I translate some of those skills that I had to the for profit sector? One of the things that became very apparent to me was the idea of improving processes and collaboration and synergy. And when you work in safety and when you work in for profit, you really have to bring all of the business units together, all of the departments together to work on safety. It's not isolated to the safety department. I took a jump, I took a leap and I applied for a job at a for profit business. Nothing more different than healthcare than a foundry. And so I went to a foundry.

Jill:

Oh my gosh, this is not true. Wow.

Erin:

Yeah, I went to a foundry-

Jill:

Healthcare to foundry.

Erin:

Healthcare to foundry, yeah, nonprofit, youth services and healthcare to a foundry. I walked in and I was very fortunate that I worked with a team of people who were very supportive of my skills and my transition and teaching me about the industry and I'm a lifelong learner and so I soaked it up. I was so excited to learn something different and something new, something a little bit more technical because the foundry industry is very technical and very science based.

Jill:

And just intense work environment. I remember the first time I walked into a foundry when I was an investigator with OSHA, and I was in my early 20s, and I had never been into a foundry in my life. And I remember walking into one thinking, oh, this is hell on earth. Because it's hot.

Erin:

It is.

Jill:

Molten metal with visual flames if you will.

Erin:

Yes.

Jill:

And people are working around these hot tanks of molten metal. And it's intense. It's dangerous. It can be, depending on ventilation, dark and dim depending on what's happening with safety and health or not happening with it. And I thought, oh, my God, this is hell on... It's like the thing that action films are filmed in these environments, right?

Erin:

It is very much so. What action films are filmed in. I had the exact same response. And I thought, what am I doing here? What am I going to do here? And to some degree-

Jill:

Like, I have to do all the things here today?

Erin:

Yeah, that's pretty much. When I was hired, they didn't have a specific job for me, they knew they wanted me on their team. But they created this position for me. And I was very fortunate that all of this happened. And they were going to teach me the industry and they were going to coach me along the way on the industry itself, and what the needs were for the business and they wanted me to just dive in learn, be a fresh set of eyes. And of course, I was probably the freshest set of eyes, considering I had never set foot in a foundry before that. And so I did I. I remember what my first tour through the foundry on my interview, and I was wearing patent leather shoes and dress pants, and it was noisy. And I think if I recall correctly, I maybe had earplugs in, safety glasses for sure.

It was so loud in there, I had a hard time hearing anything. And I just thought, wow, if there's anything that's totally different than healthcare, which is pristinely clean and organized, and whatever, the foundry was the complete opposite. And I thought, bring it on. This is the challenge I want, I would love to learn more about this. And after doing some research, the environmental side of me was very appreciative of foundries being one of our original recyclers, right. And so just reusing materials and lowering costs to reuse materials, but also a very good way of protecting the environment and how long lasting castings actually are. Just the structural integrity of the parts that are made and pieces that are made is just really fascinating. And so I just loved that idea. And I couldn't have been more excited about it, jumped right in, got there and started working on some of their safety programs. And when I got there, one of my best resources was our insurance company. And I didn't know anything about, I shouldn't say I didn't know anything. I knew very little about occupational safety in a manufacturing environment.

Jill:

Sure. How could you?

Erin:

Yeah, yeah. It was my first job in this way. And really, safety was under my umbrella, under my scope. And I shared safety with maintenance, and I shared it with human resources. There was no isolated safety professional at the foundry at that time. And so I shared that, and we were all on this learning journey and figuring things out. And I was very fortunate that one of my roles was to work on their safety program and develop, really fully developed their safety program. And then one of my other roles was to really fully develop out and improve their maintenance operations. And it really gave me this strong appreciation for manufacturing and maintenance and how it relates to safety and connecting all of those threads as to, we're asking people to work on equipment that's designed to do a specific thing that if it doesn't do that, and it breaks down, and it's no longer efficient or effective, that it could cause harm and injury. And that sometimes companies unfortunately use equipment that's not meant for the intention that it was designed. And so what does that mean for someone's safety?

How do we make sure that we're doing the PMs on this equipment that we've got the right parts that we're using the right replacement parts. That it has the right capacity, and we're not exceeding its capacity and creating a dangerous situation. So it was just really, it all seemed to fit together and it helped me really develop out their safety program, I think so much stronger than had I just been in safety because I got to work so closely with the maintenance team and how the equipment actually works or was supposed to work.

Jill:

It probably fast tracked your ability to make things happen, because you were able to dig into those processes.

Erin:

Yeah.

Jill:

And turn over the hazards. And you had said that you were educating yourself through the insurance carrier?

Erin:

Yeah.

Jill:

Which was brilliant. Was that something that you figured out? Or did someone in HR say, hey, I think they might have some resources, how did you get that awareness?

Erin:

The company I worked for, had a really strong relationship with our insurance broker. And they met with them on a regular basis before I had even gotten there. And so I was very fortunate that I got to sit in on those meetings when they were doing work comp review, and the risk manager offered to me the option to come through and do a walk through and do a risk assessment, and a hazard assessment. And so we did those on a pretty regular basis.

Jill:

Awesome.

Erin:

We met with them quarterly. And I found it to be so valuable. He was such a great resource and connected me with great resources. And so not only was our broker really good at it but our insurance company, our provider itself had a lot of resources. And so I just again, tapped into everything I could, we did all the walkthroughs. He showed me things that opened my eyes. I could ask questions because sometimes when you, I hate to say it, but sometimes when you're working with a company and you identify something as being possibly unsafe, or unsafe, and you're questioning it and you're not 100% certain because you're not familiar with the industry, you're not familiar with-

Jill:

Yeah, you're just walking through it in your head.

Erin:

Yeah. You're just walking through it in your head. It's not always an open book. And that's not I don't think necessarily on purpose, I think sometimes we have bias and we just have blinders up. And this was a family owned business where they had been in the business for, over a century and a very long time. And so they grew up with this basically as being their second home. And so when you're so used to something, you don't always see those things.

Jill:

That's right.

Erin:

And that's what they hired me for, was the fresh set of eyes which I had. And so I had someone I could ask those questions too outside, and someone who had, thankfully been in other foundries. And so that was really helpful for me too, because I hadn't at that point.

Jill:

Yeah, they could see best practices, they had observed it in other places. Thank you for sharing that about the insurance brokers and insurance companies. I know that I've shared this on previous episodes as well in terms of resources for our listening audience. But there really is powerful resources to tap essentially for no cost. Obviously, the employers paying premiums and whatnot to their insurance providers, but they do have these professionals that you can tap like, Erin's describing, that can really help you whether you are a seasoned professional or just getting started. There's definitely ways to leverage those resources.

Erin:

It's amazing. I've been fortunate enough to work with the same insurance company for my entire seven years that I've been specifically in safety and in manufacturing safety. And the company that I have been privileged to work with, has had the opportunity to borrow at no cost equipment for industrial hygiene, free lab testing. It's just really tons of consultative services where they can actually document and provide you with reports if you need that for any support for upper management or investment and safety. It has been really invaluable, and it's probably where I've learned most of the stuff besides the OSHA standards. It's probably where I've learned most of the stuff I know about safety. Yeah.

Jill:

Wonderful. Wonderful.

Erin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jill:

So Erin, what... I don't know how long you stayed at the foundry, you'll probably tell us. But at some point, you also earned your MBA. So where does that get woven into the story as well?

Erin:

Yeah, actually when I was in nonprofit healthcare, I decided to go back to school to get my master's degree. And that was a little bit of a journey for me too. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted my master's degree in. I was working full time and I had to find a program that was going to allow me to continue to earn my income and be covered under insurance as well as be an adult learner and spend hopefully, my evenings improving myself and my education. And so while I was at the nonprofit healthcare company, I decided to go back for my master's degree in business administration. I was lucky, again, La-Crosse is very resource rich, we've got three higher education institutions. And so I had a pick of several programs. And one of them was Master's degree in Business Administration. And it was a great program.

At first, I didn't think that that's really what I wanted to do. I couldn't connect the dots. How was I going from nonprofit, health care, to my master's degree in Business Administration? Is that really what I wanted to do? And as I started to think about it, I was going to spend the rest of my life working. Well, hopefully until I retire, but you know what I mean?

Jill:

Yeah, I do.

Erin:

I don't want to spend a lot of my life working. And workplaces are micro social constructs, right? They're a little community in and of itself. And I thought, it's a great way to understand the business side of things. And my focus was a lot on leadership and strategy. And so I thought that could be useful anywhere. And again, even if I stay at a nonprofit, nonprofits are businesses. And it's more important now for those nonprofits to be seen as such, and to be managed as such. And so even if I hadn't left nonprofit healthcare, I thought it would be a good fit. And then that's when I got offered the position at the foundry.

Jill:

Makes sense. The MBA opened the door for you there.

Erin:

Yeah. It did. It really did. Regardless of what I wanted from it, I knew I enjoyed learning and I just really wanted to go back and be in a classroom and have that same experience I had when I was in sociology, and just loving the activity of learning and being in a cohort of people who were generating ideas and talking to each other about ideas. And so that connectivity, that classroom learning experience is just such a driver, a fulfiller for me. That was a huge part of it. Didn't realize it at the moment until I got into my master's program. And I was like, man, I miss this. And so, who knows what's next? There's probably more classroom opportunities for me in the future, I'm seeing probably.

Jill:

[crosstalk 00:28:31] lifelong learner, so it makes sense.

Erin:

Yeah. That's where that came into play, and that's why the foundry door got open. And I was at the foundry for five years. My last two years, I was in the role specifically of the EHS director. We had talked about the fact that we need more of an isolated presence in safety and that it wasn't getting its justice. And that it's really a full time job.

Jill:

Amen.

Erin:

Yeah. I spent my last two years focused solely on their safety program and building that out in a better way. And there was a lot going on then at the time. It was really important. I think one of the things that came up during that time was the new silica standard. And in foundries that was huge. And so that took a lot of time, is figuring out, where were we at with the silica standard and being in compliance. So it was really timely that all those things lined up at the same time.

Jill:

And in just navigating and figuring out how to protect people from the hazards of silica, I bet you leaned a lot into the work you're done in medicine. And understanding how to navigate the medical monitoring requirements that go along with that law too.

Erin:

Absolutely. We had a couple of great providers, occupational health providers in our community. And I leaned into them as well. We've got, again, very resource rich in La-Crosse. We have two medical institutions, huge medical institutions, and they both have excellent occupational health departments. And so leaning into them, touching base with their resources, understanding what they knew and how we could best get through, making sure we were compliant with the standard was really important, documenting what it is that we needed, sharing with them what we knew about our facility, and then them coming back to us and saying, here's what we suggest, here's what we recommend as next steps for providing medical surveillance. And then of course our insurance company helping us with the industrial exposure monitoring, which was really key. Yeah, yeah.

Jill:

Interesting. What happened after the foundry? Where did you go next?

Erin:

So then I went to an electronics recycling company. And that was very interesting to me as well. Again, have had that love of protecting the environment and being a recycler and making sure that in this case that hazardous materials don't end up being landfilled and sent to third world countries where it would impact us globally, and impact people locally, right?

Jill:

Yep.

Erin:

So really have had a huge passion for me to make sure that we're operating as a global citizen.

Jill:

So you moved from learning about silica to learning about lead with [crosstalk 00:31:51].

Erin:

Yes. That would be accurate. That would be accurate. Yes, very much so. And so I got there and the thing that was... When you work in manufacturing you have basically a recipe for what it is that you're going to create. And so it's easy to understand all of the hazards. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's easier to understand all the hazards. You say, here's this component and here's this component, I'm going to mix it together, this is the process I was going to take to make this. And there might be some nuances, might be some different pieces of equipment that you use to make certain types of equipment. But basically, there's a lot of similarity. There's a lot of the same stuff that you're working with when you're-

Jill:

That's so interesting. The recipe analogy.

Erin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jill:

I like that. Yeah. Talk more about that. I feel like... I think I'm understanding because every time I've walked into a manufacturing facility, I always asked the similar questions set. Though the product was different, the process was not necessarily.

Erin:

Exactly. When you go and you make a casting, you have certain elements that you put into the furnace that you melt down to make that casting happen and there's recipes for that. But you have safety data sheets for all of that stuff. And so that's easy, right? You get a product in the door, it comes with a label on it, you get the safety data sheet from the manufacturer from the supplier, and you can look at all the hazards and you understand the mixture of the components that you're using, because you create this recipe. And that's for anything, you could talk about that with any manufacturing, I suppose, you got to know what are the parts that you're going to be using, what are the pieces of equipment that you're going to be using to put all of that together. And equipment's probably pretty similar in any industry, and relates also to the electronics recycling industry.

But one of the things that I thought was the most challenging was when you get electronics in and it's any electronic device that can't be landfilled, there are certain components that are the same, but they're all different. And the amount within each piece of electronic equipment can be different based on the manufacturer, it can be different based on the model, it can be different based on the time it was manufactured. So for instance, something that was manufactured in 1973 versus something that was manufactured in 2003, are going to be very different. The pieces that make up those components are going to be different. We got everything in. Because we were a recycling company, we got, it could be one offs. And so you couldn't say for instance in the foundry industry, when you're in manufacturing, you're like, I'm going to make this casting, this is the part number for the casting, this is all the components that are made up of it. These are the machines that all goes on, so we know what we're going to do with it.

When you have recycling stuff comes in and you go, okay, what workstation are we going to put that on? And do we know what's inside of it? And it's not always just a TV or a monitor, it could be a lot of things, because there's so many different types of electronics out there.

Jill:

Sure.

Erin:

And so really trying to tap into what are the common themes of the hazards, so that we could be as useful of our time, right? Because all of this training has come training takes time to try to express what are the hazards that they're working with and the chemicals that they're working with, the hazardous material that they're working with. And so trying to be as concise as possible. So to your point lead, we know that that's pretty common, so we'll talk about that a lot. But then there were other areas where maybe it was a one off, and we had to say, okay, this is just this situation, because we have this one time contract with this customer where they're going to send us this material once. And then it's, I was on the phone with manufacturers of the material asking them if they could send me their manuals, asking them if they had any safety data sheets that they could provide to us.

And some of these things were things that were manufactured back in like the '70s, '80s, '90s. And sometimes that's really hard to find the person who can connect you with, what are the hazards of this piece of equipment before we decided that we're going to break it open and break it down into its smallest commodities. That was a whole nother challenge I had never experienced in safety.

Jill:

What an interesting job. It's like, yeah, you have to figure this out before you can send it through the process of the recycling facility.

Erin:

Yes.

Jill:

And I bet you had to do it quickly?

Erin:

You do have to do it pretty quickly. Yeah, there's that a lot a storage space for that material. And of course, just making sure that your customers are taken care of on the business side of things and they're getting their needs met. And so it was, it was really, really challenging. And you did have to do it quickly. I was probably called out on the floor for those kinds of things, way more frequently than when I was at the foundry. At foundry, I had a little bit more of the, dare I say luxury of doing more walk arounds and talking and connecting with team members. When I was at the recycling company, I was more problem solving and troubleshooting on a pretty regular basis. And so it was just a very different... They were very different experiences and seeing the two different sides of one is creating the product and then two is on the other side of this.

Jill:

Disassembling it.

Erin:

Disassembling it. What happens after it's done. And then how much do you not know when you're taking something apart and you don't know what is in it?

Jill:

Yep. It's, if you're wired for a mystery and you'd like trying to really discover and break things down, that could be a super fun job for people who are like that. If you like something new coming at you every day that would be a great job.

Erin:

Absolutely would be a great job for someone who loves that. And it's very interesting because it's an up and coming industry and there's not a lot known sometimes even about the hazards of the material that... The materials that are being used. Because one, its proprietary, right? A lot of times we're using stuff that we don't know a lot about. For instance, we didn't know all of this information about lithium batteries and lithium ion batteries. And now that is huge. What we know about the hazards, the fire hazards and the volatility of lithium batteries and lithium batteries are in everything. And so we're just learning. It's a new industry if you're looking at being on the cutting edge and pioneer problem solving, figuring it out. To your point that's definitely an industry to get into for safety. Challenging, but you're constantly learning, every day is different, every day's new.

Jill:

Yeah. Our work is often detective-ish, sort of work if we want to call it that, but the sounds like its, amped up.

Erin:

It is.

Jill:

Yeah, that sounds fun.

Erin:

It is. It was. It was definitely fun. Yeah, it was a good time.

Jill:

What happens next?

Erin:

Well, after I was at the electronics recycling company for a couple of years, I decided that I was going to just take a step back and decide what I wanted to do with this variety of experience that I have now compiled. And so I took a step back, I decided to resign from my position. And before doing that I worked on making sure that we had some of the right people in the right spots at the company. I took a step back and decided I was going to just reevaluate, do I want to go back to school, being the lifelong learner that I am? Did I want to do something that encompassed all of the work experiences that I had had? Do I want to stay in safety in total? And then realizing, and again, to credit of being invited on to this podcast, I have realized that everything in total that I've been doing is related to safety.

Sometimes I don't think we think of it that broadly when we think of occupational health and safety, but really when you're talking about safety for people in general, that's a pretty basic need and it's pretty broad. And so I'm just taking some time to do some self care and some reflection and hopefully grow myself a little bit more and push myself into the next right direction. I've been very fortunate that I've had, I think, a really healthy, balanced, professional career. And I just hope to continue, I think down that path and move that forward.

Jill:

Yeah, yeah. So you left your job. And I think that this is a really good conversation for us to be having for our listening audience right now. Our professional practice for the last year and counting, year and a half and counting has really experienced because of the pandemic, things we've never experienced before because of the obvious piece, the new hazard that no one has ever dealt with before. So there's that. But there was also all of this social dynamic that went along with it, right? And people in our profession scrambling to take care of their employees, the stress of dealing with a new hazard, the stress of a hazard that was not only at work, but at home, and in every part of your being layered on top of the various ways employers, community family members, the human body reacted to it. So there are so many in our professional practice who are looking for work right now, who for one reason or another decided, I'm out of this place, I'm looking for something else.

I was looking at a job board today, this morning before we record it. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, there are so many jobs open in our field right now like I've never seen before.

Erin:

I couldn't agree more.

Jill:

And so you doing this at this time and taking that time to reflect Erin and figuring out what as you put it, your next right move. I think there's probably a lot of people who are in your same situation right now.

Erin:

I think that there are a lot of people in that situation. I think the people that I've networked with and have had this conversation with friends, family colleagues, some are in awe and envious of the bold move they think I've made. And it was terrifying for me to be honest. It took a lot of self reflection and thought about what it means, what the last year and a half. And that was mostly, to be honest, that was a huge chunk of the time that I spent at the electronics recycling company.

And so it was big, and it does take a lot of time and a lot of energy. And I also think that there are times when in both situations, sometimes it's good to hand off the position because the position's not mine, the position is of the companies. And it is also helpful to look at it in a way of am I continuing to do what I want to do and can someone else come in here and take it that next... I think of it as, I suppose if we're talking about the Olympics, a relay, and you hand it off to someone else, hand the baton to someone else. You let them take it that next mile, that next whatever distance it is and breathe new energy into it and new ideas.

I'm a huge proponent of collaboration and synergy. And it's important to be respectful not only of yourself, which I feel is something I'm doing by taking some time to reflect and do some self care, I think it's also important to make sure that you leave the companies that you work for in a better position than when you got there. And that you hand it off to someone who can also do the same. And I didn't get to pick any of my predecessors, which is fine. For successors, I should say, not predecessors, successors, which is fine, but I'm confident that they all picked people that were fantastic because the companies were great. And I just know that whoever they hire can breathe that next layer of energy and thought and intention into their safety programs. And so I think that's important too.

Jill:

It is.

Erin:

Is to sometimes take a step back and say, I'm going to hand this baton off, it's time for someone else to pick this up and take it that next stretch.

Jill:

Right. Because as I think you've said, in a previous conversation that we had, where's the finish line with safety?

Erin:

Yeah.

Jill:

There isn't.

Erin:

There isn't. There isn't. You just keep going through.

Jill:

That's right.

Erin:

And so it's important, I think, to understand ourselves and as safety professionals to your point with what we just went through this last year and a half still going through, because it's not over yet.

Jill:

It's not done.

Erin:

And I think, I'm doing that self care and realizing, when it's time to just take a step back here for yourself and take a pause, I think is, if you can, I think is really healthy. And sometimes working, I had a coach, a business coach, way, way back, way back in the day. And he said, when you're working in the business, you can't work on the business. And it's true. So I consider myself a business. And when I'm working in it, I can't work on it. And so I needed some time to work on me and to figure that out, because my days were just spent at work, doing work. And it's hard to come home and think I want to do more work but I'm myself. And so I just didn't have that time to contemplate that. So this is a good opportunity for me to do that. So I'm really excited because I get to do this podcast and I'm also a board member for a local safety coalition. So I get to go to those meetings and stay connected in my community.

And I think all of those things, just staying connected and staying involved, I think is really key to part of the self discovery process and finding opportunities that speak to you and ways you can really hone your craft. And so I'm excited about that.

Jill:

Yeah. And so as you're determining what your next right thing is, and I think that's beautifully put that we're working on. We're all working on our next right thing. One of those things, it sounds like you'd been working on, that you had shared with me is developing your own personal mission.

Erin:

Yeah.

Jill:

Do you want to talk about that?

Erin:

Sure. I have been spending a lot of time. Again, I've been very fortunate to work for companies that have done personal assessments and whether it's, the Myers-Briggs, or the predictive index, there's some other ones that are out there. And doing a lot of reading about myself because sometimes it's hard, we have these biases, we have a self bias, right. And trying to really understand what our strengths are and how we can leverage those strengths and then how can we minimize and or improve our weaknesses, whatever those may be, because we all have them. And so, as I've been looking at my personal mission, I really decided that it is to help people live their full potential by connecting them to resources. And when I've taken the time and it's been a month now since I've resigned from my position, I've taken a lot of time to look at the work that I've done and my history.

I've taken some time to look at what some assessments have said about me as a person. I've done some digging deep into my values and what are the things that I want to show up in my professional life versus my personal life. And so that became my mission is to help people live full potential, their full potential by connecting them to resources. And so I pretty much see myself as like a catalyst for the potential in others and finding ways that I can improve their access to resources, improve things that are affecting their lives, create synergy and collaboration. That's where I really see myself in. And safety is no different. When I think of safety and the needs of people being able to go to work, earn a living, their time and their skill set is their resource. And the fact that they go there every day and give of their time in exchange for a currency that they can turn around and use to buy housing and education and food, and do leisurely things is really that's the exchange, right?

Erin:

That's what they're going to work to do. And if any of those things are... If their ability, their time or their capacity are limited because of their work, it's really impacting the rest of their life, right? It's impacting all those other needs that they have to fulfill whether they're basic, or whether they're leisure and enjoyment and improvement, personal improvement, it does impact those things. And so I think it's really important that we always work for a safer workplace and a better workplace for people. And working in safety, which was not intentional completely but ended up happening, has made me really realize how important that is, and how connected to it I was without realizing it professionally I suppose in the Occupational Health and Safety realm of my profession now.

It was something that came to me, and I have now fully embraced. It will always be a part of me going forward. And so I'm very excited about that. And it's just a skill set I think is extremely important. And I just want to throw out there, it's a skill set I think a lot of people can do. If you don't have the degree, if you don't have the certifications, you can get into safety. Where I left, I just encouraged a woman that I worked with to join the safety team, and she became the safety coordinator, she excels tremendously. Her value as someone who encourages worker participation and makes sure that she is training and making learning about safety fun is in her bones. And she doesn't have a formal degree, but I see her going far ways with safety in her future, and she loves it. There's a lot of jobs out there, like you said, Jill.

Jill:

Yeah.

Erin:

There's a lot of opportunity. And I think people should take a look at it, even if it's not something that they feel like they have a lot of experience in, there's ways of getting that experience and being connected and tapping into resources and learning about it and working in the field. Even without the degrees.

Jill:

Erin I just think it's so powerful, what you are doing right now to take that time to be able to figure out what's next for you and that you're working on ways to continue to stay engaged and informed with the professional practice that you've chosen and that you're doing some mentoring along the way. I think those things are fantastic. And, for people who are listening and thinking, maybe they're in your exact same position, Erin, and they've made a decision just like you have. Or maybe they're trying to figure out, gosh, how would I do that? I'm listening to Erin and I'm inspired, but maybe I can't for whatever reason just abruptly leave my job. How can you do that and continue to work? And I've done what Erin's talking about without leaving my job, and I did it over a long weekend, which I guess was I guess we could say it was the fast track version of what you're doing, Erin.

Erin:

Yes.

Jill:

But I did that a couple of jobs ago, where I knew it was... I could feel in my bones and you've been talking about how maybe we caught our intuition or feeling in our bones. I've got to find my next best thing. I spent a long weekend and maybe I took one day off and did a weekend intensive with myself, where I just focused on thinking about my career. And I started doing a lot of the things that Erin's been talking about. I made a list, physically wrote down the things that I loved about my work, the things that brought me life to do, and the things that didn't. And the industries that I've always gravitated toward or could visualize seeing myself in and the ones that I didn't. And Erin, you talked a lot about looking at some assessments that you've done before and learning more about yourself, and you talked about your strengths.

Many of us have had opportunities to do that and some of us haven't. And maybe that's another piece that people can do. I personally found the StrengthsFinder assessment through Gallup organization, particularly useful for me. And that really has informed the way I approach work. I learned that my number one strength is something called an activator, which means I have a particular knack and talent at getting people excited about things and moving them forward, which works pretty well and translates pretty well into our professional practice when you're trying to convince people maybe have a new way to do things, or a new way to start things. After a weekend intensive, I had a list and I knew then where I wanted to focus my efforts and what filled me up, but not the things I could do that job. Sure, I could do that job. But I might not like that particular aspect. And so narrowed it in that regard, if you have the luxury to do that. Yeah.

Erin:

I completely agree. Sorry to interrupt you.

Jill:

It's okay.

Erin:

I completely agree that that's, you may not have the assessment tools but there's so many resources online that you can find that'll start you at least the juices flowing. And none of this is finite, none of it is the finish line, right? Not only our careers are work in process, as human beings we're a work in process. And so we're just continually progressing through these changes as people in our careers. And I think it's just important to start some... If you feel that I think it's important to start somewhere. And a weekend, a day, a weekend, an hour a day. I've thought about doing a quarterly retreat now. I'm starting to figure out how that's going to look for myself.

Jill:

Good idea.

Erin:

And it's going to be a personal quarterly retreat, where I do some self reflection every quarter and just ask myself, what are the things that I'm doing that are adding value? What are the things that I'm doing that are taking away from that? Can I do anything about those things? Just to continue to help my mental health and to help my professional well being, to help me personally. And so it's just a whole way of just looking at myself holistically and deciding what are those things and not waiting until... Yes. And there's nothing wrong with this?

Jill:

No.

Erin:

I think that I just need to do a reset and say, I'm going to make that commitment to myself a little bit more frequently.

Jill:

Yeah. And I'm I still on the path that I want to be on?

Erin:

Exactly.

Jill:

Yeah.

Erin:

Exactly. I think it's possible. I think it's just a matter of finding the things that work for you that start to get those ideas flowing. I think networking is huge. Connecting with people in your community professionally online, whether it's LinkedIn or Facebook groups or councils and coalition's in your area conferences. If you can do any of those things, I think that's always really helpful to just hear what other people are doing and what their experiences are.

Jill:

Yeah. And through volunteering too. I wanted to ask you, when you started out your work with AmeriCorps and you fell in love with some of those things, has that translated into any volunteer work that you do now or that you've done along the way?

Erin:

Actually that is one of the big things on my list to find ways that I can continue to give back to my community, because that took a backseat and I'm realizing that something that was a major priority for me and I lost it. And so it's resetting that and rebalancing my life in a way that I can do those things. And so that's on my list as this is going to be something that's a non negotiable. Time does not interrupt my volunteer time, and the things I want to give back to. And so it's deciding what are those things that I want to spend my time doing? And how much time do I want to give? How does it fill my buckets, kind of a thing? So I'm really looking at that.

I actually volunteered for a major portion of my life. I think when I went back to get my master's degree, something happened, where that time got eaten up by my master's program, and then I didn't go back and re establish that, unfortunately. And so that, I think, is something in hindsight that I know I'm missing. But it's definitely something that fills me up.

Jill:

Yeah, I've done the same thing. I had overfilled at some point in my life with volunteering to the point where I had to pull back. And I pulled back like 100%, and got out of volunteering completely. And then my career really filled up a lot of time, and then it felt imbalanced, right? It felt imbalanced of giving back in your community and giving to your work, and giving to your family and yourself, which is an important piece, right. And giving to yourself as well. And then a couple of years ago probably about three years ago, I stepped back into volunteering, but I really took a long look at what did I want to do and I knew that I... I didn't want to overextend myself as I had done in the past. And I really wanted to do something that I felt in my bones was important and meaningful to my community and to me. And for me, it's volunteering with a restorative justice program in the county in which I live within the juvenile justice system, and I've been doing that for three years.

Erin:

Oh, that's fantastic.

Jill:

Yeah. I really, really love that. Gives me more than I think I give most of the time.

Erin:

It's amazing. Yeah.

Jill:

Yeah. I think those are ways to find that balance and to know and understand your passions as well.

Erin:

I agree. And it is about balance. And I think that's part of taking a step back too, is understanding how much of myself do I want to commit in certain areas, or commit to certain areas. And having to your point, I think it struck a chord with me when you said you over gave and I think that's a little bit of where I was when I worked in nonprofit. And then when I went back for my master's degree, I completely pulled back because I was giving so much of myself to the nonprofits I was working for. While it wasn't volunteer work, there were certain occasions where it was. And you're spending your weekends and nights at fundraisers and trying to connect people and doing classes and things that are outside of your normal work day but in addition to your work day. And when I left, I completely pulled back from all of that. And I feel like it's a void that I have in my life right now. And definitely something that's missing and needs to be re established. And so finding that is going to be important, too.

Jill:

Yeah. Oh, well, Erin, it sounds like you are well on your way to the next right thing for you. And I'm so happy that you've shared your story today.

Erin:

Thank you, I appreciate you having me. This has been such a pleasure. I cannot tell you how excited I was when you contacted me and asked me to be on this podcast. I have watched the training videos and followed you on LinkedIn.

Jill:

Oh, thank you.

Erin:

I'm just absolutely ecstatic that this was an opportunity that was gifted to me. So thank you.

Jill:

Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. I appreciate it. I love following people on their professional journeys. And Erin there was something that had piqued my interest about you a while back, which is why I reached out to ask you to be on the podcast. And thanks for the shout out to the videos, Erin's talking about the supervisor safety tip video series, which I've done for the last number of years, which you'll be able to find at hsi.com if someone's wondering what that means. But thank you again, really, really appreciate it.

And thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good, making sure your workers including your temporary workers make it home safe every day. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app or any other podcast player that you'd like.

We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes. It really helps us connect to the show with more and more safety and health professionals like Erin and I. Special thanks to Naeem Jaraysi, our podcast producer, and until next time, thanks for listening.