Jill James:

This is the Accidental Safety Pro, brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded November 1st, 2021. My name is Jill James, HIS's chief safety officer. And today, I'm joined by Linda Tapp. Linda is president of SafetyFUNdamentals and publisher of the Safety Training Net, a monthly safety training newsletter, which is available in both English and Spanish. Linda has written several books on using safety training activities to make training more effective, and most recently wrote a book focusing on safety training retention, scheduled to be published by the American Society of Safety Professionals in 2022. Linda is also a certified safety professional and is also one of only a handful of CSPs to hold the Certified Professional in Training Development certification through the Association for Talent Development. Linda, welcome to the show.

Linda Tapp:

Hi, great to be here.

Jill James:

Well, Linda, I'm excited to hear your story on how it is you got into this lovely land of all things health and safety. How did you find yourself in this profession?

Linda Tapp:

I think like many people, I never knew it existed until it found me. I started off as undergraduate at Drexel in Philadelphia as a biology major. And if you know Drexel, it's a co-op school, which means that you go to school for six months and then you work for six months. And you do that for five years. So you graduate, you're after most of your friends, but it's worth it in the end. You get out with 18 months of experience. And for my co-op assignments, I worked for ARCO Chemical company. And my job there was a toxicologist assistant, which really meant that I just did tons of research for the toxicologists that were working on the hazard communication standard, which had only recently been out.

So ARCO really had to go and do an MSDS for all of their products. So they had a whole group of students who did the grunt work, which provided the packets of info to the toxicologists. So that was kind of my first taste to it. I still didn't really realize that safety was a thing, that was part of the ARCO's EHS division but still didn't click at all. Then looking to graduate, back in those days, companies would come and put up notices on bulletin boards when they had job openings. There was nothing online.

Jill James:

Right. Right, right. And as you're saying that about job, so there's two things that have dated both you and I in terms of how long we've been in this field. One, the first was MSDS. So for any of our listeners who are new-ish to the health and safety profession, that's what an SDS was called before. So MSDS and then, yes, the old-fashioned job board, where people hung up job things. So please continue. Yeah.

Linda Tapp:

You'd have to run to that job board and hope you saw the announcement in time. And a company came and the announcement was very vague and said it's a new company, and any science and engineering majors could apply for this mysterious job. So I knew I didn't want to work in a laboratory and working for ARCO was all office based I consider it science stuff, I didn't have to be in a lab. So I applied and interviewed and found out it was for an environmental insurance company, and they were looking for loss control representatives.

So I still had no idea what that was and loss control still confuses so many people. We shared about what loss control mean. So I thought, wow, this sounds good. It's not in a lab. And it actually paid more than many of the other bio jobs which were very low level technician jobs. So I started working for this company. I was the sixth employee, which is kind of crazy. There were two of us right out of school. And that's another story about me and the guy they both offered jobs from that class, offering him 8,000 more a year than me, but that's another path to go down.

But I joined this company, the only female. Six of us eventually grew to about 20 people. If you remember, this is going to date us, too, Jill, the AHERA standards. Do you remember those? So it was kind of formed in response to AHERA, which, for people who might not know what that is, it's the asbestos standards and all of a sudden their contractors popping up everywhere to remove asbestos, mostly in schools but everywhere, and a lot of those jobs required insurance. So they had this pack of us that would go out to job sites, meet with these asbestos contractors and see what safety procedures they had in place.

So that was the bulk of my job in the beginning. As part of that job, my direct boss said, "Hey, we want you to take NIOSH 582." And that's very specific, too. And I believe it doesn't exist anymore but it was a program to sample and evaluate asbestos fibers. So he thought, to give us some more street cred, I guess, out on the job sites, we would all be NIOSH 582 certified. So, went to this NIOSH 582 class, which was held at Temple in Philadelphia, which is where I'm from. And the instructor of the class started talking to me and said, "Hey, we have a brand new master's in environmental health program that starts tonight. Why don't you come?"

So I thought that it was that easy. I'm like, okay. I think he was really desperate for students, because he had not seen my undergrad grades, which were not good. I probably wouldn't have gotten if it wasn't normal application procedure. So, right out of school, it was three months after I graduated and I started going down there two nights a week, and in four years ended up with a master's in environmental health. But some of those classes was toxicology, epidemiology, all the traditional things, also had one safety class.

And that opened my eyes to, well, this is a whole thing that people do. This is a profession. So I spent three years with the insurance company, but really wanted to move into manufacturing so I could get really deep into certain areas and not just be kind of a fly in safety person at the construction site, because I didn't see those asbestos contractors more than once or twice, generally. So after three years, I did move to pharmaceutical industry and my first traditional safety supervisor role. And from there, just stayed.

Jill James:

Wow. And so when you were working in the insurance industry as loss control person, yeah, that was specific to in support of the asbestos abatement industry at that time. Okay. So you didn't necessarily get to see all kinds of different work environments like a lot of, yeah.

Linda Tapp:

All asbestos guys and most of those guys knew less about safety than I did. We were all kind of like, okay, I just started setting up on standards and trying to see what they knew. And those guys really formed really quickly. It was a big money making opportunity for them. There were so many schools, especially in New Jersey where I was based that we're doing tons of work, but we ended up flying all over the country to see contractors non-stop because everyone needed insurance. So it's really successful business for them. And, of course, they went out of business since then. But it was really a big deal. And then they spun into let abatement in the end, because I think they saw the asbestos stuff dying.

Jill James:

So did you ever figure out why loss control was the name of the job?

Linda Tapp:

Yeah, eventually. It's like, well, my boss had said, you need to get your ALCM, which, if you're familiar with insurance certifications, it's associated loss control management, which I did take. It's five tests. It's similar to the ARM, which many more people have, that's associated risk management, which is only three tests. And unfortunately, again, the institutes for insurance who offer those stopped offering the ALCM. So I rarely even put that down anymore, because so many people have no idea what that even is.

So, the ALCM was a really good education as well and the whole insurance side of things, which as exciting as it sounds, you had to learn all those insurance words and contracts and terminology. So, my boss said, I had to get that. And he said, you should also do CIH CSP, which I did one of those. And then also told me I should get my masters. And I did that as well. And he also told me to join ASSP. So he was very prescriptive in what he wanted in his loss control people.

Jill James:

With the $8,000 a year less?

Linda Tapp:

Yes. Well, I did call him out on it and did get the same amount in the end. So it was a big risk, honestly. And I tell people that because, back then it wasn't that uncommon to get paid less. And I desperately needed a job and the risk of him not offering me a job at the end was really scary. I mean, I paid for school myself. I had gillions of loans. I had worked two, three jobs during school. So the thought of me just saying, oh, I don't want to work for a while was not an option.

So it was kind of a big deal to say, "Yeah, I think you made a mistake." And that was his answer was, "Oh, it was an error in what we wrote down. It was a mistake." I said, "Okay, we're all happy now." We were all happy. And you know how most raises go, it's a percentage of what you make every year increase. So you're starting off way low. And you never catch up if you don't start at the same amount.

Jill James:

That's right. That's right. Way to advocate for yourself. And for those who followed you. So you moved right into pharmaceutical industry way different animal in terms of regulatory landscape. Yeah, what was that like? I mean, you came in with all this cred now and certifications.

Linda Tapp:

Yeah, I did. And I say it was a good spin job because to sell myself as being someone who could work in that industry having been just with asbestos contractor was a little bit of a repackaging of yourself. But I still had to know all the standards and insurance. I still had to talk to all different levels of employees down from the construction worker who didn't finish high school to the CEOs of these very large construction companies sometimes. So I could use a lot of those skills from that first job and package them for the pharmaceutical. And it was great interview, got along great with people. So I think it was really a lot of just the chemistry with the people I interviewed with there that helped me get that job.

Jill James:

Or I guess, what did you learn from the pharmaceutical industry?

Linda Tapp:

I learned a lot different things. A lot different as far as just how much more serious people were with listening to the rules. Honestly, the construction was a little eye opening with trying to... Especially the sites I went to, there was nothing else around usually. It was abandoned school buildings very often. So there wasn't a lot of oversight from anyone. Not like pharmaceutical, they had all kinds of inspections for everybody.

And I also saw a pharmaceutical that sometimes the pharmaceutical, the CGMPs are called the procedures or the policies and rules, conflict sometimes with safety procedures. You have to use a certain levels of alcohol and pharmaceutical and the safety side and he was like, "No, no, you can't do that." So, that was fun. Also just learning a lot about pharmaceutical industry, which gets a bad rep very often, but just seeing how much time and money goes into the research side helps you understand a little bit how they have to charge for so much more stuff. So I got to see that business side of it, which I did really start to appreciate.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I worked in supportive pharmaceutical industry for a while as well. And yeah, it was very eye opening. Particularly the numbers of procedures that are written, it was just like, oh my gosh. You think you think safety has a lot?

Linda Tapp:

Yeah, expiration dates. And I tell my kids, because they're always like, "You can't take that aspirin. It's expired." I'm like, "No, it's fine." Because I know from then how much longer things work or things are good after that expiration date stamp on. It's like a safety factor added in. So I'm always like, "No, it's fine. It's fine." So I do think that up there. Yeah.

Jill James:

So what happened after pharmaceutical industry?

Linda Tapp:

Pharmaceutical, which I loved, I loved manufacturing, I had a chance to move to London with my husband. And he came home one day and said, my firm wants to know if we want to go to London for a couple years for his job. And I was, honestly, a little devastated at first, because I love this job. I could imagine me being there forever. And I had to quit this job and follow him across the ocean, basically. So I ended up doing that and had to figure out what I was doing at that point. And that's when I started thinking about consulting and looking into consulting a little bit, but nothing really serious until I got there.

Jill James:

So is this where the story that has a turn that has something to do with a cheesecake? So just for our listeners, our podcast guests and I always have a conversation prior to the recording. But if they mentioned something that sounds interesting, like, "Oh, I'm going to talk about a cheesecake," I'm like, "Don't tell me now because I want to hear about it." So this is where I get to hear about it.

Linda Tapp:

Yeah, the cheesecake story is kind of famous. Right after I found out that we were moving to London, I had gone to ASSPs annual conference, and it was in Las Vegas that year. And I was there as my chapter's delegate. That was my very first volunteer opportunity. So I went to this conference and there was a networking event around the pool of the hotel one night and it's always hard to go to those things when you don't know anybody and you're by yourself.

But I went out there and I had on my name tag, and it had the town I lived in at the time, which was Cherry Hill, New Jersey. And some older gentleman just came up and said, "Hi, I grew up in Cherry Hill." So struck up a conversation. Your name tags are a great way to start conversations with people. I had this great conversation with him. He talked about all of his favorite places in Cherry Hill, in particular this one diner that he used to go to all the time when he was younger. And he mentioned how much he loved their cheesecake.

So that's where the cheesecake first made its appearance in the story. So he asked where I worked. I told him I had a job at BENNETT pharmaceutical company, but I was moving in a few months to London and didn't know what I was going to do there. I didn't have any connections there and really didn't have another job after that time. So he said, "I know some people. Give me your card and I'll see what I can do, or send me your resume and I'll see what I can do." So he gave me his card, said goodbye. He walks away. And then after he walks away, I look at his business card and it says he's the vice president of GlaxoSmithKline like for the world, globally. I was like, wow, I couldn't have bumped into somebody randomly if I had tried to.

Jill James:

That is awesome. And you were working in the pharmaceutical industry.

Linda Tapp:

He said I might know some people, so I didn't realize who he knew exactly. So I thought, all right, I want to mail him my resume the next day, like right after the conference. And I didn't really think much about how this would work out. But I went to make an impression. So I went to this diner and got the cheesecake and I mailed my resume on top of the cheesecake to him in regular mail, but there wasn't the shipping options there are now either. So I remember buying tons of ice and Styrofoam and packing up this cheesecake myself, and putting my resume on the top of the cheesecake and sending it off to his office in North Carolina.

Jill James:

Did you see your resume-

Linda Tapp:

It was sitting in a nice envelope on top of the box. I thought, all right, he's either going to get this and think I'm crazy or he's going to like this cheesecake. So I didn't hear from him for four weeks, or not even weeks, for months I never heard anything. Never heard thank you, never heard I got it, nothing. So I thought, oh my gosh, he thinks I'm this crazy person that he met at a pool who mailed him a cheesecake. And then I started thinking maybe he didn't go back home, maybe he's on vacation and it's like there's a rotting cheesecake on his desk in his office.

So all the stories, I still don't know what happened to the cheesecake. Honestly, he never mentioned it again. But I did get to London that October. I was there about five days and my phone rang. And it was somebody from one of his plants saying we need to hire you as a consultant at one of our UK plants. I'm like, wow. And then it happened about five or six more times. So he spread my resume to all of his plants in the UK, I ended up consulting there for the first time. I ended up working for so many plants, which led to me working for other pharmaceutical plants in London as well, and throughout UK actually. And that's how I got in the consulting field because of this cheesecake, which I don't know if they got eaten. But it's the crazy kind of take a risk to make an impression. And I'm sure it made some kind of impression. But I ended up with this really amazing connections and opportunity once I got to the UK.

Jill James:

Oh, that is so interesting. And that's great. That's great. That's an excellent story. So when you got to the UK, what was the regulatory landscape like for you there? I mean, it's a US based company so they're adhering to things from the US. But then were there more things or how did your learning curve on that go?

Linda Tapp:

It really was very fortunate because they thought because I was from the US that I was all knowing because I think our regulations at the time, I don't know how they are now, we're definitely a step ahead of the ones they had there. And it was kind of like, "Well, you're the American, what do you say?" So I'm like, okay, this is not a bad situation to be in. But I did learn their regulations when I worked on it. But you're right, they all had to comply with the US regulations. And that's what they were struggling with. Because they didn't have the people there that had that experience. So yeah, it worked out really, really well. I really enjoyed it. I still love pharmaceuticals because it's all the same. Before you get into it, you really get deep into how things are made. And I love that part of the whole business.

Jill James:

So that turned you on to the wild world of consulting. And apparently it's stuck.

Linda Tapp:

It's stuck. And part of that is because I did end up moving around a bit which we had talked about. Also, I had come back from the UK. And I was going to keep consulting and went back to my pharmaceutical company for a short while and started having babies, which is the big curveball in there. So, I had my first one, went back and worked another six months and then had my second one 15 months later. And after the second one, the company wasn't extremely flexible. There wasn't work from home or flexible hours then at all. And that's when I decided to start doing my own thing from home.

Jill James:

And so, you then decided, I've been a successful consultant and I'm going to dive headlong into this entrepreneurial thing?

Linda Tapp:

Yeah. I really got the bug like I really enjoyed making my own hours, especially when it ends up with three kids, having three kids and just being able to do what I wanted to do. I could work in the middle of the night and do what I had to do during the day and it's in the same thing I do now, I will take two, three hours middle of the days often and I'll go hike and come back and then work at night. So the flexibility was really key for me when I decided to make that move. The other crazy story I'll share with you quickly about the flexibility when I had my third child is my son who just turned 21 this summer.

He was a baby and I was doing one day a week for an excavation contractor as a consultant where I would call them Friday mornings and they'd give me a list of all of their current sites and I would randomly pick which ones to show up at and inspect. So, didn't want to let those guys know that I was pregnant to begin with and I had to do these jobs site visits. So I would get in my jeep, and most of them same thing, were middle of nowhere fields, it wasn't like buildings or anything. And I would just drive out there, walk up, check out their site, maybe do a toolbox, talk for them, and then drive away.

So, up until about a month before I had my son, I was doing that in a very big windbreaker, very big jacket. And they never ever knew I was pregnant. The entire time they had no idea. And even after I had him, he was maybe a month old and I was still breastfeeding, I took him to some of these job sites with my mother in the backseat of the car. And I would leave him and her in the car, they wouldn't see where the car was parked at all. I'd get out, walk, do my thing and go back and go to the next job site. So that's the flexibility that consoling really allowed me to have.

Jill James:

And the amazing balance.

Linda Tapp:

Yes. I don't know if it was a balance. It's kind of insane. But still, yeah, it's flexibility is really what made it work.

Jill James:

I have similar stories when I was pregnant as an OSHA investigator doing inspections in my really, really large bib overalls with my steel toed boots on and sitting with contractors and asking if they have anything that they're concerned about, any worries that they have on this, what keeps you up at night, and instead I got asked on a date.

Linda Tapp:

Oh, lovely. Pregnant, I'm pregnant.

Jill James:

Yup. Yeah. So yes, health and safety professionals have lots of interesting stories. And the females among us have probably an added layer. Let's just put it that way. Yeah. So is this about the time that safety fundamentals was born or like, yeah, what were you calling yourself then?

Linda Tapp:

Crown Safety was started in the UK, it's why it has a crown. That was when I started doing traditional consulting. And it came back and I did tons of traditional consulting, lots of crawling around machinery, top of roofs, all that good stuff, which I really enjoyed for a while and then I feel like I'm kind of old and don't want to be crawling under machines anymore. So I don't really miss that part of it. So I did that at least 16 to 20 years, somewhere in that range.

And I eventually started to spin off into just the product creation side, which is what I do now. So I think maybe four years ago, I officially stopped the Crown Safety part and then focused mostly on the safety fundamentals part, which is the product creation stuff. And did those simultaneously for most of the time. I think I didn't spin that off as a second company until I was doing the regular consulting for maybe six or seven years and decided to do a little differently. So yeah, so that's when it started.

Jill James:

Yeah. So tell us more about SafetyFUNdamentals. And so for people who can't see your logo with your company, the emphasis is on the word fun. And yeah, so-

Linda Tapp:

I know. I get some flack for it sometimes because some people think safety should be all serious all the time. And I have had many people say, "Oh, it's not fun. How can you say it's fun." But they're not the people who need to use what I'm offering.

Jill James:

Right. Yeah, right. So you said the company is about product creation and of course fun. So yeah, how did you come up with this concept? Where was this born? And of course, what is it?

Linda Tapp:

How it keeps kind of hatched was with my today, I was still Crown Safety and I was doing a three-day supervisory leadership class for a chemical company in Kearney, New Jersey. And I always tell people, if you don't know Kearney, they'd actually filmed some of the Sopranos there. So it's a pretty industrial kind of area. Some pretty rough guys work in that area, too. So, I went to do this three-day it's like called touchy feely class, which a lot of these guys don't like because it was all safety supervisor leadership skills, things like how to get feedback and how to talk to your people and things like that that they didn't really want to hear.

So it was a three-day mandatory class as well. So I knew what I was going into. I knew that they were going to be a little difficult. So I started doing some research and found this whole idea of accelerated learning, and there's whole books on everything you can imagine on accelerated learning principles. And part of that is including fun, making people actually enjoy their time in a training class. So, read through this book, got some ideas, did some more research and came up with a whole bunch of activities to include in this three-day training class. So show up for the class and again, it's another little risky idea, just start off doing activities with this group of people but they walked in and-

Jill James:

The Soprano guys.

Linda Tapp:

The Soprano guys and I joke and they look just like the Sopranos. They look like Soprano standbys, like big guys, arms across their chest, sit there and instantly pull the newspaper up in front of their face and just not wanting to be there. And I'm very chipper, we're going to do an activity every 15 minutes for the next three days. So I was ready to have it not be accepted at all, and started going through all these activities. It went really, really well.

And after the first or second break, I had a few women come up to me and say, we're really, really thankful to be able to do something, because they expected to sit there for three days straight and just do nothing, just listen and just be expected to absorb information. And that's one of the big things in accelerated learning is that it's learning is not passive, it's all the act of creation of learning and knowledge. So they have to be involved if they're actually going to understand it. So, it was all activity based for three days. It's exhausting as a trainer to try to do that.

And tons of preparation, honestly, to set up that much of it for that long of a class. But it went really well. Ended up doing it for I don't know how many other plants, maybe 60 more of their plants in Canada and in the US that went that well. And we did those activities everywhere. So it went really, really well. I started talking about it at conferences, and so many people were telling me you need to share this, you need to put it in a book, you need to teach me how to do this. So I really started not doing as much of it myself, but really developing the products to help other people be able to do the same thing and be able to use those activities.

Jill James:

Wow. And so, I mean, talk of a maiden voyage with the Soprano guys.

Linda Tapp:

I know. Another big risk, right?

Jill James:

Right. I mean, you did that for three days every 15 minutes.

Linda Tapp:

Few minutes at least and we had activities. And then rolling that out across the country. And Canada was really tricky as well, just getting materials to people. It was a big logistics exercise as well. But it went really well. I just started doing it everywhere then and didn't even think twice that people would accept it. I speak on the topic at a lot of conferences and people will say to me, "Oh, that would never work with my workforce. That'll ever fly. My guys wouldn't do that." And so just have an open mind and give it a try. Because you'll be hopefully and I think so pleasantly surprised.

Jill James:

Yeah. So can you give our audience an idea of like one activity, so we just can picture this in our heads or along? Yeah.

Linda Tapp:

A really simple one. One really simple one. I have a whole book on these called Safety Sequence Activities in any kind of activity, any kind of safety procedure that requires a specific set of steps. So think like putting off all protection harness or cleaning up a spill or using a fire extinguisher, which as example I'll give is a very simple one. I started off having each of those steps in a written out on a card and you make a set of each steps. Even something as simple as an index cards, all of the stuff is really cheap, too. There's nothing fancy.

They can handwrite index cards with the different steps. So say for how to use a fire extinguisher, you have seven steps, and you write it out, give each set a card, and you mix up, and then you have them have to stand in line each holding the card in the correct step faster than the other groups can do that. So for fire extinguisher, that's really easy. I do a 10-step one for lockout/tagout that gets really hairy because they always argue over it, which I love. It's like, wow, I'm having them argue over safety, this is great. But they argue over one or two steps and who's right and who's wrong. And then if their order is not right, they have to try it again.

And it also throws in the competitiveness. They get to race as against the clock. It brings in a lot of the gamification principles as well. So I started using that with the lockout/tagout one, not just the words. That's where I started using images. And I know we've talked a little bit about the image-based safety stuff I do. I started adding images instead of the text or sometimes both. So when you're showing a lockout/tagout procedure, 10 different illustrations of someone doing the lockout/tagout steps, and then mix them up the order, give them to the different team because I always have people work in teams as well. And that's for accelerated learning reasons.

And then have them basically get out of their seats and move around and stand in line in the correct order, which makes them get up to, which is always a good thing to add the physical part of it. And they have to work with each other to come up with the correct order. So with the images, we've talked about how a lot of people don't have great reading and writing skills. And we think it's just people that don't have English as their native language but it's also a huge illiteracy problem, which we don't even think about it.

If you don't have a fifth grade reading level, you're technically illiterate. So that runs into a lot of people. So the images help everybody. It's always a good idea to throw images in there and not junk images. I always tell people with PowerPoint, you don't put like a cutesy thing in there just to have an image on your slide, because everything should have meaning really to the content. So, the image based safety sequence activities are really effective. Because if they can understand the text and they can at least see what I'm talking about in the image without being embarrassed to say, hey, I don't get this.

Jill James:

So you did this for a while and people were like, "You should write a book. You should develop this." So did you?

Linda Tapp:

The first one was I think 2006 was a long time ago now, which is that was the SafetyFUNdamentals, 77 Games and Activities was the very first one that I did and it just kind of spun off. Like I mentioned, the safety sequence, people like that when activities. So now there's a whole book of just that activity. And the other ones that came after that are more theme based. Safety Loteria is like a safety bingo game, which many people know. But Loteria is a Mexican bingo game that uses images. So it goes back again to the image-based safety. And there's a whole book of those as well, too. So all the books after that first one, really, were more themed as far as specific collections of activities.

Jill James:

Well, congratulations on being published.

Linda Tapp:

Thanks. Yeah, it's fun. I love to write. So that's actually a really fun part of my job.

Jill James:

Yeah. And so, I know that in the introduction, we talked about the fact that you're scheduled in 2022 to release a book that you wrote on behalf of the American Society of Safety Professionals. But, I mean, you can tell us about that book if you want. But in terms of like your creative process now, are you still producing...

Linda Tapp:

Books?

Jill James:

Yeah, exactly. And other content, like, yeah, what does work look like for you today?

Linda Tapp:

And now I mentioned also that I'm doing this newsletter now, the Safety Training Net, which is full of all of these resources, usually an activity or two, like I mentioned, their sample stuff in all of these newsletters, or is it a free version, a paid version. And I kicked off the Spanish version two months ago because the Hispanic safety professionals group from ASSP would strongly encourage me to do that, because there aren't that many resources in Spanish. There really aren't. We start looking at it, it's really not that much out there. So for not a ton of money, I still had to pay a translator because my Spanish is nowhere near good enough to write this myself, I can do the Spanish version of it. So that just kicked off recently. And it's the same newsletter that everybody else gets, but the activities are all translated, everything's available in Spanish, too.

Jill James:

So, Linda, who is the consumer of your books and materials and the newsletter?

Linda Tapp:

They're all safety people all over the world. I just got a message from someone in Venezuela, which was great, was really made my day. Because you sometimes you send this stuff out there and you don't hear back a lot like if it helped people. But at conferences, people always will find me and say, I love this activity. It's great. So I love the feedback part of it. I just heard back from this person who said he met me 15 years ago at an AIJ conference. And he's been using this stuff since then. So that part's always really good to hear.

Jill James:

Yeah. Awesome. And so the project that you're working on for ASSP?

Linda Tapp:

Yes, that is a book mostly on attention, retention, and transfer because transfer is the forgotten piece a lot of the times where we do the training, and first of all, I hope they remember it, which there's some things you can do to help them remember it and not just assign a paper at the end of the class and leave. But then actually be able to use it when they need it, that's the transfer part. And that's missing in so many places.

And we don't measure that very often either to see if they actually use it. But the transfer is really what this book is helping people to... You have to plan for transfer. It doesn't happen by mistake. And you can plan for it in these activities and some of the follow-up stuff and even some of the pre-class things. So, the book that ASSP now has, I'm done with my revisions. So it's in their hands now. So hopefully it's out in 2022 is the plan that covers all of those things.

Jill James:

Congratulations. And so people who might be interested in getting their hands on that book, will they go to ASSP?

Linda Tapp:

Yeah, ASSP has a little bookstore tab on their website. So eventually, it'll be there. So you have to get all the other stuff done.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. As long as we're talking about ASSP, you had mentioned earlier that you were a delegate and you went to your first conference, but you're still involved with ASSP. Do you want to talk about what does that look like?

Linda Tapp:

I've been involved for 30 some years now. I guess a long time. I don't know. I've been volunteering because I just really enjoy the volunteer experience. Especially I think working for myself for so long, I call them my water cooler group. if I want to bounce an idea of someone, I have my ASSP colleagues that I will talk to. I was very involved with their consultants practice specialty for a while, which is a great group of people that would just share ideas and techniques. And I learned a lot from them.

And from there, I ended up getting involved with ASSP's foundation. And I tell people the story even though I wouldn't say it doesn't sound great. But one year I made a donation to ASSP, I think it was like $50. And I encourage everyone to donate. I'll do my little part there. And as a donor, I got invited to the foundation, had a reception at the annual conference. So as a consultant, you want to meet people and you want to network. So I walked into this reception and was just blown away by the other people in this room.

Everybody I ever wanted to meet in the safety world, because they were all donors, they were all supporting the foundation. So they were all there. And I made some great connections in that group and then just started being a regular donor to the foundation and ended up as a foundation trustee and chair at the foundation for ASSP which I stopped, I think two years ago now. And then from there, I moved to the board for ASSP where I am now. I'm the VP of finance.

Jill James:

Wow, that is fantastic. And one great tip for anyone who's listening-

Linda Tapp:

Yeah, that was kind of weird. It's like, yeah, donate not because you want to help people go to reception but I do want to help people and I didn't stay on. And still donated but I started thinking, well, this is a great place to be and just get to go when you make a donation.

Jill James:

Yeah. And so, are you also involved in WISE, Women in Safety with ASSP?

Linda Tapp:

I'm a member a really long time. And before WISE was WISE, we used to have our unofficial WISE meetings at the conference. We put notes in the bathroom mirrors saying, because there were so a few women there. Anybody want to meet, meet at Starbucks Wednesday at 5:00, and we had our unofficial little get together. So a lot of those original groups of people, there was maybe 15 or 20 of us after a few years are still active in WISE. But that's just amazing how much that group took off. There's such a need for people to have that place where they feel comfortable and safe at asking questions and meeting other people.

Jill James:

Yeah, right, right. And yeah, thank you for that. You were talking about 30 years or so in ASSP. I got a surprise over the weekend. I got this envelope in the mail. And it was from ASSP and I'm like, it feels like a certificate. And there's like a little bump in it. What is this? And I opened it up and it said, "Thank you for being a member for 25 years. Here's a lapel pin." And I'm like, what? How did that happen?

Linda Tapp:

Congratulations.

Jill James:

Yeah, thanks. Anyway, that was cool. And like, oh, my gosh, it's been a long time. Regarding volunteerism, you've mentioned it a couple of times. Yeah, what do you want to say about volunteerism in career path and volunteerism in general?

Linda Tapp:

I think something else I always tell people in addition to ASSP, I was on BCSP's board for six years and now I'm a BCPE's board. If you don't know that one, it's the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics. And obviously, I really like board work as I keep putting my hand up. And I end up on these boards. But I think there's so much value in stepping at that level and seeing the big picture in things and helping to plan strategy and not just working on the day to day.

So I encourage people to volunteer and I see these calls go out all the time that say new directors are needed, new board members are needed, throw your application in. And so many people won't do that. They sit back and they're waiting for someone else to say, "Oh, I want to nominate you. You should do this." But you really just have to take control of yourself and step up and not be afraid and not be embarrassed if you don't get picked, which no one's going to know, it's just this committee that looks at your application.

But there's so many opportunities to volunteer at really high levels. And even if you don't want to be a consultant, if you want to work, just the connections you make are invaluable. But people just hesitate to nominate themselves and put their arm up. When I did BSCP, I remember reading the newsletter said we're looking for directors and I thought, why not? So threw my name in the hat and just I remember I was consulting, I did a lot of consulting for the Philadelphia, which I love is heavy, heavy manufacturing.

And I remember being there by all the presses and getting a phone call from Roger Brauer, who was there, executive director at the time, saying, "Hey, welcome to the board." I was just blown away that this person was calling me to welcome you to the board. So, I don't know how that happened. I wasn't recommended. I didn't have anybody behind me saying, "Oh, you should take her, you should do this." But I just threw my name in and I started on that board, which I have great, great connections working with that group of people, again, showing up the only female with 11 guys and making my way there, getting mistaken by one of them for the secretary, which happens sometimes, like, "Are you here to take notes?" Oh, no. But that happens. But just especially younger people, just put your hand up and step in and just go for it.

Jill James:

Yeah, right. I mean, I don't know what the psychology of this is but the whole imposter syndrome thing is a big deal.

Linda Tapp:

And everybody has it.

Jill James:

Yeah, right. Yeah, regardless of age and experience, unfortunately. But yeah, really, people who are listening, you have something to contribute, you have value. And absolutely, absolutely-

Linda Tapp:

You're never going to be 100% ready. You have to understand, too. Read the requirements, it's like, no, you don't have to check off every single box, too. Put your hand up for that. If you're not right, they won't select you. So you can do your part by putting in your information.

Jill James:

Yeah, right. Yeah. This is a good part of your career path, Linda, to hear how you've involved, volunteering and your entrepreneurialship. And I know that being an entrepreneur is kind of scary from an income perspective. And I know that you'd previously mentioned something to me about multiple income streams. Yeah, so people who are into consulting and thinking or maybe thinking about it, do you want to talk about what kind of some of those realities have been for you?

Linda Tapp:

Yeah. I think it's not even just consultants. I've done a lot of presentations called Mind the Gap, that's the name of it, because you don't want to have a big gap in your resume or big gap in your employment. And sometimes you can, but the longer the gap is, the harder it is to explain away sometimes. So, there's four really big reasons people may have this gap. And it could be to leave to take care of a child, it could be taking care of an older parent, spouse, anyone who's sick. A lot of elder care with people, no matter what age you are, it could be because you have an accident and you just can't work for any period of time.

Or it could be that you're following a spouse or significant other somewhere, which was how I started moving around the world. I think I mentioned to you after moving to London I ended up moving to Munich and then Amsterdam following my husband's job also, which I never could have done without having a consulting business or these other streams of income. So what the multiple streams of income really are, it's just you're not relying on one paycheck, is that to put it really simply because imagine you go to work the next day, you suddenly lost your job, the company's out of business, you want to have something to fall back on.

Even if it's minor, you'd want to have something else lined up. The more streams of income you have, the more stable that you're going to be able to be going forward. And it could be anything and usually these things aren't planned. I mean, the baby is obviously planned. But if you have an injury and you can't work for a year and a half, then you need something there. And I always tell people to plant your seeds before you need shade.

I think that's the way I always say it because just like I'll get messages on LinkedIn and probably like many of you saying, "Oh, can you have any jobs for me, let's connect." They're working on building these connections when they need the job, because they just got laid off. And it doesn't work that way in the real world or in I guess your income levels as well. You need to plan for stuff before you actually need it. So even if someone doesn't think they need a multiple stream of income right now, it's really good to take the steps to set up.

Think what you might want to call it. Think what you might want to do. Maybe begin the rough draft of whatever you want to come up with. If you have an idea for consulting Sunday, check out that domain name now and save it and renew it every year. It's like seven bucks a year, which depends on where you do it. There's certain things you can do to really set yourself up. So in case you have to make that pivot and start doing something different, you can do it pretty good.

Jill James:

Great advice. And I think that younger generations in the workplace right now are better at that than older generations. And I include myself in the older generation piece. There's so many people who have side hustles.

Linda Tapp:

Yeah. It's not even just safety.

Jill James:

Everywhere.

Linda Tapp:

It's great. And the game economy is so much more popular than it used to be. I spoke at an ASSP chapter meeting and it was all older men in 60 plus, this was my topic for them. And actually a couple of them work for OSHA and they're about to retire and they thought they'd be a consultant, that's fine. And we started talking about it and part of this presentation give people exercise to think about what they might do. We went back around the room and every single person but one wasn't going to do safety. One guy wanted to open a meatery. I was like, a meatery? And his whole thing was he wanted to have bees and honey and have a meatery. And we spent a while talking about a meatery at the safety meeting.

But that was his plan, his backup plan, which was great. So it's really good to start thinking about what you would do if something were to happen. And I think with COVID, safety people are busier than ever. But imagine if it was some major crisis where all of a sudden they didn't need us anymore. What else would you do to have some kind of other stream of income and not just for the income, also for the resume gap as well. If you're out of work for six months and you create some product or do something different on your own, create some webinars, you can use that to fill in those holes also.

Jill James:

Yeah. And for people who are listening or thinking, oh my gosh, another thing, is there another thing to do? But one of the nuggets that I heard you say, Linda, is the importance of making connections with other people. I mean, it really is important in our field, so many of us are single operators. It's important to create our own board of directors, our own tribe of people, our own trusted advisory group, call it what you will, within our professional practice that are outside of where we're currently drawing a paycheck for lots of reasons. And one of them is if the bottom falls out tomorrow, you've got some friends.

Linda Tapp:

That's why the volunteering part is so important. I call them my water cooler people. But that's it, I've been working by myself for so long. I know who I can go to, to bounce off ideas or is this crazy, something I shouldn't be doing like a cheesecake again, there's people that I can go to and just really get a check. So when you work by yourself, especially, all that volunteering is building your network and your relationships, which are really key.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. So Linda, you mentioned pivoting back to being an author and creating a content, a product creation person. Talk about writing. What do you love about it and what gets you inspired or how do you get inspired?

Linda Tapp:

I've always loved to write and I think the training books I do learn as much writing as you would think like a fiction writer would do. It's more me developing these activities and trying to explain them in a normal way to people. So I just enjoy it. It's something that I've always done. And I write some stuff that's not safety but it doesn't ever get shared anywhere. I just enjoy writing.

Jill James:

And so what inspires you when you're going to hatch a new idea?

Linda Tapp:

People ask me all the time like, where do you get your ideas, because I'm pretty creative person. I do a lot of stuff outside the safety world. I read so much stuff that's not safety related. And usually, when I see something, my mind is just thinking, all right, how does this apply to safety, or how does this apply back to training, or how can I use this in training? And that's where it really all comes from. Like you mentioned, before we started, we're talking about scavenger hunts. And along the same lines, it's like, okay, scavenger hunt can be used for safety and how's this going to work.

So if it's always me just trying to spin stuff I think that I read or see and how could it work for us, because you really have to look outside of our fields to get new ideas in the safeties been doing a lot of things the same way for a while. There's a lot of new stuff out there. But there's so much outside of health and safety that we can borrow from. And it's just looking at it and just curating. I spend a lot of time on Sundays, honestly, going through dozens and dozens of publications, newsletters, everything you can imagine to really look for those ideas.

Jill James:

I do the same thing. When I'm needing to be creative, which is my favorite thing to do, it's a lot of daydreaming. You mentioned taking a three-hour break during the middle of the day to hike. That's when the daydreaming and the creativity happens for me. But I bet it's more for you, like you're processing maybe all those publications you just looked at.

Linda Tapp:

I do. And I think I was telling somebody else that I have more ideas than I could possibly ever do in my lifetime. So the key is trying to figure out what I'm not going to do, which is a little tough sometimes. But if I was living another 100 years, that might work. But in reality, if you look at my list, it's like, nope, this isn't going to happen.

Jill James:

Yeah. I recently started a file like an actual paper file called A Million Good Ideas. And so, when these things spring to my mind, I'm writing the idea down and I'm putting it somewhere.

Linda Tapp:

Yeah, that's the hardest part.

Jill James:

Right. And hopefully pull them out from time to time and develop them. Well, Linda, what else would you like to share with our audience today, from any perspective?

Linda Tapp:

Let's see. What else would I want to share? I think we just went back to the part I said about stepping up. I just really want to encourage people to volunteer. It's a lot easier to not let somebody else do it and complain about things and just says people should do things a different way. But we need volunteer for everything or nothing's going to happen or change won't get made and we won't improve. And that's for every organization. So I just really want to encourage people to just stand in and do something.

It could be short-term volunteering. It could be long term. It could be something that takes you a couple hours a year. It doesn't have to be a three-year commitment like a board position for many people. We just really push that and just people can be involved because you learn so much more than your day to day job by volunteering, things that you might never... As a foundation trustee, I learned so much about foundations that I never would have ran into otherwise in my life. So you think how can meet people and just really benefit from relationships as well as helping other people.

Jill James:

And do you volunteer outside of safety and health?

Linda Tapp:

I do more short-term stuff outside. My big time commitments are the ASSP and then BCPE now. But the neighborhood stuff that's like, all right, we need people to come clean this for a couple hours, I'll do that.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Linda Tapp:

But we need people to do this. Those are great because it's not a long-term commitment at all. I did volunteer with another organization, not safety, last year. And it was amazing how different they are than safety organization, like safety people were a certain breed, I think. And working with some other groups of people and just how they think was very difficult but it was a learning experience. And not everyone thinks like safety people, I think. So got that side of it. It was really uncomfortable. Well, they just don't operate.

Jill James:

This is not a linear process.

Linda Tapp:

Last week I did a talk for ASSP leadership conference. It was titled Three Boards Many Lessons. And I didn't say which boards they were, but they were 10 different lessons from different boards I've served on and about half of them were good lessons and half weren't good lessons. And just the way things are done in some places just blows my mind. Just no forethought, no planning, it's like, let's do this. Okay, we'll do it. We have no money, let's do this. But that's not a ASSP. ASSP is a highly functioning, well run board. But just the experiences other groups have, it was really eye opening to see that not everyone operates at that level.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like an interesting talk. But yeah, before we close things out today, anything you want to talk about with regard to mentoring?

Linda Tapp:

Yeah. People always say, who's your mentor? I wouldn't say I've ever had one particular mentor. I'm more have like you mentioned the team of people that if I need something in a certain area of a question with a particular problem, I know who I can go to in those areas. I don't have a group I meet with all the time or somebody I've worked with for years. And I do think it's good to have that opportunity to have a mentor. I've just never had that myself. I do talk to a lot of people now.

They say, "I'm your mentee," I'm like, "Really, you are?" I'm old enough to mentor people, which is always surprising. But same thing, I mentor people and I do think sometimes the topic-based mentoring is better. I've talked to the consultants practice specialty about maybe structuring their mentor/mentee program that way where instead of having one person do monthly, okay, well, I can talk to this new consultant about marketing. So if you have marketing, then call me because I may not know every single area and it's less of a time commitment as well. So, I do like to approach mentoring and being a mentee in that way or more need based or specific need based than like an overall person you go to for everything.

Jill James:

What a great idea.

Linda Tapp:

Yeah.

Jill James:

I love that. I love that. Linda, thank you so much for sharing your story today. It's been fun. As your company name suggests, it has been fun. And I learned something and I'm excited to continue seeing the content that you put out to the world for the health and safety of people. Thank you so much for what you do.

Linda Tapp:

Oh, thanks. Thanks for having me here.

Jill James:

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 in one of your past and future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple podcast app, or any other podcast player you'd like. We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes. It really helps us connect the show with more and more health and safety professionals like Linda and I. Special thanks to [inaudible 00:54:59], our podcast producer. And until next time, thanks for listening.