Jill James:

This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded February 22nd, 2022. My name is Jill James, HSI's Chief Safety Officer. My guest today is Tiffany Castagno. Tiffany is CEO and founder of CEPHR, an HR consulting firm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania supporting small and medium size businesses building out their teams, programs, and cultures where people want to stay. Tiffany has practiced human resources for 14 years and has a true passion for continuing to cultivate the evolution of human resources. Hence, the name of her company, CEPHR, Cultivating the Evolution of Professional HR. Tiffany uses human-centered approaches and methodologies such as active listening, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. She believes in creating psychologically and physically safe and equitable spaces for people to work and connect. Tiffany is a mentor and enjoys volunteering her time in the community and is co-author of a children's book titled Can a Zebra Change Its Stripes? A book in the series Bruno's Amazing Adventures with a mission to change the world one child at a time. Tiffany, welcome to the show.

Tiffany Castagno:

Thank you so much, Jill. It's an honor. I appreciate you having me.

Jill James:

I appreciate you being here today, especially today, which if anybody listened to the introduction of what date it is. Today is palindrome day 02/22/22 on a Tuesday. And I have read in the internets that all of those twos together represent harmony and serenity telling us to let go of negative thoughts to achieve peace and equilibrium in our lives. And for our listening audience, recently Tiffany and I were on a webinar where we were both panelists discussing how HR and health and safety can and must work together, which is one of the things we definitely want to talk about today. So, it's perfect that on today, palindrome day represents harmony. Bringing our professional worlds together on this podcast. So thanks for bringing the synchronicity to the day. So, Tiffany, before we get into all things HR and safety, and being harmonious together, curious about your progression career wise and how did you get into HR? Is this what you always imagined you'd be doing since you were a little kid?

Tiffany Castagno:

Thank you for that open invitation. Actually, I always thought I would be an attorney and that was my lifelong dream. And now I do get to partner with legal very often and I advise my clients to do the same. So, that journey has been very winding. It's been a very winding path and that's because I started out doing medical billing and then I moved into legal billing and I thought, "Great, this will be an area and a way to launch my legal career." And that's not what happened because along the way what I discovered is I wasn't really having that human centered approach that I love to bring to my work. I wasn't really getting that from the experiences I was having at work, and I wanted people to have a different employment experience. So, throughout my career, and while I was in my legal billing career, I decided to start exploring HR.

The law firm that I worked at the time had a great HR department, and I saw our director of HR as a mentor and started to kind of dabble and say, "Okay, what is this all about?" Got some mentorship and went back to school while I was working full time and started to try to get some experience, and that was tough.

Jill James:

I'll say.

Tiffany Castagno:

That was, well, you don't have enough experience. You're too green to be doing this. No one wants to give you a chance. And so, I kept honing my transferable skills. Finally, landed a job as an HR assistant and then moved up from there, from a generalist or actually before that, even a coordinator, a generalist then moved to some business partner roles. And then my last stint in leadership as an HR manager at a tech company before I started this kind of accidental pandemic project here two years ago.

Jill James:

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Tell us about that. I mean, I think when we hear about success stories that happened within the pandemic, and I know that there are definitely many of them, but let's raise that up. What did the pandemic do for you, Tiffany, professionally?

Tiffany Castagno:

I really feel like it's elevated me because I have now this beautiful opportunity to reach across all over the world for support for my business, support for myself, coaching on the personal and professional side, that's been amazing. I've been able to build. I've always been a community builder. And so, LinkedIn's been this great space to do that and get the help up that I need in the business, but also just to have these great champions of my personal brand, as well as the professional brand and people who were friends, who I befriended during this time as I call them my 2020 gifts. Some of them came in 2021, but truly people who are aligned with my values, who care about me as a person, who support the business. And so, there's several of them who have become friends and to the point that we've started doing business together and that's been great, but the resilience and the grit that you need as an entrepreneur, especially as a female entrepreneur and a woman of color, it has been just a whole new territory, and it's been a way to challenge myself out of the fear and to be able to inspire others in their human potential.

Jill James:

Nothing like jumping in with both feet to be an entrepreneur for the first time in a pandemic.

Tiffany Castagno:

Right. Well, I mean, why not? Why not? I have always loved a challenge of breaking up the status quo. So there's, that.

Jill James:

Sounds like you've done it mightily. Congratulations on your business and being an entrepreneur.

Tiffany Castagno:

Thank you.

Jill James:

That's fantastic. That's fantastic. So, yeah, if you don't mind as we kind of walk into how our worlds connect, what does supporting employers look like to you from your vantage point? You had said that as you were starting your career in medical and legal billing and working at the law firm, you just had that ache, that knowing that you really wanted to be more human centered. So, how does that inform the way that you decided to approach your work? Because you've built this, you've built your brand, you've built your company on your own. Yeah, what's the center or the north star for you. I'm guessing I know the answer, but I want to hear.

Tiffany Castagno:

Yeah, and the firm I worked at was great. I worked there almost seven years, and I really saw them do it right. And so, that was kind of the pinnacle to, okay, I want to try this, but what it had me do also was reflect on some of those maybe not so great experiences that I have and go, "Well, why couldn't some other people not get it right?" And wow, this is such a stark difference in the employee experience that I've had in the past. And so, a lot of that has really been built on not having the greatest experiences. HR as a profession and its evolution even going from transactional to transformational. And I've always had this nagging feeling it was 10 plus years in the making before starting my business that I felt like I really want to make larger impact.

I can only do so much at one employer and I've always been a high achiever, a high performer, and that served me well, but I'm like, there's so much more to do. And being a person of faith, I just really kind of wanted to lean into that and to do more. And so, with COVID, there was an opportunity to kind of take a step back and to say, "Okay, I think I want to do some things differently. I know that it's got to be HR because I love what I do, but it needs to look differently somehow. I'm going to take two, three months, take a little sabbatical here, figure out what I want to do, and I'll consult for some friends and family in the meantime." And I did that and it never turned off because of COVID because people needed lots of guidance. So, COVID has been a gift to me in many ways. Albeit very challenging too.

Jill James:

Yeah. Well, I mean, you summed that up really nicely moving from transactional to transformational and that's what these last two years have been for so many people. We had this... Well, an opportunity to transform, or sometimes forced transformation.

Tiffany Castagno:

Yes. Sometimes forced. I think, well, we might all be in a forced transformation right now, but some people were doing this leading kind of cutting edge stuff beforehand and building very deliberate cultures beforehand. And for me, that's the work where I see the most impact when we talk about transformation and the way that I operate, the approaches that I bring and co-creating that with my clients because they've all been on this journey already and they want to be stronger brands and that's exciting for me.

Jill James:

Yeah. So, what does it look like when someone engages with you to today, Tiffany, in terms of what you fulfill on your end, but that also brings you fulfillment professionally?

Tiffany Castagno:

Ooh, I love that. What a powerful question? For me, it's important that I align with my clients' values. And so, we are a match for each other. When we're able to, one, not ruin people. I don't work with people who desire to ruin their teams or who won't be open to ideas. Every single client across different industries, sectors, states, they're all in different places on their journey. And so, I have to respect that and not come in and try to put them into the box. Of course, I have frameworks, but for me and what works best for my clients and what I can deliver is being able to have this co-creative process, to give them that freedom and flexibility, to empower them along the journey. And my approach is always very much one of active listen, of being able to take it, take all the things that they're giving me and pull it all together strategically, but also thinking about it from a diversity equity, inclusion, and belonging lens, those considerations that they may not see, and that process just works beautifully.

Jill James:

So, you use the term active listening. If that sounds like something new to our listening audience, do you mind talking about what that is? It sounds like something that's useful and important for all of us.

Tiffany Castagno:

Yes, yes. As humans, I mean, relationships are built on our ability to connect with each other and our ability to have this kind of curiosity. That serves me well, too. And when clients are curious, it makes us an even better mix. But so many times people listen to respond. I'm sure your audience, you have heard that. And we're so hardwired to drive results because that's how we've been socially conditioned versus to really understand. And you miss those moments of impact and potential empathy when you're not listening, not to respond, but really taking in what the person is saying, listening to the inflection of their voice, watching their body language, understanding how they're expressing themselves in the words they use, our language matters.

And so for me, that's always how I get the depth of a relationship because I will remember things or I'll know to write something down that was significant to that person. If they're mentioning it, it probably was significant. Whether that's on the personal side or the work side. And that really allows us to expand our horizons when we're working with people or as a friend, as a family member. So, I just encourage people to really tune into what people are saying. Just like you would a news show or your favorite music, and we forget that sometimes.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. And so, sometimes are you teaching people active listening skills in your work?

Tiffany Castagno:

Actually, sometimes I am. Sometimes I don't approach it. I don't directly come out and say that, but it's the same as my DEIB work where we don't necessarily have to talk about it, but it's there, and that it's a part, it's baked right into my approach and my methodology. So, I was actually out. I actually did my first in person sales visit since I've had the business today earlier.

Jill James:

Wow.

Tiffany Castagno:

Yeah. That was something. I'm like, "Ooh, I can watch somebody tapping their hands. You don't usually get on their lap. You don't usually get to see that." And the energy that's there, right? Like when you're actively listening, you're just fully engaged and immersed and I am such a person of energy, so I draw on that. And so, they were asking me as part of this training that we're talking about is this part of something, can you teach people? The people at the workplace are trained to listen, but there's a different level of that.

And so, I'm listening to the owner talk to me about what it means to him and what his vision is, and his directors underneath him, and asking me how does this kind of work in practice? They know what they think they want, but how do you actually say to someone teach them to be empathetic or to listen for these things. And I'm like, "There are ways." And you connect a process into the mission, vision, and values. What's important to those employees. What's important to the customers. It becomes this whole kind of pillar of success, if you will.

Jill James:

Yeah, and what you're framing up right now resonates with me as a health and safety professional, and I'm guessing that it's resonating with our audience too and this is a connection point for definitely our professional practices. Health and safety professionals who are successful, many of us will talk about the connections we've made with human beings, how much time we spend connecting with employees to build trust so that people can feel psychologically safe knowing that their lives are on the line every day at work. Regardless of where we work, we all have risks and exposures, but in terms of the work that health and safety people do in order for us to be successful, our employees need to know that they're cared for. That they belong, that they can have trust. And so, having those skills that you're talking about with active listening and the other things that I know you want to talk about as well with diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. It all ties together. And these just seem like such a great way for our two professions to work together because we're both looking for the same thing.

Tiffany Castagno:

Absolutely, absolutely. It's one of the things that I loved about being on the panel with you and our conversations since. It's great when you see that people don't put these professions into a silo and when they really leverage all of these great alignments that you're describing.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. I think you and I may have talked about this on the panel that we did together, but a big catch phrase in my health and safety world is safety culture. And I just don't like that term at all because it's so siloing. It's like, "Ooh, the safety people have their own separate culture." And what you were just talking about with your, with your conversation with your client today was building that culture into their mission, vision, and values. And so, why would you build separate cultures, right? It doesn't make any sense. So, Tiffany, can you talk more about like how you incorporate and work with employers, particularly on the diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging piece. What does that look like in practice? How do you help people who maybe not considered that before?

Tiffany Castagno:

Yeah. Thank you for that question. I definitely feel that with my clients, they're on the different parts of their journey. Some are farther along than others, and they each have different needs in that respect. And that in and of itself is diversity. And so, helping them understand how you shape your policies, how you collect information from your employees, what you do with that information, and what action comes of that, how self aware you are as a leader, all makes a difference. How your team connects with each other. Are your suppliers diverse? Do you have an open mind? How do your customers describe you? And for me as a business owner, that is very, very important. So, I love hearing my customers describe and being attuned to how their own clients perceive them.

That to me is so important because it tells you something. It paints a picture. Even if there's a struggle with an employee where maybe there's a performance issue, and it's now gotten to the point of the client, and there's some performance that needs to be managed. How you do that in a respectful way. Do you discover where maybe there were some errors? Was it a process error because as humans we're so quick to... The way that we look at failure and to project failure onto people versus saying, "Let's take some moments of curiosity here. Let's understand what maybe went wrong, how maybe this person wasn't supported. Did we clarify the role, the process, the procedure? And just even looking at policies and handbooks and things of that nature and change management. I'm always trying to explore with my clients. Do you feel this is equitable? Are there pieces you feel are missing? And their insight and input is very important to me in the process because I may have more experience than some of them do in that area, but it doesn't mean that they don't have the business experience that I need to pull along in the process. So, it's a very, very fluid process, but it works well when they're engaged in the process. And when they're open to some suggestions that may not be popular sometimes.

Jill James:

Right. I mean, and what you're bringing up particularly around policies. Those of us in the health and safety seats, my gosh, we have tons of policies that we work with. From just a compliance perspective. Policies, programs, standard operating procedures, all of that stuff. The HR profession has the same thing. And so, why not partner with your HR professional where you work to do the things that Tiffany's talking about. To really examine some of those processes and are they inclusive? What other lens can we be looking at this through other than the standard way? We've always done things.

Tiffany Castagno:

Oh, the way we've always done things.

Jill James:

Don't you really [crosstalk 00:21:00]. Yeah, it is. It is. It's like kryptonite. It's terrible.

Tiffany Castagno:

Yes, yes. And onboarding's another one. That's another opportunity. Really, when you look at your recruitment, your attraction, engagement, and retention, and under those pillars, really don't just hire someone for what they look like, hire them for how you think they can perform, what's their potential? What are their capabilities? How do they stack against other people with similar, or maybe even dissimilar. Being open to those qualities, those skills, those experiences, and backgrounds that people bring, and people forget that in the onboarding process that you can really do some damage in that if you're not deliberate.

Jill James:

Yeah. That's a great point. I mean, and it's definitely one of the places where our professions cross over. I think it's an easy place for people to think about that. Like, oh yeah, onboarding, we do safety training. We do our HR training, but how can the two professionals work together to support that employee and get them off on the right start. Do you have suggestions in that particular area, Tiffany?

Tiffany Castagno:

One of the things that I love the most is talking about creating an onboarding plan. So, so many times it's like, okay, check the box. We got the person. We feel like they're the good person. We maybe did our comp study. We maybe looked at the role and responsibilities before we put it out and did a full job analysis. By the way, those are all pro-tips. Do that before you post it. So, you make sure that it's a real preview and that it's aligned. Then thinking about, okay, what is the experience versus people love checklists. I love them too. However, people are not, we're not robots. There's so much more depth to us. And so we require conversation and nurturing versus we like experiences versus to be like, all right, okay. We talked about your benefits. We've shown you where the bathroom is. This is your boss. You have some weekly meetings. Okay, here's your training that you're going to do. Now go sit in this corner.

You really want to be touching base with folks before they start to say "Hey, here's a little bit of extra parking information. Oh, look, here's some swag we've sent you, but your manager's going to connect with you. Here is your first week or two weeks of an outline of what that looks like." And whether or not that's done before they come into the door. I always recommend that people have... My favorite is a 30, 60, 90 plan. What's going to happen because if you're hiring for someone, I hope that what's expected of them for the first 90 days. You can easily say in the first two weeks, "Here's what you can kind of expect. That way they're understanding it, and they feel like you've been prepared for them. They don't feel like it's been hasty. I once had, or I didn't have a desk for three weeks. They're like, "Oh, sorry." And it can happen but, we don't have all your tools or equipment. Sometimes I didn't have all the passwords or the computers, and that's not a great experience for someone who's driven and ready to hit the ground running because that's what you told me you wanted in the interview process, but you weren't ready for me when I stepped through the door.

Jill James:

Yeah. I mean, what a great way to frame that up, the 30, 60, 90 plan. Those are definitely places that our professions can come together to really, like you said, do more than, okay, well on this date, we're going to check the box and we're going to slip this training or this thing in, but really working together to provide that comprehensive, welcoming, and onboarding to that employees so that they stick around.

Tiffany Castagno:

That is the goal, retention. No one's hiring people and doing engagement surveys and spending all this money to bring someone in just to lose them. But that piece doesn't connect always for people. They don't see always the connection. So, if I'm pushing with my clients to say, "Are you sure you want to do that? Here's something else you might want to consider." I always tell them my interest is pure. It is to make sure that you're doing the right things, and that we're mitigating risk, and that you engage and keep your people. So, that is the purpose, but people don't always make those connections.

Jill James:

Yeah. I mean, and yeah, let's talk about that, that retention piece, particularly in our market right now where people are really scrambling to be that employer of choice or be the employer of choice in their community, or their state, or their industry, wherever their struggles are. You had mentioned that you really talk with employers about their retention strategies, and I think you alluded to even maybe data and what the cost is and what that turnover looks like. Is that sometimes a place where you start?

Tiffany Castagno:

Sometimes it is. And so, within the strategic planning that I do with clients, that is one of the questions I ask, and actually it came up, this prospect was amazing today. They just were doing all the homework. They were like, "We don't have high turnover." They're telling me the state. I'm always assessing what's your current state? What's ideal? Meaning what's your vision, and let's talk about what comes in between. And so, that's the piece that becomes co-created is the middle or what I often refer to as the messy middle. That's where we're going to do all the work.

And so, data is our friend, it's there. You'll know if you assess someone and you did the engagement survey. Well, what does that data tell you? It's going to tell you a story. How many people have you promoted? What is the representation of the people you've promoted? How many people have left? What's the information you're hearing from that, and what are the strides that you've made along the way in order to retain people or to engage them? And so many times we think of engagement as well, yeah. We can have a pizza party. We have taco day. Great. Yes, it is wonderful you observe all those cultural holidays, too. Absolutely fantastic, continue doing that, but anchor it to a strategy because what we're finding with COVID is people's needs have shifted tremendously.

What you were doing yesterday is not going to get you there, and that's why we're seeing this, these mass exoduses from these organizations because people want flexibility. People have lost their loved ones. People are struggling really hard with their mental health, and they're not going to just work for any company that... You talked about psychological safety earlier. That doesn't value me. That doesn't align with my personal values. Why would I do that when I don't have to? So there's all this data. If you're listening, if you're in your one on ones, and you're having team meetings, you're designing these metrics. There are so many ways that we could do that to be more equitable than sometimes how it's done.

Jill James:

Right, right. You had mentioned talking with employees and what you're hearing when people are leaving. One of the pieces that your profession holds so closely is confidentiality. That's baked into HR professionals. And so, you are on the front lines of hearing people's reasons for leaving. And when safety might be a piece of that, those are places where our professions can come together as well. What does that look like? That doesn't mean that the HR professional in your organization is going to cross a confidentiality line, but you can have conversations in general about here's what I've heard or here's what I'm hearing from current employees. Or we might have a risk here that has to do with health and safety. So it behooves the health and safety professional to work with your HR professional and say, "What are you hearing in the ether? How can we work together to be supportive to our employees so that we can be the employer of choice or remain the employer of choice so we are not experiencing these mass exodus?"

Tiffany Castagno:

Right. That there's such an element of and so much potential for employer branding done right. I've seen that across the internet and stuff, and it's really cool, too, and it's represented across my clients, across my network. When you really see it done right, and you see people celebrating those things because we also forget to celebrate sometimes our wins. And there's so many opportunities to have low hanging fruit when you partner as HR and safety. Whether it's on the onboarding side or someone has left. And I saw this through an exit that I did maybe three, four months ago, where someone identified that there were some training opportunities and we're having this conversation on the safety side where had there been a little bit more intervention, had there been some more SOP in place, they felt like they could have done their job safer. They felt like they could have been set up better for success. So, what a rich data point to get that in-

Jill James:

That's right.

Tiffany Castagno:

And you have to do something with it once you get it. So that's where HR... I'm not a safety professional. I know enough to be dangerous, but I'm going to pull in my partner and say, "Hey, how do you see us working together to make this a safer workplace to engage people and have them stay?"

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. I believe that I've heard you frame that up as bringing our lanes together. Can you describe that process or what that means to you bringing our lanes together?

Tiffany Castagno:

Yeah. So for me, it's really making sure that those silos we described are not present. There's so much crossover between the two and we all have... We talked about safety culture, for instance, and I talk about culture or in general as employer branding and as engagement, retention, and just overall fabric, mission, vision, values of the organization. In both cases, we all own that because if I'm not nice to my coworker, they're not going to want to stay on this team. That's going to have a negative impact to my leadership, to the organization, to the organization's brand, because bad news travels fast.

And so, if I'm doing that as an employee, or if as a leader I'm not spending the time with my employees, and I'm making safety someone else's responsibility, or I'm saying, "No, we're HR. We don't need to worry about that. Let safety worry about it." When there are implications to the other side, to the people within the organization, that's not a good look. And so, there's this convergence of where, of course, we all have our own professional, specific pieces that we're subject matter experts in, but where is there this overlap that becomes a point of let's listen to what we're hearing from out on the floor, what are employees saying? What do they need to be able to safely and effectively do their job to be productive? How can HR support with that with resources? How can that person's leader support, whether that's the HR and the safety leader coming together? Whether it's looking at even the organizational structure of where we place HR and/or safety. So I've worked in organizations where they're part of the same org and where they're not, but looking at where those synergies are is how you really bring those lanes together.

Jill James:

Yeah. Like you said, it doesn't have to be where you're trying to teach one another your subject matter expertise. It's more about the human being, and how can we work together to support the human beings in our organizations. I wanted to ask, Tiffany, what do you feel gets in the way with HR and safety?

Tiffany Castagno:

In terms of coming together?

Jill James:

Yeah.

Tiffany Castagno:

I think, honestly, across my experience what I've observed is the biggest barrier is either organizational structure because we don't have the right people in the right roles. We haven't set people up for success. We haven't established what that culture is going to look like, and what's important. Or we stick it up on the wall or on our website and we call it that, but we're not living it out in our practice and our values. That's a huge barrier. Sometimes that leadership support or lack of leadership support, or the that's not our job that's HR's job, or that safety's job. We're not going to get involved. We're not going to sit in the same meetings or have an interest in each other's initiatives or how we can help partner. I need to know what's going on in your world and vice versa. So that we can say, "Hey, let me raise my hand here. I see an opportunity for us to collaborate." I see this being a win on both sides, which means it's a win for the employer brand. It's mitigating risk, and it's keeping people safe. Not only physically, but emotionally from a psychological safety. There's so much low hanging fruit that gets missed when we just keep everything separate in a vacuum.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. I had a couple of jobs ago I had the great opportunity to work in health and safety within an HR department. And when I took the position and was told I'd be reporting to the HR director I thought, "That's weird." I mean, that was my first instinct. I'm like, "That's weird." I'm like, "Is this going to work?" And so, I thought I was this zebra in the HR department with all these other people who were in charge of onboarding and benefits and change management and all these great things that HR professionals do, and I'm like, "Is this really going to work?" And honestly, it was my favorite. I just loved it because it felt like we were all working in support of one another for the betterment of human beings, for the common good of all the employees in the organization. We would have conversations about promotions. Like, who are we noticing that's really performing well?

And I would be able to bring the lens of health and safety. I'm seeing leadership in this person in these ways through the lens of health and safety. That no one else was going to bring that to the conversation or the other way around. We think this person would be a really great leader because of blah, blah, blah, and I'd be like, but I've seen this. It was really a great way for us to come together professionally. You were talking about where people sit in an organization within their org charts, and I really found that one to be fun.

Tiffany Castagno:

I love that. Thank you for sharing that story. I had a similar experience and reaction like, "That doesn't make sense." The first time that I was like, "Why are they a part of our work?" That's full of vulnerability, but that is where I got my first foray into, wow, is this a powerful partnership? Wow, am I learning so much? Wow, look how we've come together to help keep people safe, to help change the mindset of leaders and employees and what a good look for them to see by the way their two teams and the leaders of those teams come together, and that alignment. Because also what you'll see is sometimes that triangulation and you don't want that either. So, thank you for sharing that story.

Jill James:

Yeah. You're welcome. You've articulated before the HR is the pulse of the people. I think a lot of health and safety professionals would resonate with that and think that, "Gosh, we are too," and I think that's just a great connection point for us professionally. You had mentioned there was a couple of other things that you talked about, Tiffany, with belonging and senses of belonging and also empathy, and how to embrace and practice that. Do you think those two things go together and when you meet with employers, how do you talk about those things?

Tiffany Castagno:

I like that. I absolutely do think they go together, and I practice them together. There's a reason that they're both listed as values right out front in my own business, and how I help leaders to understand. So through me actively listening and helping them to understand what maybe some of those barriers are. Using my experience to say I had something similar with another client and they looked to me for that, or how are your other clients approaching this? It helps them belong so they don't feel like the outlier. Like, "Oh, we're the only company going through this." And I'm like, "Oh, I assure you, you're not, but let's talk about what it means for you because you do have a different environment. What you and your employees need is different."

And so, it's helping leaders in having tough conversations where it needs to be like I don't really think that. Or if they're asking me to do something for their employees and to be kind of the liaison, there are times when I do that, there are times when I've kind of shared with my clients, I really think that would take away an opportunity for you to shine as a leader. Part of my job is to empower you. And so, I'd love for you to have this opportunity. I'm absolutely happy to do it. However, part of my job is to build you up as the leader, to build your leadership capabilities, to be a support system to you and to the employees. What gets blurred sometimes is that people don't understand the importance of visibility at an executive level.

At a senior level, a middle manager, a frontline manager, people look up to those folks and they want that representation. They want and need that person to help them feel like they belong. They want to know that if I have... Even if I have my pet, something happens with my pet that you care about that, and you're not going to be... You're going to be people first versus well, not sure what you're going to do about that, but your project has to get done. So, it all does really flow together because you can have a great addition to your team, but if you don't nurture them, they will leave.

Jill James:

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, great example on the visibility piece, I like that. So, the things that you've been talking about, specifically empathy, belonging, active listening. Do you get people who are like, "That sounds mushy gushy, and am I really going to pay somebody to tell me about feelings? Give me the checklist." You know?

Tiffany Castagno:

Yes.

Jill James:

What do you have to say about the importance of the things that people might call mushy gushy or whatever other terms like I'm not spending money on that?

Tiffany Castagno:

Yes, the fluff. People think it's fluffy, and it's even we've been talking about psychological safety and people were like, "Here comes another buzzword. That must be something HR made up." Safety folks probably get the eye roll too with like, "Oh, here we go with another term, our safety culture." And so, it's what you do with those terms, and it's helping people understand the language and creating a shared understanding and a shared language around it, and what it really means, especially when it comes to change management. You have to be able to articulate that to people so that it makes sense to them, that it relates to their world and that they understand how their role and what their role is. How do they contribute to and impact that? And that's the piece where when you say, "This is tangible. Let me break it down for you into what empathy looks like when you're in a one on one. It's not blowing off the meetings every single week, and making people feel like they're not important to you." So, helping them understand that, and checklists are great, but they only tell a part of the story. Where's the human side of that? That's really what we're talking about here is bringing in the human element into these conversations, into a checklist, and into our cultures.

Jill James:

Yeah. I mean, on the health and safety side, when those of us who do this work are tasked with doing something such as an evaluation, or what many of us call an investigation like something has happened. Some adverse thing has happened. Maybe there was something that almost happened to someone in terms of a near miss, or maybe there is some kind of accident that happened that resulted in an injury or an illness. And then you tend to get out the checklist and you look at a process and you look at they didn't wear that personal protective equipment properly, or they didn't use it at all, or someone took a guard off of something, or all of these like tangible things that are important. But what doesn't always land on these lists is the human element. Was their mind on the job? What was going on with them? And bringing in that curiosity that you talked about before and getting curious about what are... It's never a one thing that happened. It's accumulation of things which can include maybe something's going on in their personal life, maybe something's going on in their work life, or a reason that they're feeling one way or another, or that their mind wasn't on their job for various reasons, and that needs to be part of it.

Tiffany Castagno:

It does. I love how you describe that because that's the checklist and our processes are great. They help us for continuous improvement, process improvement. We need those things at work. That's how we chomp up the status quo as I love to do, but it's also that human element that you described, why did it happen? How did it happen? What input do they have as to how it could have been better? Do we even know if they had a clear understanding of how or why it happened or why it shouldn't have happened? So, it's like the or, right?

Jill James:

Yeah.

Tiffany Castagno:

I love that, and that's another piece where HR and safety can really partner to say, "Okay, maybe they didn't have the guard up, but why did that happen? Do we have the right policies in place to prevent that? How do we move forward to mitigate it?" That's a strong piece of where I've been in strong partnership with safety, for sure.

Jill James:

Yeah. I mean, and scratching the surfaces during those times of trial, I guess, is really taking the time to get curious. In the 28 years I've been doing this work and the many, many investigations, which is a really hard word for me to say because it sounds punitive, but getting really curious and finding out things like why did that... What was going on that day? And sometimes it's because it was close to a holiday and somebody was rushing to get home to something. Something was waiting on the other side, or many times I'd find out people had been doing something a certain way for 30 years and they're getting really close to retirement, and they were looking forward to something else and their mind wasn't on their job. Or, hey, I've done it this way for the longest time. Or if I'm going to ask somebody for help, and I know I probably could have used it, but maybe there is a not healthy work environment to be able to ask my coworkers for help because of something else that's going on. So, I'm just going to do it on my own because it's not safe to ask for help.

Anyway, so I guess I would just encourage people to get curious and ask questions that are deeper than just the things that are on the surface of health and safety. And if that seems like a hard thing to do for you, engage with your HR professional and have them help you with those. Maybe have them help you frame up questions, or just be thoughtful about it and maybe meet with your HR person and say, "What else could I be asking here?" Or maybe you even want to involve them in the process if that feels like something that's herky jerky and not your wheelhouse.

Tiffany Castagno:

I love those tips. Definitely love that.

Jill James:

Well, Tiffany, what else would you like to share with us about bringing our professions together or things you think that health and safety professionals just need to know about the way people like you work?

Tiffany Castagno:

I think we've covered most of them, and I think both HR and safety approaching it with a partnership and a thought partnership. You just asked tons of great questions, and in ways that HR people like to partner with safety, with employees, with leaders to really understand and get curious about the process, how does it work? How do we improve it? And what might be missing. We can sit and role play or have conversations around how you may approach this person when you talk to them. Maybe it's your first time and it's intimidating to you, maybe you just moved into a leadership role from a peer role. So really helping to be partners. I think keeping your mind open and being curious is a huge part of that and certainly doing the investigation. And yes, I have my own HR kind of qualms about that word at times because it sparks certain imagery for folks, but making sure that we do the good due diligence. And then we pull in all the important stakeholders during the process, and remember that there's a human element to it. Those would be if I could have my ideal state for our worlds blending, that would definitely be it.

Jill James:

I love that. That's great, that's great. You set up the magic wand moment. That's perfect, that's perfect. Thank you so much.

Tiffany Castagno:

You're welcome.

Jill James:

And congratulations on being an entrepreneur, and a successful one in the midst of all that's going on in our worlds, and I wish you the best of luck going forward. And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today.

Tiffany Castagno:

Thank you. I appreciate this opportunity on this wonderful podcast and I'm sure your listeners will get much value from all these tips.

Jill James:

I'm hoping so. Well, 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 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 people like Tiffany and I. Special thanks to Naeem Jaraysi, our podcast producer. And until next time, thanks for listening.