Jill James:

Welcome back. This is the Accidental Safety Pro, brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded November 28th, 2022. My name is Jill James HSI's Chief Safety Officer. And today my guest is Arianna Howard. Arianna is manager of EHS IT Data Platforms in the electric vehicle manufacturing industry and joins us today from Denver. Welcome to the show, Ariana.

Arianna Howard:

Hi Jill. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jill James:

You are so welcome. So where would you like to start your story? How far back in the way back machine does your EHS life begin?

Arianna Howard:

I think we can start in college. That's probably a pretty good place.

Jill James:

Okay.

Arianna Howard:

I was kind of a lost college student, didn't really know what I wanted to do. Probably switched my majors about ... Five might be an understatement. And jumped from pre-med to pharmacy to chemical engineering and somehow ended up in the environmental science program at the school that I went to, which was in the south on the coast and was very focused on soil science. But we did a little bit. It was mostly environmental focused. And I was on our school job board one day and I saw HSE intern and all I saw was $18 an hour and I was like, yep.

Jill James:

Sold.

Arianna Howard:

Yep. Don't know what this acronym stands for, but I'm going to go find out. It was only a few minutes from where I was living at the time and seemed to be ... I was a junior in college, so it seemed to be something interesting. So I went to the interview and obviously learned what HSE stood for.

Jill James:

Wow. Well, I mean that's the thing with our profession. That's exactly what mine was. I saw it on an internship thing and went nobody's going to want that. And you're just telling me they even gave you an interview and you didn't know what it stood for.

Arianna Howard:

I was like, let me go do some research and figure this out.

Jill James:

That's awesome.

Arianna Howard:

A big benefit for me was that I've been in the military since the day after I graduated high school, so people tend to see that on a resume and they're like, "Oh, you seem like a responsible human adult, so we can teach you everything you need to know." And that's really how it started. We just had one HSE person at the site, the manager, and I was kind of doing glorified data entry at the beginning, and then I worked in oil and gas. We manufactured parts that we sold to oil and gas companies. And every few years there's a downturn. Gas prices go up and people get laid off. And I'll never forget, one day I walked in and the office was empty where my boss normally sat. And then I got a call from HR and I was like, "Oh no." And I went in there and they were like, "We would like to keep you and we basically need you to do his job."

Jill James:

Oh. Wow.

Arianna Howard:

And that kind of propelled me into what was actually a specialist position. I was still going to school at the time, and I ended up doing that for about a year and a half. And I learned a lot. I spent a lot of time with plant manager, spent a lot of time on a plant floor, understanding what a good manufacturing environment looked like. And that started everything for me. So for me it was purely like I need to pay bills. But then I realized ... And I'm from south Louisiana, so I was working in a manufacturing plant outside of the main city, and I was the only person that looked like me. These are all guys that have a lot of experience, a lot of machinery experience, and by nature know what they're doing and are pretty safe. And so who am I to come in and say, "Well, you need to be wearing this and you need to have this PPE on and you need to do this and we're going to have this safety committee meeting." So it was a huge challenge, but also I learned so much because I've learned in the military, you kind of shut up and learned from the experts. And that I would say was ... I couldn't have asked for a better foundation to my career to start there.

Jill James:

That was really good learning that you got from the military. So you were doing this when you were between junior, senior year in college?

Arianna Howard:

Yep. Yep. I was still in college.

Jill James:

And your major then, did it change when you jumped into this job or not?

Arianna Howard:

No. I know that EHS or safety degrees are more common now, but at my school that was kind of the closest thing to it. And so no, I just stayed in my major and finished. And that was the turning point of ... I was guaranteed a job there pretty much, but they only operated there. They were headquartered in Houston, Texas and we wanted to move. So I had to put my time in and say I'm departing. And then I moved to Denver, Colorado with absolutely no job and trying to figure out what the next step was from there.

Jill James:

So how did you figure that out? What did that process look like?

Arianna Howard:

Oh, it looked about 600 different applications. If I went back and looked, went through my Gmail.

Jill James:

Wow.

Arianna Howard:

I worked in the service industry, I've been in the military. I knew I could move here and make money to pay bills and I really did take the first thing that came and that was this administrative EHS position for a government contractor. But really what it really did, it gave me time to find a job that I wanted. And I realized actually after a few months that I needed to refocus and revamp my resume. And I swear the moment I did that, I got three calls in one week. So having a good resume should not be underestimated for anyone looking to break into the field.

Jill James:

Right. So anyone who's listening right now who's like, "I'm in the process of updating my resume," what were some of those key things that you changed, Arianna? If you remember.

Arianna Howard:

Coming out of college, new grads tend to really just focus on the things that they did in school. Which I think that's important, but when you're looking for that first career job, any kind of internship during college is obviously going to set you apart. So I highly recommend that. If I didn't have that experience, who knows where I would be today. So I highly recommend that. And then instead of putting 50 projects that you did, maybe pick one or two that you can actually talk about in your interview. And I'm sure we'll talk about this later, but I think especially if you're doing anything in data, anything that can be manipulated into a project, that's experience. It doesn't necessarily have to be real world use. So I always say less is more. Sometimes we feel the need to fill up our resumes with a lot of things and accomplishments and it just gets bogged down and too hard to read and so less is more. And the further you get into your career, the harder that is to do because you want to talk about everything awesome that you've done. But I would really say just focus on any internship or co-op experience that you may be able to get and then one or two projects. And you don't probably have to list every award you got for the duration of your entire college career. I can say that we get so much pressure about your GPA and what school you went to and this degree. And I'm sure for certain positions at certain places, that is super important. I don't think anyone ever asked where I went to college or what my GPA was. I mean I've clearly finished school and I have a master's degree now, but we get tied down into the details and at the end of the day it's are you willing to learn? Are you ready to learn? And are you interested in this?

Jill James:

Right, right. Yeah. Thank you for that insight. That's really good. Hey, I want to back up for a second to that job in Mississippi when you first got that EHS/HSE role sprung on you. What intrigued you about it as you learned more?

Arianna Howard:

I'm somebody that likes to continually learn and likes a challenge. And I think that there is no limit to the amount of information that you can learn when you're in environmental health and safety. And any job you work is going to be different. You might be doing 50% environment, 50% safety, 75-25. So that kind of depends. I think for me it was figuring out what was going on. Because when the layoffs occurred, I hadn't really learned that much and not in a negative way, but I didn't really know what I was doing. I was expected to at the very least be able to participate in the monthly manager meeting and report on our safety metrics. And I didn't really know where to start because I was just doing a lot of administrative stuff. So I literally started just going through his office, opening up folders, figuring out what permits we had, what we didn't have. And I leaned a lot into our corporate management, but that had also changed. So there was just this huge turnover and we're all just trying to figure it out. And I think at that point I really, really leaned into the people and leaned into the shop supervisors and built that connection with them. As much as I say, oh, I work in tech, data and I'd rather be heads down building a dashboard and being in a meeting, I do enjoy working with people. And I think that that drove a lot of it. I genuinely enjoyed going to work and working with those people every day and I think that that was a big part of it.

Jill James:

Yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. So you moved to Denver, you send out 600 resumes, you get a bite. Does that take you into the electric vehicle industry where you are today?

Arianna Howard:

Nope. No, not at all.

Jill James:

No? Okay.

Arianna Howard:

No. I actually was able to fortunately land in an environmental consulting position at a really well established environmental consulting firm. And it was air quality focused. And if my old boss ever listens to this podcast, he'll tell you in a minute that was not my forte I would say. I respect all airheads, is what they like to call themselves.

Jill James:

That's wonderful.

Arianna Howard:

Anyone who can tear apart a title five permit or keep ... Those regulations are constantly changing and that's essentially what I got hired to do. And then what happened was our firm is very big on merger acquisition, due diligence audits. And what tends to happen is in oil and gas, 99% of that is air related. So we became the go-to office for these types of audits and that propelled me to get out into the field. And I was traveling and somehow auditing sites in North Dakota with 15 feet of snow on the ground. But yep, let's go see if there's oil there.

Jill James:

Oh yeah, that's rough. North Dakota winter. And that's me as a Minnesotan saying North Dakota is worse.

Arianna Howard:

Yeah. But what was happening was I was seeing a lot of ... We would ask ... You're doing merger acquisition. We want to find out where the glowing green goo is, to put it shortly. I actually got my first taste of technology where I realized we were doing all of these on paper. So imagine you have 150 sites, but you're going to get a sample of 30. You're still doing 30 different sheets of paper, checking to see is there oil at the wellhead, is there this, is there this. All these checklist items. And so me and one of my coworkers worked on a tool that they had already purchased but didn't really use yet to capture all this on an iPad or on a phone. And what now seems so simple was not back then because no one else was really doing it.

Jill James:

And super manual.

Arianna Howard:

Yes. And not just that, you got to come back to the office and do something with that data. Right?

Jill James:

Yeah.

Arianna Howard:

And write a report.

Jill James:

Arianna, that's just so interesting because how many years ago about was that?

Arianna Howard:

That was probably honestly not that long. I would say 2016, 2017.

Jill James:

Yeah. I've been in this industry for 28 years and when I started working for OSHA, all of the work that I did was on paper. It was all in triplicate form and you had to use a black pen and push really hard with a black pen to make sure it went through the carbon. And then literal with scissors, cut and paste with a glue stick pictures that were my evidence that I would then send to an office and all this stuff was then typed by administrative assistants. That was 28 years ago. And you're talking about 20-

Arianna Howard:

Yeah. I'm talking five, six years ago.

Jill James:

I often say our industry is just so not tech. And I know we're going to get to the good tech news in this conversation, but it's just illustrative of how far our profession has to go.

Arianna Howard:

And what do people love to say? Well we've always done it that way.

Jill James:

That's right.

Arianna Howard:

And usually that's tied to a safety thing, right?

Jill James:

Yeah, that's right.

Arianna Howard:

Tech and data get the same response usually.

Jill James:

Dang. So you're tromping around 15 feet of snow in North Dakota with a pen that's freezing up and you're trying to keep the ink warm so you can fill out the paperwork. Right?

Arianna Howard:

Yep. And then my mind starts turning and I'm like, there has to be different ways to do this. And not just what I'm doing, but I need to gather all this information. Where's your copies of your engine tests for the past three years? Where's a copy of all your record keeping requirements for all of your air permits, for all your engines? And we would get just this huge just Dropbox of just dozens and dozens and dozens of PDFs. And at a certain point you just have to spot check, right? How much is this deal worth? What's the threshold? Okay. It looks about right. And then I luckily got exposed to what was probably the first EHS offer that I had ever heard of. And then at that point I started to collaborate with some other teams outside of my office and did some GIS work and just started messing around with data. And then I was able to work with a totally different team from a company that we acquired and I really got a taste of data analysis and big words that I'd never heard of like SQL and Python. Honestly, it's funny because it was right at the start of the pandemic and I would just hop on Zoom with a coworker and watch him what looked like magic. Like on the Matrix there's just programming on a computer and you're just hitting the keyboard. That's what it felt like at the time. And I was like, "I have no idea what this man is doing, but we're getting somewhere. We're going to build a dashboard out of it, I think." And that was kind of it. And at that point I realized I want to do what I do now, but I want to work more with data and technology. And apparently there's 50 other software that do this thing and that's what put me back out on the hunt.

Jill James:

Wonderful. So you're back on the hunt. So how did that hunt go? Less resumes I hope?

Arianna Howard:

Yes. Actually I googled EHS software consulting or something.

Jill James:

Oh wow, great.

Arianna Howard:

And the first hit came up and it was a firm that I ended up working with for about a year and a half. And that's all they do is EHS software consulting. Selection, implementation, sustainment, maintenance, reporting. Everything about EHS from GSU reporting to ... But the configuration of what the system needs to do to match your process. It was an amazing opportunity and really great exposure into what was out there. And truthfully, I thought I'd be there for 10 years. I'm like, "I'm going to stay here and I'm going to become an expert on these two or three software and then see where the world takes me." And then I was approached by my current company and they basically wanted me to come do the same thing but in house. And at that point it wasn't the job. I knew I could do the job. It was more of people, culture, product, taking all that stuff to consideration. And it was really funny because I go open up my Gmail now and I think I was looking for my old resume to update it because this was the first time that I had been approached for a job.

Jill James:

It's kind of fun when that happens, isn't it?

Arianna Howard:

Oh man.

Jill James:

That's awesome.

Arianna Howard:

I thought that clock was going to be ticking for another 10 years before that happened. And when I looked up resume in my Gmail, I found all the of the, "Thank you for submitting your applications. Thank you." And I was very grateful and realized sometimes if you put in the work things can happen a lot quicker than you think that they are. And then I ended up here and now it's been almost a year.

Jill James:

That's awesome. So let's break down your title in case that missed people when I was doing the introduction, because this isn't a title ... I don't think I've had anyone on the podcast with your title before. And for people who've been at this for as long as me or longer or maybe just starting out might be like, "What? This is a thing in this industry?" Or in our professional practice rather. I said that your title was manager of EHS IT data platforms. Can you break that down and give a day to day of what that means?

Arianna Howard:

Yeah, yeah. Let's go word for word.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Arianna Howard:

So EHS, obviously environmental health and safety. And that is in there because I work under the EHS group. I don't work under IT, I work under EHS. Well, what makes me different from an EHS manager of commercial, for example? Well, I do all of the IT stuff. I am the translator, so I take very complicated asks from IT when they ask for, "What's your requirement? Who's going to do user testing? Who's going to do all of these things?" And I put that in plain English words for my EHS colleagues. And then more so I probably do the opposite. So you're an EHS manager and you have this inspection that you have been doing on paper, but you want to put it in the platform. You want to use it in our software. Well you tell me and then understanding what our software can do or what it can't do, we have a conversation and I figure out your requirements. And if we can't use that, well maybe we can use an internal tool. So IT could be our internal business IT, or maybe it's the software partner, right? Or maybe even a consultant. So I'm that translator. And it's really important, I would say. I think having that EHS background made a world of difference. I don't think I'm in a space to go get a CSP. I moved away from the day to day operations, but I still understand what someone means when they say lockout tagout or fall from heights or ISO 14,000 or ISO 45,000. So understanding that terminology I think is super important. And so that's a big part of what my title is. And then more than anything, I'm the administrator of the system. So we have an EHS software that we utilize and I am the day to day person that, "Oh, well how do I do this? Or how do I run this report?" I'm that person. Hopefully as our company grows the team will grow and we'll have some more support there, but I am the expert. If I don't know how it works, then I can't expect anyone else to work. And I did that from the consulting side, but I think the biggest difference being in house is that your job doesn't stop there. So they're using the system and we're getting a lot of data in there. And then what? And that has been, I would say the pivotal point in my career now, where you do a lot of project based things when you're a consultant or maybe you work for the software provider or third party, whatever, that is very different than being in house and that data actually meaning something.

Jill James:

And so that's the data part of your title?

Arianna Howard:

Yep.

Jill James:

Right. Okay. Yeah. Take us there. Let's go there.

Arianna Howard:

Yeah. I essentially turned into a data analyst and I had to go ... I feel very lucky because I feel like a lot of people are transitioning to the data analyst position more than anything, maybe over a data engineer or a data scientist. Because a data analyst, just like I pivoted off of EHS and got into the ... I went to the software side first and now I'm more on the data side. But you can do that with anything. Maybe you work in finance but you don't want to and you want to do more technology. You can be a financial data analyst. What if you're an educator? You can be an educational data analyst. You can do data analysis on anything with anything. Something like Excel. And so there's so many free resources and content providers out there now that it's a movement, I would say, especially since the pandemic. And it is an amazing way to pivot into technology. EHS, I think it's pretty niche, but other fields, it is a growing world of job opportunity because businesses want to be data driven more than anything. So I had to go learn the things. I'm not going to lie, I did not know how to build a dashboard in January. And so to be able to do that now ... I'm by no means an expert, but I can do a lot of things. And just like with software, I can answer the questions, I can make changes, I can do modifications. And now the vision for the next few years is to really enhance data analysis and really drive more into predictive analytics and not just, what do we say, the lagging indicators.

Jill James:

Arianna, how did you teach yourself data analyst? Analysis rather.

Arianna Howard:

YouTube. No, seriously. Not joking.

Jill James:

I'm sure you're not. It's how we learn everything.

Arianna Howard:

Yeah. I will definitely plug Datacamp and Maven Analytics as two very, very good resources. Those are paid, but you can get a really good year long subscription and they will teach you everything there is to know about data analysis. And they start you off with the basics. Literally what can you do in Excel? A lot. You can build dashboards in Excel which don't cost anything. And I want to caution people because you should learn what your company uses and there's a million tools that do the same thing. Power BI versus Tableau. Or the most basic thing you can learn is SQL, structured query language. That's a little bit more technical. That's basically looking at data tables on the backend and pulling certain information. Oh, I want to see XYZ from this table within this timeframe that only has these keywords. It's very powerful and I'm honestly still learning it. And that's the difference between going ... That's the backend really speeding up what you're looking at versus going into running a report in your front end software and trying to click around and maybe filter on some things. And most users, that's fine. But depending on what kind of analysis you're doing, that's really where SQL can come into play. And then more than anything it's people don't want to see those reports, to be honest. How do humans learn? Visually. So learning some type of data visualization skill is extremely important. That could be your entire career. There are BI analysts, that's all they do is build dashboards. But it's not just what you see at the end. It's how are you getting all that data in there? Is the data clean? Is the data correct? And then how are you presenting it in a way that ... I honestly can't remember the fact, but there's ... If I sent you an Excel report of every injury that your company has had, versus if I give you a dashboard, it's going to be like 0.25 times a fraction of what it's going to take for you to comprehend what you're looking at versus an Excel report. So I would say that's where we are now is what's the data saying? And then you really propel that once you've established what you're looking for and how you improve your business. And for EHS, how do you make people safer?

Jill James:

Yeah. So talk about that. Talk about the impact on EHS with what you're able to provide in term ... Yeah. I'll stop there. Just what is its impact? How do you see it?

Arianna Howard:

Yeah. I would say that there's exploratory and then there's explanatory, right? You're asking people to go log different things and let's take near misses or a concern report. I would say every good EHS software has just a place where you can click a button and log an issue that you see.

Jill James:

Something happened.

Arianna Howard:

Yeah. Or I saw something. I saw this pallet in the middle of the thing, or I saw this forklift almost hit another forklift. There could be any variation of things or this almost happened. You take all that data and you figure out where the trends are. You figure out, okay, is forklifts our problem? What's going on? Do we need more training on XYZ? Do we need to make sure our policy for fall from heights is clear? Do we need to involve our ergonomics team? So those are I guess the implications. But obviously you can start really basic. I mean, there are things you're required to do. You're required to report to OSHA. So those are the KPIs that people ... That's the black and white stuff. How many injuries have you had? How many of them were recordable? Those are things you have to disclose. There's no way around it. But then there's leading indicators that you don't have to disclose that, but you can use that maybe internally to drive improvement. That could be training data or, like I said, near misses is a really big one because it hasn't happened yet. So where do we really need to put the focus? Maybe it's job safety analysis, risk assessments, those types of things. And then you can really drive that data to show maybe you need to go to finance or you need to go to operations or you need to go and say, "Hey, we need this on all of our mobile trucks." Or, "We need to put safety barriers up in this place because this thing keeps happening in this spot at a certain location." And they're going to be like, "Well how do you know?" And then you pull up the data. And it's very black and white. But you have some cost benefit analysis. You have data to back up why you need more money or what the overall investment is. Hey, you could not do this, but this might be what it would cost down the road in workers' comp claims. So there's a million ways to slice and dice it. It really depends on what your company's focus is and what the driver is at the time. And the economy is changing rapidly, so that could really change day to day.

Jill James:

Arianna, you said before that you serve as an interpreter in a sense to the EHS team of which you are a part. So you analyze the data, you build ways for it to be consumed through visualization like you were talking about. And so when that's presented to the EHS team, are they looking at your data and making decisions or are you presenting it to them as that interpreter and saying, "Hey, I'm noting these trends." Or is it a combination of both?

Arianna Howard:

It's a combination of both, I would say. And interestingly enough, it's not just EHS. I find that a lot of people who are interested in it is operations. The people who own the people that are inputting this data. And they could be far removed from EHS. Now of course they might have an EHS person they're working with that they can go to if they have questions. But I find that they take a lot of responsibility and pride. It might be along the same metrics of quality or other things that they're tracking and safety might be a piece of that. But I would say more than half the requests I've gotten for data doesn't come from EHS. It comes from operations. And so-

Jill James:

That makes sense.

Arianna Howard:

What the hope is that they're using that data and EHS is reviewing it from their standpoint because they're going to care about different things and then they're partnering together to come up with solutions for their business unit. But for me, a big goal in the coming years is to really drive a lot of those recommendations. I think a lot of it has been exploratory more than explanatory, I would say. And so building from the ground up so we're still figuring that part out.

Jill James:

Yeah, yeah. So when you're talking about operations and other people outside of EHS who are looking at consuming and making decisions based on the data that you're pulling, are you creating specific dashboarding just for them?

Arianna Howard:

I feel like any person working in data is going to be like, "Hmm, what's she going to say?"

Jill James:

Oh no. I asked a controversial data question and I didn't even know it. Okay.

Arianna Howard:

I think that there is ... Yeah. Dashboards are extremely controversial. I will tell you that. Because a lot of times people think the dashboard is going to solve their problem and then you go and it's really urgent, we need it today, and then you go look at the views and it just sad face. And you realize people have barely touched it. And so there is a balance I think. Some data analysts will tell you you should not create the same dashboard for multiple groups. And I think for all intents and purposes, that's honestly the best way to go. That's why you use tools that have features like filters. But maybe group A cares wants to drill down or group their things a little differently. I think that that's important, but I also don't think you should over commit. And so I kind of go into it with, yes, I will build that same separate one for you, but you have to understand that any maintenance for it might not be the day of that you requested. And also empower those users to learn a little bit. Because once I've built the foundation, it's 99% done. So maybe you don't want to see top five this, you want to see by percentage. I think everybody is a data analyst a little bit if you care about it enough. And so I try to empower them to learn a little bit so that they can keep up with it themselves. But in saying that, it is not a free for all. I really, really lean into my EHS colleagues to make sure that we're answering the right questions. And then what you tend to find is group A is asking for something different than group B when they really should not be. And then that drives a higher level of conversation like, well what is their leadership telling them? Why is that leadership not aligned? Because we're talking about one group of metrics. Safety metrics, right? Why is group A asking about this leading indicator and group B is about that lagging indicator and they work in the same place. So you start to really find out what that ask is. And I just ask and ask and ask. I keep asking why. And then a big question you ask is, well what are you going to do with this when you have it? And that tends to drive conversation really well. And they say, "Well I need to have a weekly thing that I need to show my team." Okay. That's a good answer. What are you going to do with it when you show it to them? Is the expectation that it's putting people on blast? Is the expectation that we want to ... What is the actual end goal? And so when I say requirements gathering, that's what that conversation looks like is who's owning this request? What's the ask? What happens if I don't give it to you? If I tell you no right now, what's the implication of that? Will I have to go run the report manually? Which usually-

Jill James:

Or is it like, "Eh, I just thought it was going to be something nice."?

Arianna Howard:

Exactly. And I'm all for wanting to see things big picture and not have to click a million buttons. I totally understand that frustration with any software. You just want to get to the meat of things. And we end up coming to a good compromise. I would say every time so far been able to deal with it. But I have had to say no sometimes. Or I realize they're asking for something that's already there, but they're just calling it something different. Because that happens a lot in the industry that I work in. That's any industry. If you come from this company, now you're at this company, you called this metric something else. And so I find that very important just to ask, because usually we're talking about the same exact thing, we just came up with some techy word for it.

Jill James:

That's right. Yeah. I mean, vernacular definitely matters for sure. I want to zoom out for just a second from our conversation. This is so good. And I'm wondering about any of our listeners who might still be operating like you did when you were working with the airhead team on paper and they're like, "What is this technology she's talking about?" You're talking about EHS software, EHS platforms, but Arianna, can you talk about the context of what that means and what it can do? Outside of incident management, which is a great example, but it does more than that. And also full disclosure, HSI has an EHS software platform. We are one of a number like you were talking about. But can you just give a high level for people who are like, "This really exists?" Can you talk about that?

Arianna Howard:

Yeah, definitely. Because I was that person who I didn't know until I Googled it and then I learned all the big names and realized that, oh wow, there's entire jobs that just configure these platforms. Obviously I would say incident management is probably one of the highest uses, I would say of EHS software. I would say the second one is environmental. Luckily for me, we don't have a lot of air. So I would probably say the first question I asked in the interview is, how many air permits does this company have? But a lot of environmental management, I mean these systems can do really powerful things. If you've done air, you have a lot of Excel sheets with a lot of awesome formulas in it. And these softwares can do those things for you and automate your job and your reporting and your requirements and threshold tracking, and digital inspections. You can essentially get rid of every piece of paper or Excel sheet that you use and transform it. Concern reports, waste tracking. I mean there is an endless amount. And the powerful part about these systems is integration. Integration with your human resource software, integration with your vendors that you work with, with purchasing, with finance. You can really manage everything from your phone these days with all of the cloud providers that ... And no plug for any certain ones, but big ones, Enablon, Intelex, HSI. There is entire companies that only do this. And what's really, really cool is that they are constantly at the forefront of technology. And I would say a big one is AI and machine learning. And we're implementing that very heavily right now. And it was never something that I thought was ... Even on the consulting side, the cool part about being in house is you get to do these special projects and a lot of these softwares are keeping up with the rat race of how fast technology is developing and definitely have a challenge in front of them to continue to do so. And we're probably not even going to get to it in this call, but the sustainability, ESG, and you can have it all in one place. It's important not to try to make a, what do we say, a square fit into a round hole, but 90% of the time you can have a single use platform to do almost everything that you need.

Jill James:

Yeah. And that's something that's going to be really familiar sounding to the listeners who may be like, "Gosh, I'm using five platforms, 10 platforms, 15 platforms to get my work done and then I still have this collection of paper-based systems that I'm using." And you might be looking at your cohorts in your work environment like accounting and HR like you mentioned, and operations who have their own platforms to do their job to pull up to every single day. And EHS is like, when is mine? Well, guess what? It's here. It's been here.

Arianna Howard:

Yeah, I know. I'm surprised how many people I talk to. And I was talking to a guy the other day and I'm like, "Well, why'd get back into the workforce? You were doing this." And he's like, "Oh, I've been working in EHS software for 25 years." And I'm like, "Man, I didn't even ..." Some names that I definitely haven't heard of, but at this point have been bought 10 times, so they're probably just Enablon now. But they were the beginning of the beginning and now we're cloud software as a service, type in a URL on your phone and you have single sign on from your work email and you can quickly log something and it's pretty low effort.

Jill James:

Yeah. I think some of those early ones were SDS management systems.

Arianna Howard:

Yes. Chemical management is a huge one.

Jill James:

Yeah, I think those are some of the first entry points.

Arianna Howard:

And now you have software that will automate the entire process for you. Even chemical reporting. They'll do everything up to filing your tier two reports for you. And so there's definitely no limit. And it's really exciting to see all of these startups and what they're doing. I think at this point, if you're going to get into that industry, you have to find your niche because there's so many big players now. And so just like with anything else in business, you have to find the gap that no one else has. How can we make that person's job easier? And so it's been really cool being in house. I get all the emails, everybody wants to talk and check out our software. I mean 3D auditing. 3D auditing that integrates with your EHS information system and automates the auditing.

Jill James:

Wow.

Arianna Howard:

Wearables. Wearable technology. From buzzing on your wrist if you get too close to a voltage or AI on security cameras, there is an endless amount. We even have a feature on our software that rates you as ... An AI that rates you as you type out your description of your incident or your concern and they like to game everything. So there's six check marks and if your incident description isn't great, you'll get two and they're red. And if you get above four, they're green. And human nature is to want to win the game so you tend to put a little bit more effort in, but that gives us better quality data to actually use.

Jill James:

So it prevents the person from filling out the classic form of do better next time. I looked to the wrong way. Human error.

Arianna Howard:

Human error, yeah. Definitely top five of a cause analysis.

Jill James:

Yeah, I've seen a few of those.

Arianna Howard:

Yep. And it's constantly developing so you have your traditional things that it can do, but there's definitely a lot of providers that are doing a lot.

Jill James:

Yeah. So thank you for that zoom out. I appreciate it. Zooming back in, I wanted to ask you about in your work now about benchmarking and what does that mean for the EHS profession and what are you looking at?

Arianna Howard:

Yeah. I think that word is thrown around a lot, especially when you're talking about GHGs, right? From an emission standpoint, that's the hot topic right now. People have been doing sustainability reports for longer than a decade consistently, but it's always a question of what does our investors care about? What do our customers care about? What does our executive leadership care about? What do our employees care about? And you tend to look outward at your peers, your competitors, similar industries, different industries of maybe the same company size, product. And you tend to start to compare and you say, okay, well what are they telling people that they're focused on right now?

Jill James:

Yeah.

Arianna Howard:

You want to be careful, obviously greenwashing is a thing and you don't want to just do things to check the box. And I'm by no means a sustainability. Expert that's definitely on my learning roadmap for the next year.

Jill James:

Hello new YouTube video. Right?

Arianna Howard:

Right.

Jill James:

Okay.

Arianna Howard:

But you hear about it a lot there, and I honestly think it's important to do just from the safety aspect too. Environmental data of course, but what is going on in other ... I have a couple of newsletters that I get where you're trying to keep up with, where are things happening, where's the goss? But that's really good insight into what should we be looking for. So I think that there's formal benchmarking and then I think there's like, oh, that thing happened there, let's go. What are we doing to prevent that? Lessons learned. Because you have lessons learned internally, but you're not calling up your competitor company and saying, "Tell me about all your safety problems."

Jill James:

Right, exactly. I mean, you might be spying on their websites and seeing what they're putting out front and center.

Arianna Howard:

Yeah. And that's where those reports come in because a lot of times those sustainability reports, which they mostly are today, cover a lot more than just emissions. They cover worker safety, worker health. A lot of it is diversity, equity, inclusion. Now we're leaning more into the ESG where it's finance and making sure that-

Jill James:

Ethics.

Arianna Howard:

Pay equity and ethics and all of these other things. But safety is always going to be a big part of that and how we treat workers and what we're doing. And so I think just keeping ... A lot of people say they couldn't get into medicine because there's always something new to learn or some new surgery technique. And I think it's the same for EHS. There's new regulations, there's things that change and you really have to be able to dig into that content and keep up so that you're doing the right thing and not falling behind.

Jill James:

Yeah. You gave some really good examples of where you might get some of that benchmarking data. Do you also look at places? Do you fall down the rabbit hole of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and looking at other-

Arianna Howard:

Oh yeah. Looking up what's the average TRIR for our industry last year? How are we doing? I think that's the closest thing when you're looking at people who do what we do, what are they doing? I think that that's a good measure when you're just maybe starting and don't really have a target. You don't know what your target should be. And so I think that that's a great way. I don't think it's an excuse. I don't think you should use it from a point of, "Hey, their TIR is this, but ours is this so we must be fine." You don't want to go down that rabbit hole so I think there's something to be careful of with benchmarking, but also there is some positive viewpoints of, okay, we're doing something right, so let's just figure out how we can do it better. Or oh, we are way off the radar so we really need to get in a room and figure out what the problem is.

Jill James:

Right. At least some of that BLR data can at least give you a little bit of context as to where you might compare with others in your industry as a starting point.

Arianna Howard:

Yes, absolutely. That's a really awesome thing to do for GHG, right? Because a lot of that data is available from those annual reports. So it gives you a starting point.

Jill James:

And I need to correct myself. I just said I meant BLR. I meant BLS. So that means Bureau of Labor Statistics and that's a government website where, as I said, can be a rabbit hole that you can look at data eight ways from Tuesday, which can be super fun if you're a big nerd, which I will-

Arianna Howard:

Yep. 2021 data just came out, I read the other week.

Jill James:

Awesome. I do tend to really like looking at their stuff. And then do you also benchmark against yourselves? Do you get together and say, "Okay, what do we want to look at?"

Arianna Howard:

Yeah, yeah. I mean we're a pretty new company, so we still have a lot of building blocks to put into place, but that is definitely the goal and you have to set a foundation and we're still in that process, so that's for sure going to happen. But some of these companies have 50 years of data to look back on and it's very easy to see, whoa, in the '50s we had this many injuries and in the '70s this regulation came out so by nature it lowered and then in the 2000s it spiked again and that was because of this. So it's definitely a challenge. I think benchmarking is probably the best way to go right now because we don't have 50 years of data. I would say obviously electric vehicle industry is pretty new, so you have something to go on, but even 10 years is nothing, right?

Jill James:

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Your career and what you've done in EHS is just really interesting and admirable and the self-teaching part. What do you want to say, Arianna, about options in this field?

Arianna Howard:

Yeah. I think that it's important ... Well one, I would say the most beneficial thing is your experience today. Especially if you work in EHS. I mean, let's say you want to do what I do, you probably have more EHS knowledge than I do. And so now you just need to figure out which part you still need to learn. And it might be starting over a little bit. It might be taking a more entry level position. Or it might be leveraging your expertise and going into consulting. Every software company that builds environmental air emission calculation software needs an airhead. They need someone that understands emission factors and regulations. And that is a perfect switch to get into the back end of that software and honestly consult internally. So that's a really good way to pivot into it. And just generally, I think in EHS, you have to remember mostly, unless you're super lucky, you're probably doing 80-20, right? You're probably doing 80% environmental, 20% safety or no safety at all, or you're doing 80% safety, 20%. And so if you're feeling stuck or plateaued or you feel like I know everything there is to know about this thing, don't waste that experience. Use that as a way to pivot and transition into a new role where you can still leverage that experience, but you're going to do something totally different and then you're really going to be an expert. There's very few people that I meet that have all three. Occupational health, safety and environmental. That's the golden trio right there. But maybe you're more interested in something versus another.

Jill James:

And it depends on where you work, right? I mean, I've done work in all three, like you're saying, and different jobs in different places, like you're saying, it was a different mix. Some was really heavy in one area and really light in another and it just changes depending on where you're working.

Arianna Howard:

Definitely. Definitely. And what the business focus is at the time or what position needs to be filled. Before you know it, you might be the safety plant manager, but the environmental manager just won the lottery and moved to Hawaii, so now they need you to come figure out the air permits. And you're going to get online and you're going to figure it out and you're going to ask questions and then in six months you're like, "Well, now I know environmental too."

Jill James:

Yeah, right.

Arianna Howard:

And I think that's just kind of how it happens.

Jill James:

Yeah, thank you for that. Let's flip that. Let's say someone's listening and they're like, "Oh, I don't want to do that, but I want an Arianna." Because there's people who are listening are like, "Oh, I want this data. I want this. I want a platform." How do you think someone who might be thinking that right now might find someone like you?

Arianna Howard:

I think that one, if you know, let me know because it is hard to find colleagues. I think that that's been a big struggle. But I will say that your biggest resource is going to be really established environmental consulting firms that have a digital solutions arm that they specialize in selection, which I think is super important. You do not want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the wrong software if you can avoid it. Investing 50 to 100 in hiring them is totally worth it because it will save you incredible amounts of money in the long run because you need to make sure it fits your business, you need to make sure it fits your budget, all of these things. But then those same firms also do implementation. They will help you translate your Excel sheets and your PDFs to this software and then they'll also help you maintain it and really integrate it into your overall digital world. The firm that I worked at didn't do that. They just didn't. That wasn't something that they focused on and that's why I had to pivot to somewhere that did and my knowledge base grew because they knew what they were doing. So there is no shortage of that from a consulting standpoint. Honestly, as a professional, I recommend that even when you're talking to a vendor or vendors, only because they have an unbiased opinion. Usually they partner with multiple platforms, so they're not going to tell you, you have to buy this one. And so it really gives you that zoom out perspective of here are your business requirements, here's what I need this thing to do, and then go from there. And then if you're lucky, you can hop on LinkedIn and maybe find someone with EHS IT in their job title.

Jill James:

Well, and that's another really great way to search. So you're a unicorn, so this is good. This is good job security for you. But you and I met at a tech conference and I think you mentioned there's two.

Arianna Howard:

Yes, yes. That's a great point.

Jill James:

Yeah. Do you want to talk about that as another resource for people who might be like, how do I find this?

Arianna Howard:

There is a conference of unicorns. And it's very interesting. So NAEM has one. National Association of ... I don't know what they stand for actually. I just call them NAEM all the time.

Jill James:

N-A-M-E?

Arianna Howard:

Yeah. N-A-E-M. I mean they're a obviously well known environmental membership group. Tons of information constantly, webinars, corporate memberships, individual memberships, networking events. They do their huge forum, they do a conference. I think they just had that in October. They do a women's leadership conference. They actually had that in Denver. And then they also do a digital solutions conference. And I was able to go to that this past April in Fort Worth. And that was, I mean, awesome, because I got to meet people that use the same system I use and are years ahead of where our business is and do some lessons learned. It's interesting though, because more than 75% of them are EHS managers that are tasked with doing this thing that I do. So I always have a place in my heart for an EHS specialist or manager that's like, "Yep, we just bought the system. It's your job to manage it."

Jill James:

Good look.

Arianna Howard:

Yeah. Because most companies won't budget for a position like mine. And so I'm super grateful that I was able to find that. And I think it's because my leadership team had that in previous roles and so they're like, "Nope, we have to have that." And sometimes you wonder how companies function without it. So it is a great investment and it doesn't ... I think at that conference ... Oh, Verdantix. That was the other one that we met at. That was at an awesome resort. Verdantix is a huge all day ... I love them because all they do is have research analysts that constantly survey EHS leadership, executives, managers about everything there is to know about EHS software. So their membership is definitely worth it because they have tons of information and free information as well. And so I was fortunate enough to be able to go to that and meet even more people and really get to hear from some great speakers. We heard from the vice president at Boeing when we were there. And what was really cool was watching what these other companies are doing what I could be doing in five years or 10 years because these are well established companies.

Jill James:

Yeah. We heard lots of great examples about what people are using artificial intelligence for and some of the examples you gave earlier.

Arianna Howard:

So it kind of gives you one roadmap perspective, like, oh, that's a good idea. Maybe I need to put that into my budget for next year. It's a great thing to do if you are tasked with implementing a software and you don't know where to start. Maybe you're not ready to hand over $50,000 to a consultant and you just want to go check it out. All the software vendors are there and will be happy to buy you dinner and get your card and the next week you will get lots of emails. But it is a great way to just get firsthand look of what's out there, kind of dip your toe in the water. And it's really cool just to see the innovation and network. And this community is extremely small. There is no one that I've met at a conference that I haven't added on LinkedIn that was connected to five other people I was already in network with. None of which do what we were doing.

Jill James:

That's right. I kept referring to it as a boutique conference. Compared to the National Safety Congress and Expo, which is enormous and wonderful. And this is just different in a different way.

Arianna Howard:

It definitely is. Yep. I don't go to the big safety conferences or honestly haven't had interest in it because for me it'd be more beneficial to go and it might be smaller and not as many dinners and things like that, but the networking is really, really, really key. And you just can't get that just creeping on people on LinkedIn.

Jill James:

That's right. That's right. Oh wow. This has been so good and so informative and I hope that you've offered an awareness for people who might not know about EHS platforms, but also an awareness of what else you can do with this career. It's just great. Arianna, is there closing thoughts, other things that you'd like to share with the audience?

Arianna Howard:

No. I just want to thank you for having me on. And I know this is kind of a niche thing that people don't hear too much about unless it's coming from a software provider trying to sell you their product. So feel free, if you want to put my LinkedIn in the notes, it's totally fine. Happy to connect or talk to anyone about my experience and if they have any questions or need any advice.

Jill James:

That's wonderful. That's generous, and thank you very much. And thank you for everything that you've shared, and congratulations on being a leader, a leading unicorn in this aspect of our profession. It's wonderful.

Arianna Howard:

Oh, thank you so much, Jill, for having me. Really, really enjoyed it.

Jill James:

You're welcome. And thank you 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 Podcasts 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 EHS professionals like Arianna and I. Special thanks to Naeem Jaraysi, our podcast producer, and until next time, thanks for listening.