James Hymers: Evolving Skills and Perceptions Across The Health And Safety Profession

In this episode, Jonny speaks with James Hymers, Director of Health and Safety at Pick Everard. James is passionate about reshaping the perception of health and safety, aiming to position it as a facilitator of business success rather than a hindrance. He shares his journey into the construction industry and his transition from engineering to health and safety, highlighting the importance of addressing health and safety issues through the design process.

Throughout the conversation, James reflects on his comfort with change and his struggles with ambiguity. He emphasises the need for personal ownership in career progression and discusses the role of leadership in facilitating growth and development within teams. James also explores the concept of vulnerability in leadership and the importance of creating psychological safety within organizations.

Jonny and James discuss the evolution of the health and safety profession, envisioning a future where it is recognised as a vital and respected discipline. They emphasise the significance of teamwork, perspective, and continuous learning in driving progress and achieving collective goals. Overall, the conversation offers valuable insights into the dynamic landscape of health and safety, highlighting the importance of collaboration, innovation, and adaptability in shaping its future.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Reluctant Entrepreneur. My name is Jonny de Mallet Morgan. And in this podcast, we're going to talk to thought leaders, business leaders, and entrepreneurs about their hopes, their dreams, their aspirations, and their challenges. We hope that you can learn. From what we've learned. And I hope that I can learn from all the wonderful guests that we have.

Today, I had a really interesting conversation with James Hymers. He is director in health and safety. Now, health and safety has what I think is quite an unfair reputation. He feels very passionate about helping that reputation evolve, helping individuals, businesses, and leaders. See it as a facilitator of business success and not a hindrance to it.

Enjoy. For [00:01:00] anybody who doesn't know who you are. Yeah. Who are you and where are you from? Uh, so my name's James Hymers. I currently work for Pick Everard. I'm Director of Health and Safety there. So head of discipline that we've got in pick Everard. Great. I, um, live in Buckhamshire, in Chesham. Um, got a young family, so I've got a, a.

six year old and a nine year old at home. Nine year old? Yeah, well, she's nine in February, but she's going on 13, so. And I feel your pain. Um, and yeah, so I work in safety, I work in health and safety. I work in construction industry, so predominantly looking at a principal designer role, um, but it's something that I really enjoy.

I mean, I really love the idea of being able to be part of a project that's going to build something, um, and perhaps addressing health and safety issues through that design process. So yeah, I guess that's a little bit about me. Is that, have you always wanted to work within that profession? I don't, I don't know that I always wanted to work in that profession.

I've, I've always, I've, I've always had a technical mind. I've always, [00:02:00] I've always been moving towards like engineering, so I've had a technical background. I've done an engineering degree and stuff like that. Um, I didn't know that I was going to go into construction. I thought I was going to be, uh, an engineer working on machines at some point.

Um, But in my previous role for Mars Chocolate, um, where I did get into the engineering department, I felt like a change. I felt like that change needed to be something significant and I moved into construction and I'll tell you what, it's been, it's been really, really interesting, learned a lot, grown a lot, um, and I really enjoy it.

Are you generally comfortable with change? I, I guess there's, there's a little bit to that, so I'm comfortable with change. I feel confident that I can take on change. I'm not so confident with ambiguity. Um, I do struggle a bit with ambiguity. I like to know what the plan is. I like to know where I'm going.

And I guess, as I've kind of progressed in my career, ambiguity becomes an increasing part of the role, and your [00:03:00] ability to create a plan within that becomes more a part of the role. So it's something that I've had to become more comfortable with, um, and work through. How did you develop those skills to be comfortable with ambiguity?

I don't know. I don't know that I ever will be. I, I still have moments where I feel extremely unhappy because, and I realise it's because it's an ambiguous situation. Uh huh. Um. My career at Mars was excellent in that it gave me a lot of tools so You know doing your career plan. So drawing out a timeline Identifying where you want to be and what you can do to get there and that could be In the next six months next five years whatever timeline you want um, so yeah, I guess I got some tools which kind of help with that, but I'm not sure you ever really get over it.

How disciplined are you with using those tools, that timeline, that organisation? Yeah, I used to be great. Um, on my OneDrive at home I've got [00:04:00] lots of documents from my career path through Mars and early construction, where I've, I've literally written a log of my The last six months, you know, my feelings, how did I, what did I accomplish, what did I not do, what do I want to do better, where do I want to go, and I've written all that stuff down.

Wow. And it's amazing to go back and read that. Um, the last five years, I've not really done that, so I guess maybe that's something I should go back and do now, because it's helpful, but it's very, very busy at the minute. Very busy. And that's, that's really interesting. So not only did you make the plan.

And then document the plan as you progress through it. You also documented your experience of the plan, so how you felt about it. Yeah. Yeah. That's a very cool thing to do. Where did you learn that from? I don't know. I don't know. I, I, I remember when I wanted to move from shift work at [00:05:00] Mars, so I was running the machines.

And I wanted to move into days, um, so moving into the engineering team or, um, I guess less hands on to a more, I'd say, professional role. Um, I remember sitting down with the chap who was then looking after training, and he went through this process of drawing your timeline out and drawing out what you want to do.

So I remember doing that. I don't really know why I went back and was so disciplined about it, but I don't know, I guess it just brought me some comfort that I had achieved the plan that I wanted to achieve, um, or that I knew where I was going to go from where I'd been and there was some sort of reference point to that.

Um, so I don't know where it came from, but it's been useful. Now you're in a position of leadership, do you, is it something you would promote into the people that report into you? A hundred percent. [00:06:00] 100%. I think you, you have to take ownership of your own career path. You have to take ownership of your own progression.

Um, all too often people come and ask me or my line managers, um, you know, where do I go? What's my next role? I think if you, if you can't decide yourself where you want to be, how can someone else tell you want to be? You might not get to where you want to get to. But at least you can track your progress along that journey and maybe see where a deviation is going to take you somewhere new unexpected positive negative don't know what that might be, but Yeah, you've you've got to take that personal ownership for where you want to be in the future.

Yeah, sure And do you feel as a leader that you're responsible facility for facilitating that conversation? Hey, I like to I like to take a practical in that Yeah, I like to see people progress and develop so I will definitely go out my way to [00:07:00] try and promote those conversations. I guess where I fall down is I can sometimes be a bit too proactive and you can fall into that trap of doing things for people.

Um, but yeah, I definitely want to facilitate progression. I definitely want to try and find those opportunities. Um, in our, in our business at the moment we deliver projects. So we want to try and find the project that's going to give the individual the best experience or what is it about that project that they can learn that they don't know at the moment and, and just try and find those ways really of keeping people moving forward, definitely.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. In your, um, your, your journey of leadership, um, what is the biggest lesson that you've learned so far? Um, There's a lot. There's a lot of lessons. What's my biggest lesson? What's your hardest lesson that you've [00:08:00] learned so far? Um, that you don't have all the answers. Uh huh. Yeah, definitely. I was having this conversation with someone the other day.

Um, it's some feedback that I got when I was early on in my career. You don't have to have the answer. It's absolutely fine to come back and say, Let me come back with the answer. And let me take that away, you know? Because you'll inspire more confidence by recognizing what you don't know than trying to present something you don't know.

So, that's really important when you're in those really senior, really, um, pressured meetings. Um, you, you, you, you can't make this stuff up in front of these people. They, they know the facts, they know the figures. Um, you've got to be honest and go away and get the right answer. Yeah, I mean that requires real comfort with vulnerability.

Definitely.

Do you promote that vulnerability within your teams? God, this is like an interrogation, I don't mean it to [00:09:00] be. Yeah, I don't know, I struggle with the term vulnerability, I don't Tell me, why do you, why? Because I don't, I don't necessarily, I don't see the need to be vulnerable. I see the need to be Fair and respectful with everyone that you meet and everyone that you deal with I I trust everyone that I speak to um, and in that trust I I I I enter into a relationship where I will be open and honest in in that conversation.

So I guess in that i'm not needing to promote vulnerability. It's already in there Yeah, because you're trying to create psychological safety and psychological safety, so the problem is that I think a lot of people, uh, consider vulnerability as, uh, or they confuse vulnerability with disclosure. Yeah. Like, I have to tell you my deepest, darkest secrets.

Yeah. And I don't think that's it at all. Yeah. Vulnerability is, uh, simply not [00:10:00] knowing or not being sure of the result of, um, As a consequence of you sharing something. Yeah, so you turning around and saying I don't know that answer Well, you don't know how these people really are gonna react. However, if you've created within your team a Culture of psychological safety than it's highly likely that there's safety in in them.

Yeah Being vulnerable, because I think it is, I think it is, it's certainly not going this happened to me when I was young, therefore, X, Y, Z. That's true, and I, and what I have noticed is the more senior you become, the less people come to you to talk to you, just on a level, you know, like, and I, and I've, but I'm still the same person.

I still want to have those conversations, um, but yes, people don't want to present themselves as perhaps.

It's quite interesting, some of the most [00:11:00] senior leaders that I work with, you know, sort of global CEOs, whatever. Some of them, I would even argue, are too critical about themselves and really, really forensic about finding their, their, their, their blind spots and seeking out the people that will be as honest with them as possible and they're quite hard to find because, because people are scared of being too honest.

Yeah, yeah, which is. Sort of oxymoronical. You're desperate for it, but people won't do it. Absolutely. Uh, interesting. So, so how would you, we touched on this in a different conversation earlier, how would you like to see your profession evolve over the next 10 years? If you, if you did a retrospective, 10 years time, you're looking [00:12:00] back at these last 10 years.

Yeah, yeah. What would you like it to look like? I would. I would love to see this profession be recognized as a true profession within the industry so that you don't feel slightly embarrassed when you say, Oh, I'm a health and safety manager or health and safety officer. You know, you'd be proud I'm in health and safety and that's a sound profession to be in.

And I, and I, I compare this to the engineering community. So I'm also a member of, um, CIBSI, so the engineering community. Been around a very long time, engineering. Everyone knows engineering is very important. Engineering degrees are very, very highly respected. Um, and if, if health and safety can start working towards that, Um, I mean, that would be amazing.

And the talent and the people that we could attract in this industry would be amazing. And I think one of the things about health and safety, though, is it often gets right to the top of the table. Even if you don't take that narcissistic approach [00:13:00] of health and safety must be number one on the agenda, it tends to get there anyway because it's very important.

So you've got this advantage over a lot of other kind of parts of the business to influence the business. And if you pair that with some really sound, um, knowledge and evidence and capability, you can really do an awful lot for a business. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's vital. How do you, how do you create that sort of perfect combination?

I don't know if we've found the perfect combination just yet. Um, I mean, what I try to do is always ask myself, am I adding value? So in my role, in an organization, whatever project I'm on, am I adding value? What do I need to get to add value to the situation? Um, and I think if, if we all kept asking ourselves that question, then naturally we're gonna, we're gonna move in the direction we need to go in.

Um, but [00:14:00] there's lots of work in the background, you know, to get universities, um, with the right, um, Subjects and courses to create pathways for graduates and for young people to come into industry. Um, there's businesses that promote it strongly so they can demonstrate the advantage of having it. Um, and there's people like me and Jake who you just spoke to who are very keen to kind of progress that.

So there's lots of exciting avenues that we can move along. Um, and I'm really excited for the future, I guess, in that respect. Yeah. That's really cool. I mean, there's so many things. There's so many sort of pieces of the puzzle as you've just sort of articulated. Uh, and one of the great things is having people like you and Sunit and all these other people discussing their dreams and aspirations for the profession.

And uh, so you being a voice and putting yourself out there, it's a really cool thing.[00:15:00] 

I'm thinking about, well, how does, how does one inspire or attract, um, people to come into it? Number one is obviously having people like you. No, number two is, is, is foundation is in this next question. When there is a project that you have, you, you, you've been handed, how much do you personally connect to?

The project as a whole, not just your part of it. Quite strongly I guess, yeah. And maybe that's why I enjoy construction so much. Because I can see the purpose of what we're doing. Um, and sometimes you get projects that you don't really connect to very well. But it's trying to find that part of it that you can connect with.

Um, and then so there's value in putting your time into that. But, yeah, I guess everything that I've worked on I try to see. [00:16:00] What my skill sets, where's the value that I can add into this? So that in that end product, that's the value that I've delivered. And that's the value it's given to the greater purpose or world or whatever it is.

And when you see, see a project completed, you know, and construction is so great because a thing is built. Yeah. Do you look at it and go? That's a bloody safe building, right? Or do you think, wow, look at, look at the building, you see it as a whole? As a whole, yeah. I mean, health and safety is one small part of that, that whole thing.

And that's part of the conversations we have in BEYOND, you know, right? It's about, there's, there's program constraints, there's cost constraints, there's material constraints. All these things come together and we've got to try and weave our way and pick our way through it. But the end product is what you're working towards.

And, uh. Couple of things on that. So what kind of, I guess, inspired me in construction is, um, my wife's Chinese and we went go back to China a [00:17:00] few times, but she's got family in China and one of our uncles took us around Hong Kong. And whilst we're going around Hong Kong, he's saying to us, Oh, I was part of building this building.

I was part of the foundation and all that. And you look at this and you think, well, that's amazing. That's amazing that you had a hand to play in that. And then. A few few months ago, I was able to do the same thing. I went down to London. I had family with us. Mom and Dad came down. We're going to go see a show.

Went to the BBC Centre. Next to the BBC Centre is a brand new building. I was part of the design team for that and it looks absolutely amazing. That building and there was lots of different challenges that we spoke about in tiny, tiny parts. But the end result is there's this building that Generations can enjoy and they will perhaps not even notice that it's there, but it will serve a great purpose for a number of years now and that's, that's truly, uh, inspiring I think for people.

I think that is inspiring. I think that's quite exciting [00:18:00] and can only be completed successfully with a really good team. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's all about teamwork.

Do you feel that the profession isn't seen as part of the team? Well, there's definitely a stigma, isn't there? There's definitely a stigma that once you get someone from Health and Safety involved, you're not going to be able to progress and do the things that you want to do. Um, and that's absolutely not what I'm about.

Um, there are some things that I cannot let happen. Um, but that's no different to the accountant telling you you haven't got enough money. My job is to try and help you navigate around those challenges. So I have to, I have to go out and I have to research and learn things so I can offer those solutions.

Um, but I guess through all of that it's understanding that your client or your project team or whoever it is, have all those other things that they have to deal with. It's not [00:19:00] just your safety issue. The reason they've chosen the issue that they present to you is because they haven't got enough money or the program's tight.

So maybe you have to look at the cost saving option, or maybe you have to look at a way around a program. It's not always tackling the issue in front of you, sometimes you have to go beyond that and look around it. That's so congruent with your, um, engineering sort of background. How do we put this puzzle together?

Yeah, exactly. And that's so, again, I think that's quite inspiring, especially with people who think in the same way, uh, uh, that you are not the, the no police, you are, you, you are the critical friend. Right. So if that's the problem, how do we do it? Yeah. Let's not get rid of the goal, the purpose, the dream, but let's try and work out how to do it.

Yeah, exactly. I think that is exciting. Yeah. Can I ask you a question? You can ask me anything. So how, how. Um, I've been really [00:20:00] intrigued as to how Speakers Gym helps safety professionals or, the end product is that we see these events that you do for BEYOND, but how, what is it really that you think that you do that helps our guys get to where they need to be, you know?

Um, what a great question. I feel agnostic. Generally, towards the professions which we're asked to work in, or the industries we're asked to work in. What I have seen within, uh, HSEQ, is a lot of really talented people, a lot of very curious people, who haven't yet found a way. To, um, [00:21:00] really articulate themselves because of reputation, because of habit.

And what I care personally about more than anything, really, is helping people to break out their pigeonholes. I cannot bear when someone is diminished in some way because they're not from the right circles. Yeah. And, um, and for me, a real guide. Yeah, in, in almost anything that I do, whether it's as a family man with my, with my, with my, with my family, my children, with my wife, or whether it's to do with the industries that we work in, or whether it's to do with the people who are lucky, I am lucky enough to, to have with, in our team, I want to help them break out [00:22:00] those pigeonholes, and I want to help them to be able to.

Uh, express themselves, uh, well in a way that people can understand their true value. Now, the barrier I think that we have quite a lot within, beyond HSEQ, and it's not exclusive by any stretch of the imagination to the health and safety and equality, uh, sorry, environment and quality profession, is that, um, I don't know.

How much the people within this specific profession, uh, take responsibility for their own actions. I think there is a certain tiny bit of, um, uh, people don't understand us. Almost victimhood. Yeah. And I think. What's so inspiring about hearing you speak about, Oh, I'm just part of the team, which creates this amazing thing, that real [00:23:00] connection to being part of a team, being part of purpose, doing something bigger than yourselves and being a facilitator of that dream.

Not a, not, not the, the no police and being the critical friend, I think, well, how can I as, as, um, as a sort of, uh, uh, owner of. of from today. How can we help, uh, people articulate themselves and their value as well as you just have? Yeah, that's, I mean, that's spot on. And I think it's been wonderful this, how you've managed to get into the position to help with Beyond the GCQ because it does facilitate and open up conversations that perhaps are not happening.

Um, they do happen. In places. Yeah. But they're just not kind of reaching the mark, but it's, it's almost part of, um, a victim of [00:24:00] the, of the way that it's all managed, isn't it? Right? So, because it's based on a legal framework. So you get told by the HSC, this is a law, you go to your employee and tell them this is a law and you can't understand it why they don't want to follow the law.

And the, the, but the world doesn't work like that. The world doesn't work on laws and someone being told what to do. And. You can see that in the construction industry now. For years and years and years, we've been needing to move on and move forward and, um, evolve, and we've not done it. And, in fact, in some places we've gone backwards.

So now we've got the Building Safety Act. So now we've got some more laws. So now we've got more wonderful things that we can go and enforce on people. But it's not fundamentally going to change how we do things. The only way to change how you do things is if you learn and grow together. Try and find those solutions, you know, absolutely and I think yeah, I mean two things come come to mind.

I was brought up by a lawyer and He my dad didn't say this as and he didn't create this phrase. I don't know who did But he would say a lot. The [00:25:00] law is an ass and and And, and the problem is, I think whenever there is a barrier put in, and I'm not saying that you should, should, uh, uh, discount what these, these, the, the law says, but I think it, it, it, it, instead of being a wall, it should be the facilitator of a conversation.

Well, because of that, what can we do and how do we still achieve as well as we can? Uh, aspirations and, um, and that's another reason why I think it's so important that people outside the profession come and have conversations, uh, and are part of the evolution because you can't, as a football manager, you can't just worry about the strikers.

You've got to worry about everybody and see it as, as everybody. And that's why the C suite or certainly, uh, the leaders within a business have to see the whole picture. Yeah. It's perspective isn't it? It's perspective. Nothing [00:26:00] frustrates me more than people that cannot see perspective. Yeah. You know and I mean not to get political but you can see the Boris Johnson things that are going on now and yeah Dominic Cummings and all the comments that are coming through but put it in perspective I would not want to have been in that seat during a pandemic.

I mean they're talking about competence and stuff and competence is key in making sure you're competent for all that you do. But how do you determine competence for managing the pandemic? Like, but then it becomes black and white because it's in law. You need to be competent. So, yeah, you have to take that step back, try and see that perspective and see what, what you can do with all these things that are presented for you.

Do you know competence is a, yeah, absolutely. But I think competence is. Right, so to reframe this slightly or frame it in, yeah, to frame it in a slightly different way. Competence is vital, right? Yeah. It's [00:27:00] so vital in your ability to build trust with somebody. But competence, uh, is, is, um, it's a very active thing.

It's how you behave, your studying, your experience, uh, your reliability. It's what you do every day. And it's such a small, and it's such a small It, it is not the be all and end all in influence, uh, and certainly not in trust. There are loads of very, very competent people who I would not let through my front door.

Yeah. Right. And, uh, and a really good example, my, my daughter had, uh, when she was two, she had an operation. She had to have a lymph node taken out of her, her neck and it was our first child. I, I felt like as a father, like a rabbit. Yeah. In Headlights. The surgeon did the operation, she was in hospital for a couple of days, [00:28:00] and I desperately dislike that surgeon.

I really, really dislike him. He was really compliment, uh, comp, uh, he was really, really competent, really fantastic at his job. But he had not a care in the world about our journey as parents through it. Therefore, I actually really couldn't see how good he was. I found it really difficult to listen to him because he didn't care about his audience.

He didn't care about us. Yeah. Uh, uh, and, and competence, your ability to do a job has to be just the baseline. Yeah. If that's what we're trying to achieve, then our objectives are far too low. Yeah, yeah. Competence is just a really wonderful part of what makes you a really good team member. And that's why intimacy and purpose [00:29:00] and understanding other people's values and curiosity It's almost more important, purely because it is the gateway to people being able to see your competence.

Sorry, I didn't mean to hit the mic, and um, however, talking in this fashion can be very intimidating for people. But it's, it's the key to success, I think it's the key to building a team which is going to deliver and high performance. Yeah. And especially nowadays, I think, you know, if you look at where we came from, where we didn't have computers, things were very binary, done on a typewriter or whatever, the skills needed back then are very different to the skills that are needed now.

And we've got a workforce that can go and Google things and they can learn very quickly. So yeah, you need to foster that creative attitude and that want and need to learn. Go and investigate [00:30:00] and the creativity, um, in a different world. We don't need to say, tell people what to go and do and that's what is they're going to be doing.

A hundred percent. You know, you look at it from a teaching point of view without wanting to go down a rabbit hole. Um, a teacher's job is not to impart knowledge and knowledge is everywhere. We can access anything that we want in a heartbeat. A teacher's job is to facilitate learning. Yeah. Right. Right.

And I think there's, it's really easy to extrapolate that idea and put it into. To, like, anybody, you walk onto site and there's something dangerous, anybody can Google, well, is that thing going to kill me? Yeah, yeah. They don't need you to tell them. Exactly. But I think that, that does lead into something I'm quite excited about in health and safety in terms of building up that capability in the, in the profession, like, I think, I think there's like a NEBOSH certificate, for example, quite a basic kind of qualification and you can get quite a good safety job on the back of that.

But as we start to move [00:31:00] forward, I'm really excited to see how that baseline knowledge starts to increase. Um, that people are now coming in with degrees and all these sorts of different things that they've got this higher standard of, uh, knowledge that they can go and do more with. And with the tools that are coming through with AI and data management, all these things that they'll be able to do some more quantitative analysis on some of these risks.

So actually, when your business partner or CEO, whoever it is, comes to you and says, Can you quantify to me the risk of this person slipping on the floor? You can say well, you know, I've got the data and other than the cost analysis and I can tell you exactly what it is Yeah, whereas in the past you've just been worse to law.

Yeah, exactly Exactly. Well, then you're really helping your business partner your CEO. Yeah, you're part of the team then you're not a blocker. Yeah, and probably yourself in that position You can understand the business decision. So if if you can see that it costs too much versus the benefit to do this job, you can see they're black and white.

You can be part of that decision. [00:32:00] Rather than just casting the, well it's the law, we can't help, we've got to make sure they don't fall over. Yeah, exactly. Because you can't, you can't deal with the pushback on that, can you? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, that's exactly it. You hit a barrier. Yeah. Yeah, immediately.

And there is so much more to the conversation. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Oh gosh, that's, that's, that's really brilliant. James, thanks so much. Thanks so much for your time and, and, and your vulnerability and, uh, everything that you've shared. I, I think that you see the development of HSEQ in a really quite vibrant, quite exciting way.

And I hope to have many, many more of these conversations with you and other people. And I hope that beyond HSEQ can absolutely facilitate these conversations and, and, and help evolve. So thank you very much. No, Paul, it's been great, thank you. Pleasure.