Ep. #17: Safety Beyond Compliance, Risk Ownership & Building a Real Safety Culture with Brad Johnson
LiveWire PodcastShow Notes
Welcome back to LiveWire, the electrical safety podcast from OEL Worldwide Industries, a family business that builds arc flash safety gear, tools, and trust across the trades. Rules matter. Compliance matters. But Brad Johnson believes real safety has to go deeper than a rulebook. In this episode of the LiveWire Podcast, Asa sits down with Brad Johnson, safety coordinator at Parker Water Sanitation and author of Non Compliant Safety: Practical Applications for Safety Beyond Compliance, to talk about what it actually takes to build a safety culture that works in the real world. Brad explains why compliance should be treated as a starting point, not the finish line, and why safety professionals need to focus first on risk, field conditions, worker behavior, and the decisions people make when no one is watching. From oil and gas to municipal water operations, confined space entry, lockout/tagout, fall hazards, PPE, electrical safety, and frontline risk assessments, this conversation is about helping people understand safety before they are asked to follow another policy. Brad also shares why safety leaders need to get out from behind the desk, why workers must be empowered to own their own safety, and why low-quality PPE or punishment-based programs can create barriers instead of better outcomes. This episode is for safety professionals, electrical workers, utility teams, contractors, supervisors, municipal crews, and anyone responsible for keeping people safe around real hazards. Learn more about Brad’s book at noncompliantsafety.com. Subscribe and follow us: LinkedIn Instagram X TikTok Spotify Apple Podcasts
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