Host: 0:00

[Music] in this episode of our CEO series, Stuart Hughes IOSH President speaks to Leann Hearne, CEO of LIVV Housing, to find out what she thinks of the health and safety profession.

Stuart Hughes: 0:20

Carrying on our CEO podcast series today, I'm joined by Leanne Hearn, the Chief Executive of LIVV Housing Group,. Leanne, thank you very much for giving us some of your time today. Really looking forward to having a chat with you. For those that perhaps don't know what the LIVV Housing Group do, could you just give us a bit of background in the organisation that you run?

Leann Hearne: 0:43

I can. So we're a housing association primarily based in a single community in Liverpool in Knowsley. Our aim and objective is to give homes to people who could otherwise not afford to buy one. So around 13,500 homes we own and manage, and we are also really well known for social investment and social impact. So we do much more than just house people.

Stuart Hughes: 1:06

Awesome. And I'm excited to talk to you because I love organisations that have a real, clear purpose. So that's really exciting. From a health and safety perspective, it's about serving not only the organisation and the employees, but but a public population, and the kind of whims of the public and also the challenges of contractor management etc. So we'll dig into all of that. One of the things that I want to start with is what I think is quite a lazy trope, but it is there on LinkedIn and other socials quite frequently, and it's really that there seems to be this pervasive view amongst the global workforce that the people at the top of organisations don't care about the people on the ground. And I just wonder why you think that exists, and how that resonates with you when you hear something like that.

Leann Hearne: 2:00

That annoys me intensely, as you can probably imagine, because I don't believe that. I also think it's a really lazy statement to make from a global perspective. If you go to America, I used to work for an international business, so I've worked in many countries, and I can tell you the standards of businesses and how they look after their people and their manufacturing setups vary massively between China, Korea, America, Germany, France, UK. So how can we say that a global view is that people don't care about their people? Because I don't think that's right. I don't think we help ourselves in the UK, because we tend to have a bit of a negative view. We're a half less empty kind of nation, and we've got a press that supports that view, so I think we tend to focus on the minority. So the minute you see something go wrong, or a business go wrong, or something happen where people aren't looked after, or a health and safety crisis, then there's a massive assumption and a sweeping statement that everybody does exactly the same thing. So then I think we don't help ourselves in that, in that view, but I don't believe that that's the case, and certainly in my experience in lots of different countries, in lots of different industries, I've never found that to be the case. What I will say is I have found, and I'm not going to name them, but I know a chief executive of a really huge organisation that's International, that's a retail business with about 12,000 people in it, and he told me that he directly links culture and colleague satisfaction to profit, and therefore it's his aim to make sure that people are happy in their jobs. Now I have a slightly different view. It's not about profit. For me, it's about people. But nevertheless, even the worst case, if it's only linked to profit, then why wouldn't you look after your people? So I'm not sure. I'm not sure I share that view.

Stuart Hughes: 3:47

I'm on your side with that. I don't think it's valid for you, but obviously I think would be people put it up there from experience, when we come to looking at your organisation and how you care for or look after your people. How do you ensure that that isn't how they feel, and they feel that the organisation's there for, I suppose, their benefit, and they feel valued as a member of the workforce?

Leann Hearne: 4:15

So in a really small amount, I'll try and simplify this. When I inherited LIVV Housing Group just over five years ago, I inherited a downgraded regulatory, downgraded failing organisation where people in the business told me they were embarrassed and ashamed to be part of our organisation, and they wanted their pride back. So I had a massive business turnaround. Now, the thing I think that showed how I cared about people was six weeks into the job, I did a culture survey, and nine weeks into the job, I made life insurance mandatory for every member of staff. So I said to them, I value your lives while you're working in our organisation, and we're therefore insuring every single one of you. And in the time that I've been there, I've had to make that payment for people who have died in service. So it's really well received. That was the starting point. The second point was we had a number of businesses in the group, maintenance businesses, fencing companies, building companies, all of which were on different terms and conditions, including sickness pay. So sickness pay and holidays were the main things. If we can't all be in the same business with the same terms and conditions for that, then how can we have values that say we're about fairness? So I harmonised those terms and conditions. Thereafter, I would say that we're one of the organisations that people really aspire to work with now we really focus on wellbeing and health. So when I talk about wellbeing, I don't mean just the basics that lots of people talk about. I mean we have puppy classes. We have something on every single Wednesday, and everybody's welcome to join, even the guys who are out on the ground. So maintenance guys who are repairing homes or construction guys who are building homes are welcome to come and join, and then managers must make time for them to do that. The same goes for training and development. So I've got loads of examples where I can tell you apprentices who are now in senior management positions, because I have a view that if we can train you and you want to learn, then we'll work with you. I'd rather keep you on side and keep you in the business. So we have loads of training programmes. The other thing is that we have a really agile workforce, and I was one of the first that brought in an agile work arrangements for people. So the rule is you have to be in the office one day a week, and the rest you can work at home. What started off as people telling me they didn't want to come in for the one day a week, I now have a massive car parking problem because we can't keep people away! People are in there five days a week. We spent a load of money on refurbing the building. I said, if you're going to come into our office, I'm going to give you a decent cup of coffee, because nobody wants a crap cup of Nescafe. So we have really good coffee machines. We have really good relaxation areas and really good meeting areas. We've got a library for people who want to work differently.

Stuart Hughes: 7:03

That's lovely to hear. I think then that We've also got people who are neurodiverse in our business. We account for them. All of our equality policies take account of everybody, and we actively encourage people from different engagement piece is more than just the work environment, isn't backgrounds with different challenges, and we account for it? It's that thing, like you say, the genuine care for the them in the building and the way in which we work. We have an employee forum called the LIVV forum. They're elected members from across the business. And mark my words, I asked them what they wanted. They told me they wanted to be engaged. And boy, oh boy, are they empowered and engaged. So if they want to tell me that they don't want the conference agenda to look like it is, they tell me, and I work with them, and that, for me, is a great way. I mean, we have some humdingers, but we equally have some great messages. I've had messages from teams who've said, because I've not been well recently, are you okay, boss? And when people send you a message like that, you kind of know that people care about you genuinely. individuals, and then that translates through into how people work, the pride in their jobs, doing things safely, all of these things holistically come together to give you those outcomes and the outcomes that you want to desire. If I can spin us into the world of Occupational Safety and Health, there's especially within the profession a call quite frequently for OSH professionals to have a seat at the board or on the C suite. Just wondered what your thoughts were on that?

Leanne Hearne: 8:46

I think it's a bit of a naive and narrow view, if I'm honest. Why would you have one particular profession that is more important than any other? You can't have every profession - that would be HR, governance, health and safety, manufacturing, you know, how many do you want to draw a line under? So for me, I think it's much more about the business itself, and having a look through the lens of the business and the risks in which that business operates to decide what's required. So in all honesty, when I worked in manufacturing, which was the international business I mentioned, we did have a health and safety person on the board. And the reason for that was because we had manufacturing plants in 12 countries, in different cultures, in different in different arenas, with different safety aspects. And so yes, for then, it was a massive risky business with 4000-5000 people in it that really needed to be looked after. So I would say in that instance, it fitted the risk profile of the business. Now, the risk profile I have is much more broad than that. So for me, it's around good governance, structure around health and safety and making sure that you've got the message from the bottom upwards, not just the top downwards, and just having somebody on the board. For me, it's a top down management tool, and I don't think that's the right way. And I do have the voice of health and safety at my boardroom, but I have it alongside a number of others. So I have health and safety in property, I have health and safety in customers, and then I have health and safety in colleagues. Now it all comes under one umbrella, but there are different responsibilities in different fields for those so we have a health and safety space in the board agenda, but we have an executive director who has health and safety in their portfolio. So that's how I do it. But I think it needs to be less narrow and more acutely aware of what the business is.

Stuart Hughes: 10:50

I guess the thing for me there is, when you're looking at it like that, kind of three compartments of safety and their slight differences, but singularity in the total I suppose. How would you make sure that the information or messaging that you get is helpful, and what kind of thing is it that you need to be able to make those informed decisions?

Leann Hearne: 11:20

It's probably helpful to tell you that in that first culture survey, which is really rare, this is really rare, the number one issue that came up was health and safety. Now we've been downgraded for fire safety issues. So that made sense to me, which is probably why I'm so clear about the structure that we have and how information falls through. So we have an operational responsibility for people, and we've got groups at that level. We've got a Strategic Safety Group, which is chaired by an executive director, and the issues that come out of that, backwards and forwards and what make their way into a board paper. So there is a separate board paper that covers all of those areas, including the compliance issues and the information we need from health and safety experts across the business is one. I need the data, and I need the metrics, and I need the performance. I need the benchmarking data to tell me whether I'm good, bad or indifferent. I need that data to compare to last year, this year, future positioning. And then the other bit is that whole piece around - and I have to say my team are really brilliant at this - is that whole piece about knowing that I can sleep at night. We are currently in the biggest changes ever in housing. So in hundreds of years, we've got more regulation changes that happened on the 1 April than ever before. And at that point, I knew what was coming down, because my health and safety team sent me notes for making sure that I included them in my board report. Gave us comparisons to say where we stood against that regulation and where we were, and gave me guidance about when we would need to implement things and what changes we needed to make, and then the policies and procedures that would link to all of that. So that was all proactively sent to me without me having to ask for it. That for me is a great piece. In return for that, what I do is I make sure every author of a board paper is mentioned in a box at the end of the board paper. There are three boxes about the implications. One is risk, one is customer, one is health and safety, and whoever authors the document has to say what they have considered the health and safety implications of that report and what may need to change as a result. And that means authors across the business have to then consider the health and safety in their decision making, and the board are aware of those so it's a quid pro quo.

Stuart Hughes: 13:35

I really like that, because it puts some ownership, accountability and responsibility on the people that are making the statements, and it means that you know you're demonstrating that thought process throughout the organisation. So that's interesting to hear, and I'm sure the members will find that fascinating. So you've just given some kudos to your safety team in terms of they're giving you the things that you need, which is great. More broadly, or perhaps if we unpack that a little bit more so, at a very top level, the ability to sleep at night, it seems like a fairly reasonable thing to ask for. But what else do you need from your safety team to go beyond that. How do you put that vision to them of what you want to see within the organisation?

Leann Hearne: 14:29

The way I explained it when I first arrived was, I can remember years ago when HR was called personnel, and it was the thing that everybody assumed that they did for you. So when you recruited somebody, personnel did it, and they filled in the forms. And there's been a view that shifted that said HR or people management. We call it people people management - culture management is everybody's responsibility, and HR provide the tools to keep us safe. And I see the health and safety function in exactly the same way. So it is everybody's business in our organisation to get that right. So what I really look for from people who are going to work in that function is, year one, they need to help sleep at night, because there's an awful lot that keeps me well awake. Well, they need to be proactive in giving me guidance and telling me I'm not an expert in this field, and I don't wish to be, or profess to be. That's why you employ people who can do this better than you, so therefore, proactively give me guidance on what I need. The really, really important thing is communication. And I know that sounds a crass thing, but that's normally the number one thing you get in a culture survey, and it was number two on ours at that time. And that is what I have seen in the past is bad examples of health and safety leaders, is that telling you must. I used to have a guy that worked for me many years ago who came from the Army, and he did use that phrase all the time, you must win, must. You must. And it was, can you take the word 'must' out? How can you do that? We should work together. Well, this is the best way of doing it. So I expect a health and safety expert to be able to come to our business, come to our table and tell me how they are going to help me embed a safety culture across the piece. And that means they've got to be the ones that work with the communications team, because maybe a health and safety expert isn't an expert in comms, but work with whoever it is that can help them do it and do it in a way that is received well by the audience - so not for the academic or the executive director. This for me is take one of our low pay workers, where English might be a second language and where their literacy skills are at the worst. Don't write them a 47 page document on health and safety. Do something really simple so they understand it, and then we'll get it from the bottom upwards, so that health and safety is fair across the business. The other one, and this is one of the things that has been across my whole career, is I have a phrase: 'You've got two ears and one mouth, and you need to use them in that order.' Where you've got expertise, which can sometimes go from advising to telling, it's important to listen carefully to what the challenges are, and then hear to understand, listen to understand what problems are and come up with a solution. And if you spend more time listening than you do telling them, that's when you get real partnership. And that, to be fair, in straight from my team, that's exactly what they are. They really are partners when we have something go wrong, and we're in housing and we're in construction, things go wrong. When something goes wrong, I've got people across the business, so the first people they will call is the risk manager and the health and safety manager, you don't often get that, and that's because that's a partnership, where people trust one another.

Stuart Hughes: 17:46

That's a critical thing, isn't it? I always think if the organisation's not talking to you, you're in trouble, right? But you you want to be people that people will come to and tell you what's going on. And I think the other thing there that's very interesting is safety isn't necessarily always about the solution. It's about helping to find the solution. So this piece of actively listening to what's being told, understanding standing the problem, and then looking with the people involved to say, Okay, how do we work to a better position? And I think those those skills are really critical. So I think that's a really lovely piece to pass on. We spoke about you being able to sleep at night. So what are the things that you worry about within your organisation, and why do they cause you concern?

Leann Hearne: 18:50

At the moment, we are under the spotlight by government and we're under the spotlight by regulators. So I currently have an all fair and square, by the way. It's just that it's all come at once in response to some of the other challenges that we've seen from Awaab Ishak, who died in a social housing property in Rochdale. There are a load of examples, which is one of the points I also make that that doesn't mean that the millions of social houses in the UK are all the same, and as bad as that, nevertheless, you don't know what you don't know until you know it. And our data in our organisation is probably some of the best I've seen because we failed to start with. So when I arrived, we put a load of those in. But all of those challenges and all of those changes mean you are only as you are only as good as the last piece of data and the last visit that somebody made to a home or to a person. And changes can happen really quickly. So damp can occur within six weeks. All of our regulatory framework talks about an annual check. So the responsibility there in the gap that we have is mine. I'm in a borough where we're the second most deprived borough in the country. I've got people in my homes who can't afford to heat them or feed their children, and therefore that makes me worry about what they are going to be doing, and what are we going to be doing as a business? And where does the risk apply for us? And then I'm going to give you one, one worry that I have, that probably won't have been said by very many people, is I have a real worry about mental health, and that is because of the people that we are dealing with just painted the picture. And at the same time, I've got 500 employees across our business, and 300 of those people will be going into those people's homes, either to fix them or to support them, or speaking to them over the telephone. And the impact on colleagues and the pressure has been huge. We've seen a massive increase in mental ill health, not just from customers, but from colleagues as well. And it worries me that we are doing enough that we can work as quickly as we can, that we're addressing those, that we're supporting our colleagues enough to deal with some of the terrible things that they're having to face. So that's a big worry. We're doing a lot. We're doing a lot with it, and we're doing some research with the social housing sector on a national basis about what we can do. But in the same way that damp takes six weeks, mental health doesn't take an awful long time to go to crisis point, either. And I worry about what I don't know.

Stuart Hughes: 21:31

Health in the whole of health and safety is probably seen as the ugly sister, if you like. It's the bit that we've not focused on as well, because ultimately, perhaps it's easier to look at the kind of incidents and react to those, or to focus on the prevention of them, but actually, the ill health is the thing that harms more people and actually leads to more loss of life and other difficulties within people's existence. Your example of from a governance perspective, or from a legal requirement, there's an annual check, but in the interim, there's potentially a significant unknown, and we have to address that challenge, it's a really interesting bit of insight there. The other piece on mental health, people will ask, is it a safety person's responsibility, or should it be in another field? I don't think that's the right question. You know, fundamentally, if we're an organisation, and we're asking people to work for us, and part of that work is going into challenging environments and dealing with things that probably do cause discomfort or distress, we should have mechanisms to support those people, irrelevant of who's there to build and implement the processes. They should just be there, shouldn't they? So I think it's a really interesting point to bring up. The challenges that are there for organisations such as yours, to go actually, okay, well, what? What can we do? What's within the realms of things that are reasonable? At what point do we have to not be involved and involve other people who are the specialists to do those things? But as you said earlier, we're not experts in everything, so at some point you have to go and engage the services of somebody that knows more about the topic area. And I think that's the balance piece in mental health that people struggle with, sometimes.

Leann Hearne: 23:46

That's the point about partnership, isn't it? That's the point about working collectively together to be able to find the solution. And there'll be expertise in a number of areas, and when they all come together, then you can find a way of doing it. But as yet, I don't think, I don't think we as a country have found the answer to that, let alone me as a business.

Stuart Hughes: 24:08

If you look at it as glass half full, rather than half empty, the conversation has moved on significantly. From a national picture, and the fact that we're having even this discussion is probably a positive thing, but it doesn't mean that we're closer to finding the solutions for these things, but they are. What we need to do is empower people to be able to be open and talk about them, and then for us to have the mechanisms in place to support people that need the support. I think one of the things that's quite interesting for me is the reputation of the OSH profession, and we're basically seen as people who go around and stop things from happening. There's all of this red tape. I think that's quite unfair. I think that a good Occupational Safety and Health function is an enabling function that lets or helps organisations to look for what it is that's their purpose or their intent or their output, however you want to describe it. I just wondered what your view of the profession was and what makes you see it that way.

Leann Hearne: 25:27

So I think it's an ethos, not a function. If you can get health and safety into the belief of everybody in the way that I've shared that some of my colleagues will ask for support and guidance from risk and health and safety experts when there's a challenge, but equally about how we can make it better. So in for the mental health challenge, for example, our health and safety team are the ones that support in the HR team for us to be able to come up with some of the answers there. And so I think it's an ethos. I don't believe it's a stopping function. Never have done, even going back many, many years to when I was in the manufacturing profession in different countries. I don't think it was that. I've never seen it as that. I do think there are some businesses where that happens, but they're generally in businesses where they're failing at their health and safety records and putting people's lives at risks. So I'd expect them to be stopped. But beyond that, I don't see it that way. I think if there's a challenge at all, it's mainly about the way in which you're perceived as a function and perceived as a sector, in the same way that social housing currently is being reviewed as something that's doing a bad job because somebody's child died in one of those homes, and not everybody's home is that bad. So we have to get better as a sector in telling people what we do really well, beyond just housing people, and I suspect with you guys, it's talking about how you enable things to happen, how innovation comes and new products get designed, and health and safety helps you make them to keep somebody safe, but also makes those products work, because the environment in which they're tested is sensible so that they can be sold into the wider world. It's about positioning and and arguing the reputation in a different way. I've never seen it as something that stops, and I've seen it as something that enables, and certainly from my experience, the health and safety function are the ones that helped us get back to where we needed to get to, so long as there is a collaboration between the two parties. But that may not be the same in every business, in which case, what's going wrong in the businesses, and don't apply it to the whole sector as a badge, would be my point.

Stuart Hughes: 27:40

That ownership of our brand and our stories and talking about the successful integration of safety into products being designed, innovation happening, just some amazing things that humans are capable of doing and are doing, and safety has a role to play in that. And I think we've, for whatever reason, been too much in the background and didn't really stand up for ourselves when we had quite a lot of challenge around. What people thought the perception of the profession was so hopefully conversations like this can change it, where we hear from leaders that say it's not like that, and this is my experience, but also, if it is like that, is a challenge to go and really investigate your own organisation and identify what you need to do to move it to where it needs to be. So thank you very much for that. That was really nice, just for our listeners that might work in an organisation where they perhaps don't get exposure to people at the top, but would like to enhance or build their relationships. Have you got any advice that you'd give to the safety profession to build meaningful relationships with their their leadership team?

Leann Hearne: 29:06

I think the way in which you start the point is you ask, you listen, you support. So the profession has a bit of a reputation from years ago, when my dad was still working in manufacturing, health and safety guy or girls holding a clipboard, and I suspect that is the challenge. So how people can be successful and work in partnership with their business and support their leaders, is to ask them what they need and what's worrying them. What can we do to help? What are the problems that you're facing? What are the challenges that are presenting themselves? What are the opportunities that are presenting themselves? How can we make that get delivered for you? And then I think it's about working. So I have a view, and my chairman has a view, that when we're making a decision at board level, I think it's not literal, and the decision will be put in front of me, and I will metaphorically have my risk map in front of me, my corporate plan, which is a three to five year plan to the right of me, and my business plan, which is my finance plan, to the left of me. And the decision has to meet all of those areas. Otherwise we've got to change our business plan or change our risk appetite before we'll take that decision. Health and safety is a function for me. Sits in that and working with risk partners, working with the risk teams in the business, and working with other directors to know what's coming up. Be really clear. You understand the direction of the business, what the corporate plan is, what the objectives and ambitions are, what the risk appetite is. So you know where you can take the risk. So what can I do to help you? And what were the areas that you think we need to do? Or the flip side of that is to say, and knowing all of that information, I believe your area of risk is x, y, z, and these are the things we can do to mitigate it, and these are the actions you need to take to help it or help the people who are going to be doing that job, or make sure these policies come to life or rethink something, but it's working in partnership there, not sitting in isolation, just going, this is the latest legislation that's come from HSE, and this is what we need to apply to a policy is narrow. When you go beyond that and say, so what's the business ambition? Then I think people can really work together.

Stuart Hughes: 31:20

Yes, I think that alignment piece to the objectives of the organisation, and getting that understanding of pain points and challenges and seeing where you can add the value is a really important message for safety practitioners to hear. And I think that way of looking at it - do you want to be narrow? Do you want to be broad? They help us understands that the greater value you can bring is really important. I'm going to wrap this up with just some quick fire questions, if that's okay. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Leann Hearne: 31:55

Dead easy - my dad: 'You have two ears and one mouth use them in that order'. And the second piece was, 'Don't ever say you can't, always say you can.'

Stuart Hughes: 32:11

I like it, you always have to respect Dad's advice. What's the worst advice you've been given?

Leann Hearne: 32:22

So the worst advice was from a male boss who said to me, the job that you want to do is best place for men. Why don't you go and find a job that a girl can do? That's appalling. Isn't it terrible? The great thing is, he annoyed me so much that when I went home, my dad said to me, 'So, how is "can" going to come into this sentence then?' So yes, I didn't stay as a secretary, and I'm now a CEO thanks to him. And here we are!

Stuart Hughes: 32:55

Sometimes it's weird, isn't it? The bit that's the motivation, but it's brutal to hear that one's not cool, but here we are now, which is perhaps the best outcome that you could have from from something like that. And I don't know if you're a reader, but if not, maybe it's a podcast or a TV show or something that's educational. But what's the one book that you consistently return to or gift most often?

Unknown: 33:25

I'm not a massive business book fan. I think most people who write lots of business books have not actually done it, so I'm not a massive fan. However, there is one book that I have used in every business I've got called Mind the Gap, by Graham Codrington, and he updates it periodically, but it's a study of how different generations behave in different scenarios, and how the two can work together. So I have a strong belief that the legacy I need to leave is to make sure that there is a future for the next generations in the world of work that's challenging right now, and therefore me being able to understand the next generations is important in that, and therefore it's important for my people to do it. So generally speaking, massive, sweeping generalization. But leaders in big businesses at my level tend to be older than my children, who are 34 and 26 respectively. So that means that if we need to be able to shape the business for the future, I need to hear their views, but me approaching them in the way that I would approach them might not get the best outcome. So that book helps me understand how to respond to a child, to a parent, to a relative, to an employee, an employer, from different generations, and I have used that book since it was first written about 15 years ago. It helped me shape and design how we did retirement villages when we designed them. It's helped me shape services for customers, but it's also helped me shape think how we define our offer for colleagues when they come and join us. And I give that book. Can have given it book to every director in our business. Cool,

Stuart Hughes: 35:03

I'm off to get that book. This is why I've asked this question, because, very selfishly, I'm always on the hunt for more knowledge and being a bit curious. But that's a great recommendation. And I think that, there's just going to be a much larger generational span within the workforce, as we continue into the future, and I think having that understanding, empathy and relational aspect throughout the generational gaps or differences is going to be an essential thing. So, yeah, that's going to be straight on the Amazon order shortly. Other providers are available. There is the final

question: 35:52

what failure has provided you with your greatest learning?

Leann Hearne: 35:59

Okay, so I'll try and avoid naming the company, but I went to work for a business that's a huge business, and I knew within day three that the persona of the business and the way they positioned it was completely not what was inside. And and I knew within day three, it was the worst decision I'd made to go to this business I have I was there for a year, because that was the period when you had to have a year on your CV. It's a bit different now. So my daughter continues to tell me, but then you had to have a year. So I had to stay in this business for a year. And I was there we did a merger with an American business on the foot in the first week, and I was involved in that. I was in a much junior level then. I've never experienced such bullying, such poor safety records, such terrible behaviors in a meeting and in a boardroom where people bald and shouted and judged you on the on the car that you got. How I came out of that year intact, I don't know, but they knocked my confidence massively. And when I came out of that business, I couldn't I couldn't wait to get out, but I learned more in that year about how not to do it than I have ever had the opportunity since. So it really brought it home to me, how to do things right, and I probably didn't use all of that learning straight away. So when I started with live and some of the challenges I was seeing with people who were down beaten that learning 20 odd years ago suddenly came into mind. So I had a year of massive learning, hugely painful, massive learning.

Stuart Hughes: 37:47

And I think sometimes you don't always appreciate what you've learned going through some of the hardships or the challenges, but they expose themselves later on, and you you can kind of mind the value from them, so I think that's a really, really lovely example, and thank you for sharing it, and thank you very much for sharing your time, experience and insight with us today. I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. It's been a real pleasure to meet you, and I'm really grateful that you agreed to join us and have a chat. And yeah, if there's anything else you want to leave the listeners with, I'll, I'll let you do that.

Leann Hearne: 38:28

The only thing I'd leave the listeners with is, if you value yourselves and value the service that you offer, and you communicate that really well, then there's no argument for the recipient to receive it in the same way. So I would say, Do not undervalue just because of reputational challenges from the past, and really start finding a way to position and brand yourselves far better, because my experience of health and safety is fantastic.

Stuart Hughes: 38:55

What a place to finish.

Host: 38:56

Thanks for listening. Tune in again soon for more conversations and all things health and safety.