What Happens When a Safety Fix Never Reaches the Field?

September 17, 2026

What happens when safety leaders stop measuring only what went wrong and start looking at what could have.

Devin Woods joins Michael Zalle on The Canary Report to discuss frontline risk management, HOP, SIF potential, safety controls, and EHS technology.

Safety does not become stronger simply because an organization adds more policies, procedures, or training. In high-hazard environments, some risks are inherent to the work itself. The challenge is giving people the knowledge, tools, and systems they need to manage those risks effectively.

We sat down with Devin Woods, Director of Environmental Health and Safety at Bruce & Merrilees Electric, an ArchKey Solutions company, to discuss what that looks like in practice. With experience across oil and gas drilling and electrical construction, Devin brings a perspective shaped by working in environments where hazards cannot simply be eliminated.

Turn Frontline Leaders Into Professional Risk Managers

For Devin, effective safety leadership starts by putting risk management capabilities directly in the hands of the people closest to the work. Foremen, superintendents, and general foremen are making decisions in the field every day, so they need more than a set of corporate procedures to follow.

“My goal is to make our frontline leaders, the foremen, the superintendents, the general foremen, to make those folks professional risk managers.”

That means giving frontline leaders practical tools to identify hazards, assess the likelihood of a risk occurring, and determine how to control it. In electrical construction and other high-hazard environments, the objective is not to pretend risk can disappear. It is to recognize it early and make informed decisions about how to manage it.

Use HOP to Build More Resilient Safety Systems

Human and Organizational Performance, or HOP, provides another layer to Devin's approach. Rather than treating HOP as the entire foundation of an HSE management system, his organization uses it to account for the realities of human performance.

“We can't expect our folks in the field to always make the perfect decision. We can't expect them to not make mistakes.”

People make mistakes, conditions change, and work does not always unfold exactly as planned. HOP helps organizations design systems that are better able to respond to those realities instead of assuming flawless human performance.

For Devin, this is part of an ongoing process of improvement. Organizations should continually examine whether their systems are helping people manage risk effectively rather than assuming they have reached a final destination.

Look Beyond TRIR to Identify SIF Potential

Traditional safety metrics can provide valuable information, but Devin's experience demonstrates why EHS leaders should look beyond TRIR when evaluating exposure to serious risk.

“What we found is that our SIF incident rate or SIF potential incident rate was actually much higher than our TRIR.”

His organization began examining incidents and near misses where the actual outcome was not severe but the potential for a Significant Incident or Fatality was present. That revealed a different picture from the organization's already-low Total Recordable Incident Rate.

The distinction matters because an event does not have to result in a serious injury to reveal a serious exposure. Looking at SIF potential can give safety leaders another way to identify where risk exists and where additional attention may be needed.

Make Sure Corrective Actions Actually Transfer

One of the most powerful lessons from Devin's career comes from a fatal drilling incident in Ohio. Following the incident, his organization introduced corrective actions designed to prevent the same event from happening again. However, a similar fatal incident occurred approximately two years later in West Texas.

“What we found is essentially what corrective actions got put in place in Ohio were not transferred over to West Texas.”

The lesson extends well beyond oil and gas. A corrective action is not complete simply because a procedure has been written or communicated. Leaders need to verify that controls have actually reached the field and become part of how work is performed across different operations and cultures.

Inspect Whether Safety Is Being Done With Intent

Michael Zalle and Devin also explored the difference between compliance and meaningful execution. A safety procedure can exist, be communicated, and even be completed on paper without becoming part of the organization's safety culture.

Devin captured the distinction clearly: “Even if they are doing it, is it done with intent?”

That is where active field inspection becomes important. Safety leaders need to see how procedures are being applied and understand whether teams recognize the reason behind them. Completing a requirement because the office says it must be completed is different from understanding the risk and applying the control with purpose.

Use EHS Technology to Spend More Time in the Field

Technology can also strengthen EHS leadership when it reduces administrative work rather than adding another layer of complexity. Devin describes how centralized EHS software can support incident reporting, training records, JSA completion, and data management.

“I think it's going to be a very net positive because it's gonna free up my team's time to be out in the field where they're more impactful, rather than in the office doing mundane work.”

The value of EHS software integration is therefore not simply better data. It is an opportunity to give safety professionals more time for field coaching, risk assessment, observation, and direct support for frontline teams.

What Safety Leaders Can Put to Work Today

Develop frontline risk managers: Give supervisors practical tools for hazard identification, risk assessment, and risk control.
Measure more than TRIR: Examine SIF potential to understand high-consequence exposure that traditional metrics may not reveal.
Verify corrective actions: Confirm that safety improvements are actually implemented across every operation, not simply communicated.
Inspect for intent: Spend time in the field to understand whether safety procedures are being applied meaningfully.
Use technology strategically: Automate administrative processes so EHS professionals can spend more time supporting the field.

Effective safety leadership is not about creating a perfect system or expecting people to make perfect decisions every time. It is about recognizing the realities of high-hazard work, giving frontline leaders the tools to manage risk, learning from incidents, and continuously improving the systems that support them.

As Devin puts it, “It's a journey. There's never a point where a company is going to say, ‘Okay, we finally made it.’”