We’re back from Orlando and have had some time to reflect on our first time exhibiting at the iP Utility Safety conference. First and foremost, we miss the Florida weather!
While this was our first time exhibiting, it was not our first time getting to meet some of you. We went to the Fall conference in Dallas last year as attendees to try and get a sense of how well our services and values aligned with the power utilities in the iP community. By the end of the first day as attendees we were brimming with ideas, excited about the connections made, and confident there was alignment between Telelink Emergency & Safety and the utility organizations attending.
Fast forward to April 2022 in Orlando and we’ve unveiled our new booth, our solutions experts had dozens of engaging conversations, and our two attendees soaked up as many educational sessions as we could. Here are some of our key takeaways from the three days spent learning and networking with you all.
The educational sessions
In the fall of 2021 at the Dallas iP Utility Safety Conference, the educational sessions seemed to focus on two key areas:
- Technical electrical safety (grounding, insulation and isolation, distribution cover up, etc)
- Volatile situations with customers and the public where physical violence was possible
This time around, in Orlando we observed a slightly different focus:
- Technical electrical safety (grounding, insulation and isolation, distribution cover up, etc)
- Building a culture that promotes safer behaviours, communicating effectively, leadership skills and creating a workplace where everyone feels confident speaking up.
At Telelink, we admittedly don’t have an abundance of electrical experience regarding grounding best practices (although our Business Development Representative, Mitch Kennedy does have a background as an electrician and he’s bringing us along when he can) We do, however, have a ton of experience building an organizational culture that makes a difference for our team engagement and our customer's success. For years, our Co-CEOs and leadership team have worked tirelessly to build a culture that embraces the following:
- Effective communication is our most powerful tool
- Our leadership group supports down and empowers our team
- We don’t point fingers and blame one another, we fix broken processes
We’ve engaged some of the most respected experts in North America, learned from the successes and failures of our peers, and most importantly, we’ve never stopped working on improving our culture. What we learned last week is that the mindset and skills that are required to build a culture are transferable from industry to industry. We hope to produce more content in the future that shares our best practices and insights in these areas, and hopefully, bring value to you too.
Great people are a constant
The people who attend this conference continue to amaze us. Kudos to the great folks at Incident Prevention for creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable to contribute, share, and help one another; and kudos to all the attendees for showing up and sharing their unique insights every day. When it comes to safety practices, nobody is holding their cards too close to the vest. Rising tides raise all ships.
Things that never happen, happen all the time
It never happens... until it does. This theme of “one in a million events happening every day” is ever-present in Utility safety. When we reflect on a severity vs probability matrix like the one below, we can quickly find where many of the risks facing utility workers sit: top row, first two on the left. Usually unlikely or highly unlikely. When we find ourselves in red territory, second chances are seldom given, and life-altering events are almost certain.
Nothing hits home quite like hearing about the real-life stories of what happens in your industry when “the thing that never happens, happens”. We’re asking conference attendees to share their “this never happened until it happened” story by clicking the link below and sharing your story, we’ll compile the stories and publish them in a new article and share them with the rest of this community. Feel free to include your company name or share anonymously. Use the form below to share your story. Or use this link if the embed does not display properly on your device.
Final thoughts on the IP Utility Safety 2022 Orlando Conference
I can’t believe we made it this far without mentioning the food! The lunch served each day was delicious, thanks to the iP team for keeping us well fed.
Overall, it was a terrific event. It’s clear that the lineworkers who attend and engage are dedicated to pushing safety further and improving at every turn.
There are so many soft skills regarding communication and leadership that are universal throughout many industries.
Last, and certainly not least, is the profound respect we have for the work lineworkers and power utility workers perform every day. As consumers, it can often be taken for granted.
About Telelink
In case you didn’t have a chance to stop by our booth, Telelink specializes in 24/7 monitoring for your at risk employees. We provide an unbiased recommendation on which connected GPS or cellular devices will mitigate your risks the most, help you source the devices, and integrate with our monitoring platform. We work with you to build a custom escalation procedure and our 24/7 monitoring team ensures that your employees are always at the tap of a button away from a live person assisting them during any situation, no matter how remote the worker is.
We hope to see you again at the November conference in Glendale, AZ. Please contact us if you’d like to meet up for a conversation about connected worker safety at the next conference, or anytime in between.
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