February 4, 2025 / Abby Roberts

Building Trust in Safety Tech

Image Credit: Getty Images / Patpitchaya

Occupational and environmental health and safety professionals have more access than ever to new technologies that may simplify their work. Wearable sensors and monitoring devices help OEHS professionals assess employees’ exposures in their actual working conditions. Digital files accessed through QR codes help eliminate paperwork. Almost every object in the workplace can collect data, which can be analyzed with machine learning technologies to model risks and hazardous exposures. “I can create a training in a customized EHS system that's exactly what I need for whoever I'm working with,” said Abby Holovach, MS, CHMM, CSP, REM. “Simple things like that have been a huge game changer.”

But workers are not always on board with new safety technologies being implemented in their workplaces. Often, they question whether technologies truly help them, struggle to overcome learning curves, and raise substantial concerns about the privacy of their personal data. For workers to adopt new technologies, employers and OEHS professionals must win their trust.

As an OEHS professional who has implemented safety technologies and an employee who has had new technologies imposed on her, Holovach has seen both sides of the divide. But OEHS professionals can’t stop the flood of new technologies affecting the workplace. “So we have to figure out how we are going to overcome a lot of these human factors that are potentially going to slow down the successful integration and long-term support of these systems,” she said.

Workers’ Concerns with New Technologies

The types of advanced safety technologies entering the workplace are diverse, but many are popularly referred to as “artificial intelligence.” In the context of OEHS, this broad term may refer to technologies such as industrial robots, machine learning algorithms, and monitoring devices connected via wireless networks. In the latter case, “the AI is monitoring the data that's being collected and analyzing it in real time. Then they're able to detect potential issues,” Holovach explained. This technology enables OEHS professionals to move away from lagging indicators, which record illnesses and injuries after they occur, to leading indicators, which predict the performance of health and safety programs.

However, according to Holovach, many people find AI to be the “scariest” form of safety technology. “We have a lot of people who are concerned that AI is not going to be deployed responsibly,” she said. Survey data supports her view: in 2023, Gallup found that 53 percent of employees surveyed did not feel prepared to use “AI, robotics, or other advanced technologies,” including 26 percent who felt “not at all prepared.”

Holovach elaborated that workers’ comfort with technologies tends to fall along a spectrum between “the safe zone and the zone where people become very uncomfortable.” Technologies that cause workers to fear being replaced by automation or that make them feel spied on fall into the zone of discomfort. In the latter case, workers want to know how their employers will use data collected by monitoring devices, what parties will have access to this data, and how data collection will benefit them on the job. On the other end of the spectrum, workers tend to be more accepting of technologies that have existed long enough to become commonplace.

But in general, “people aren't there when it comes to the trust factor” regarding AI, Holovach said. Because workers don’t trust the new technology, they are unlikely to use it in their work. Therefore, she continued, “they're not going to be able to fully embrace its potential across an organization.”

Cultivating Trust with Transparency

Before OEHS professionals implement AI or other new technologies in their workplaces, they must consider any factors that may discourage workers from adopting them. “Probably the biggest part of this is having guiding ethical foundations,” Holovach said. “Do we have a responsible infrastructure to support the implementation of the technology?”

From this ethical infrastructure, employers and OEHS professionals must build a culture of trust that will allow new safety technologies to be successful with workers. When workers don’t trust a new technology, it may not be effective or function as it should. Workers may push back against the technology or find ways to work around it. “Trust is going to predict your commitment, your risk-taking, your counterproductive behaviors,” Holovach said. “You could have all the technology in the world, but if you don't have any type of culture of trust, it's just going to make implementation of technology, in particular AI, just that much more difficult.”

“Trust is the crucial prerequisite for everything else that's to come,” she said. Trust determines “attitudes, information sharing, your team's performance, and how much workers are actually going to support the system and utilize it.”

The workplace productivity consultant Great Place to Work, citing machine learning expert Allie K. Miller, noted that trust in new technologies relates to the transparency, empathy, and reliability of the implementing organization, as well as the longevity of the technology itself. Holovach also particularly stressed the importance of transparency. New technology should “elevate, not displace” workers, she said, but for workers to understand this, OEHS professionals need to communicate how the technology will impact them. Particularly when implementing technologies that fall into workers’ zone of discomfort, OEHS professionals must convey how implementing the technology will help them. “If people feel in the dark, they don't know how it's going to affect them in their role, that's going to be a big problem,” she added.

To communicate effectively, OEHS professionals may need to consider the age of workers and differing attitudes across generations. People who have been doing their job a certain way for years may be reluctant to change their process. “That's where the safety and health professionals can come in and say, ‘We understand that. We know where you're coming from, but here's how it's going to benefit you,’” Holovach said.

OEHS professionals must also anticipate that workers may not immediately be proficient with a new technology. Holovach encouraged OEHS professionals to point workers to someone able to answer their questions. “Having that communication flow and that door of communication open is critical,” she stressed. “If the communication’s not there, the trust isn't going to be there.”

Conversely, OEHS professionals must be open to workers’ feedback about new technologies. Above all, workers should receive guidance and support and understand that “they're not just having this technology thrust upon them,” Holovach said. “Because that's definitely not going to be a road to success.”

Anticipating New Technology and Its Challenges

Holovach acknowledged that some OEHS professionals aren’t in the position to choose what technology will be implemented in their workplace. Many find themselves in a similar position to the workers they’re responsible for, that of having to suddenly adapt to an unfamiliar technology. “Maybe they'll have some input, but ultimately, a lot of folks are just dealing with it when it's already been introduced,” she said. For these professionals, “how we get ahead of that curve is a big piece of the conversation.”

She stressed that it’s critical for OEHS professionals to anticipate new safety technologies, including AI, that will impact workplaces. They must also foresee how these technologies will be received, what personnel will be impacted, what kind of obstacles to implementation may arise, and how these obstacles may be overcome. Even if OEHS professionals don’t have power over all aspects of introducing the technology, they can prepare workers for it and begin establishing an infrastructure of trust.

“It's almost like a risk assessment,” she said. OEHS professionals are accustomed to evaluating risks and planning how they will mitigate them. “It's the exact same thought process, but in the perspective of building trust as it relates to safety tech.”

Abby Holovach’s educational session, “Safety Tech—Hinged on a Culture of Trust,” will occur Tuesday, May 20, from 8 to 9 a.m. Central time at AIHA Connect 2025. AIHA’s annual conference will be held from May 19 to 21, 2025, in person at the Kansas City Convention Center in Kansas City, Missouri, and virtually. To view the conference agenda or register, visit the AIHA Connect website.

Resources:

5S Control: “Trusting Safety: How Modern Technologies and AI Revolutionize Workplace Safety and Quality in Manufacturing” (July 4, 2024).

World Economic Forum: “The Future of Work Starts With Trust: How Can We Close the AI Trust Gap?” (Jan. 15, 2024).

Canadian Occupational Safety: “AI in Workplace Safety: Building Trust Amidst Disruption” (July 16, 2024).

Abby Roberts

Abby Roberts is the assistant editor for The Synergist.

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