What If Safety Was Designed Into the System?

At the Safety on the Edge conference in California, I found myself scribbling frantically during a standout keynote delivered by Andresa Hernandes, Global Vice President of Safety at Siemens. Her session, titled "Healthy and Safe: For Today and Tomorrow", reminded me why safety leadership, done well, starts with people.

This line stuck with me. It reframed safety not as a compliance task, but as a foundation for everything else, wellbeing, innovation, and sustainability.

Reimagining Safety Through a People Lens

Andresa began with a bold invitation: to redefine how we think about safety. For some, she noted, it’s about incident prevention. For others, it’s about legal compliance. But at Siemens, and for her personally, it’s about people, the developers coding AI to prevent harm, the factory workers making critical decisions in real time, and the plant managers keeping operations running despite unpredictable conditions.

This idea really got me thinking. It’s a shift away from relying solely on individual behaviours and toward designing systems that are inherently safer.

Balancing Today’s Needs with Tomorrow’s Challenges

Andresa shared how Siemens’ 2025–2030 Health and Safety Strategy came to life during the pandemic. Rather than simply reacting to crisis, her team began shaping a forward-looking vision, one that prepares for demographic change, digital transformation, climate pressures, and investor demands.

Their approach is to act, guided by adaptability, empowerment, and data-informed decisions.

Data, Technology and Trust

One moment that stood out was Siemens’ practical use of technology, not as a fix-all, but as a tool to enhance safety outcomes. From AI-powered hazard detection to smart glasses that support remote collaboration, the emphasis was on technology enabling people to do their jobs better.

I was particularly struck by her story of hiring a data scientist with no safety background. The aim? To bring a fresh perspective that challenged the team's embedded ways of thinking. It’s an approach many of us could learn from.

At Siemens, digital tools are introduced with care. Resource constraints, ethical considerations, and clear purpose all shape their use. It’s a deliberate strategy that keeps people front and centre.

Safety and Sustainability: Not Separate Agendas

Andresa made a strong case for integrating climate resilience into the safety conversation. With extreme weather events, air pollution, and heat-related illnesses on the rise, safety professionals can’t afford to view these as peripheral concerns.

Siemens is addressing this head-on with workplace adaptations, education, and emergency planning. Smart buildings, flexible schedules, and new risk assessment models are already being tested.

Local Flexibility, Global Ambition

Having begun her career at Siemens in Brazil, Andresa understands the importance of local context. She stressed that one-size-fits-all strategies simply don’t work in a global organisation.

Siemens offers a common framework but gives each region the flexibility to implement what makes sense locally. That resonated with me deeply, especially as I think about how safety cultures differ across sectors and geographies.

Final Reflections

As she closed, Andresa asked us all to reflect, not just on how our organisations are preparing for the future, but on how we as individuals are growing as safety leaders.

This keynote stayed with me long after the session ended. It reminded me that true safety leadership is rooted in care, in culture, and in the courage to reimagine the systems we take for granted.

I'll be sharing more of these reflections from the conference in upcoming articles. If you're enjoying them, make sure you're subscribed to my newsletter so you don't miss a thing.

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