Hello and welcome to the show. Please share some of the ways you enjoy living outside of work, life, and volunteering. Oh sure, Alexis, good question. I like doing things like hand cycling, and really love indoor adaptive rock climbing, and I sing in a community choir, and I like to do art. That keeps me pretty busy outside of work.
What kind of art do you like to do? These days I’m into a thing called Diamond dot painting. Interesting.
I have another question for you. Getting into more of your career life, what was the wow factor involved in seeing somebody as a director of OH&S that made you think you want to become one one day?
Interesting one. I think it was, um, it was, I was already working at the organization and the organization had decided to set up a new department and it looked like something that I could support my team members with and be able to get that, uh, That department off the ground and running and so I thought I would take a chance and I put my application forward and I’m a year five and haven’t looked back really it’s as a director what’s involved in some of those rules.
So some of those things, so as a director, um, a big part of my job is making sure that the people who are working on my team have the things that they need in order to do their work well. And so I make sure that they have the resources they need and the training they need and we meet every week to talk about the work that they’re doing and, and problem solve, um, what’s coming up for them so that they can do the good work that they do.
Uh, out in the community. Awesome. Because we need more health care professionals, and we want to support them. That’s right. And that’s what our group does, is we support them. Much as we can. In your schooling, were there techniques that work well for you to solve the unique equations of precalculus?
There’s that pre-calculus question again. Um, I think mostly it was persistence and spending a lot of time working on my homework and, uh, just working on that problem solving and puzzle solving, which is something I like to do. Awesome. Going back to your career in H E U, How did you even get there in the first place?
Was there, is there a story behind that? Um, probably not a really big one. There was a, a job posting that a friend spotted and thought that I would, uh, Um, be a good fit. And so they sent me the job post and, and asked if I’d be interested in taking a look at what they had to offer. And, uh, so I gave it some thought and put together my resume and a cover letter and sent it in and ended up getting an interview so that we could talk more about the job that was available at the time.
So I didn’t start as a director there. I started as what they call a Occupational Health and Safety Rep. And after a couple of conversations, decided that it would be a good fit for me, and I was offered the job. Awesome. Now, I have to ask Why did you want to become part of the healthcare industry in the first place?
um, I had a job a long time ago with an organization that did a lot of really interesting work. Um, in supporting health care. So we did research and we did pilot projects to try new things that would help, um, folks that were working in the industry at that time. Most of the people that I was working to support were in community health.
So they’re workers that go out to, um, folks that are living independently in their homes but need a little bit of extra help with things like making meals or getting dressed or having a shower. And so we were doing a lot of work with them to see what could be done to help them stay safe when they were doing that workout in the community.
And I discovered that I like doing that advocacy kind of work and stayed, stayed in healthcare when I, uh, had to move on. Nice.
Now, I would imagine being Director of Occupational Health and Safety, you’ve got to be ready to solve problems that come up. Is this an in-person, hands-on job, or is this more of a virtual? Mmm, good question. Um, it’s both. So a lot of my work, I can, um, meet with people over the phone or Zoom, like we’re doing today, and talk through what’s going on.
What they’re seeing and what they want to learn more about or what they want to problem solve. Um, but sometimes it’s easier to meet with someone in person and do that. And so, um, in, uh, if it’s in the lower mainland where I can get to, then we can meet in person. And, uh, my team travels around the province if it’s needed to help folks out in person as well.
Awesome. We like teams that travel. A fun part of the job. And so is that kind of meeting people. So we do a lot of education and training as well, where we bring our members into our office or we’ll meet them in there, in their out their region. So in the north or in the interior on the island, um, and do education workshops.
And those are more often than not these days, face-to-face, we had to go into the virtual world during COVID, of course, but we like being able to do those workshops in person. What does a day being a Director of Occupational Health and Safety require of you in terms of personality and prerequisites? Um, so a day looks like, uh, checking in on, um, my emails.
In the morning, and also looking at my calendar pretty early in the day to see what’s coming for the rest of the week. And I have a lot of meetings each week that are, uh, repeat meetings. Every week I meet with my team, a couple of other teams meet with me. Um, and so there’s a, uh, a check-in with them.
So that we can all have a keep up to date and see what things are coming for folks and what they might need in the week. And then there’s um, a chunk of work that I do that’s a lot of reading and a lot of writing. And so I have time during the day that I um, book out so that I can get that kind of work done as well.
Do you use text-to-speech and stuff like that for accommodations or do you just write? Um, I used to use text-to-speech, but most of the time these days I just type. Because we all know how text-to-speech goes. Yes, sometimes it’s helpful and sometimes it’s just easier to write things out. I had a really neat clipboard that let me handwrite things, and then the computer would turn my handwriting into print.
Like type text. That was a really super helpful piece of technology. Yes, I could see that. In the days when I was going out to meetings and needing to take notes, that was something that let me take notes more quickly than I type, um, but then would be fast at, at getting them into the computer at the same time.
So,
yeah. Was there anything you found that benefited you later in life in terms of working with employers and stuff like that? Um, well you definitely, let’s see, communication skills are super important. Being able to build relationships with people. Um, understanding where they’re coming from and what their needs are and where we can find kind of common ground on things really important.
Um, being able to collaborate on problem solving so that we can, uh, find our way to a solution that works for everyone. So lots of people skills mixed in with some of the tech skills. Yes, I could see how that would be useful. Even for me, it’s useful right now. Yeah. Using communication skills and technology.
Yes. You can ask those really good questions. Yes. Thank you for answering them.
What do you think makes a mighty person? Is persistent about things, and is prepared to try different ways of getting to their goal or problem solving. Often there are things that I do, and probably you do too, where it’s like, hmm, I can’t do it the way most people will, but if I try a slightly different approach, I can still do it.
get the same thing done. Probably takes me a little longer, but, um, that kind of persistence and, um, kind of attitude that we can find a way to get things done, even if it looks a little different. Yes, the mindful attitude. That’s a good way of putting it. Yes. Well, thank you, Georgina, for your interview.
That was a lot of fun. Yay!
Meeting Mighty People by Alexis Folk 