Scott Weeda
Enterprise Account Executive – FactorLab · November 2026
For more than a decade, I’ve worked in the Safety Management Software industry.
During that time, I helped organizations implement systems designed to manage incidents, inspections, observations, audits, corrective actions, training records and countless other safety and operations processes. I’ve spent years talking and learning with safety professionals, operations leaders and executives about visibility, compliance and performance.
Like many in the industry, I believed that more data should naturally lead to better decisions.
Organizations today have more information at their fingertips than ever before. They can track observations, inspections, audits, corrective actions and a wide range of indicators across thousands of workers and hundreds of job sites.
But over the years, I noticed something that challenged my assumptions.
The organizations with the most data weren’t always the organizations with the strongest safety cultures. More importantly, many leaders were still struggling to answer some important questions:
• Are crews genuinely engaged in planning their work?
• Are supervisors facilitating meaningful discussions or only checking boxes?
• Do workers feel comfortable speaking up when they see risk?
• Which leaders consistently bring out the best in their teams?
• Where should safety and operations focus their time to have the greatest impact?
Despite nearly countless completed forms, those answers often remained surprisingly elusive.
That realization led me to challenge something I had believed for most of my career.
Maybe the biggest opportunity in safety isn’t collecting more data. Maybe it is understanding a different type of data altogether.
The Safety Data Paradox
Most organizations don’t suffer from a lack of safety activities.
Yet many leaders still struggle to understand what’s really happening in the field.
I began to realize that most systems were measuring activity, but not effectiveness.
A dashboard can tell you a planning meeting occurred. It can’t tell you whether the conversation was meaningful or if anyone understands or is understood.
A signed JHA form may tell you work was discussed. It can’t tell you whether workers felt engaged enough to challenge assumptions, identify risks, or suggest a better way to perform the task.
A report can tell you an observation was submitted. It can’t tell you whether the interaction helped build trust between a supervisor and a crew.
The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes. The most important information in any organization isn’t found in checkboxes and dropdown menus.
It’s found in conversations.
High-Risk Work is Made Safer in Conversations
Think about where risk is actually managed. Not in a dashboard, not in a report, not in a database.
Risk is managed when a foreman and crew discuss the work at hand.
It’s managed when a worker raises a concern about changing conditions.
It’s managed when a supervisor asks a question that causes the team to rethink their approach.
It’s managed when crews share lessons learned from previous jobs.
These conversations happen thousands of times every day across construction sites, industrial facilities and energy infrastructure. They influence decision-making, hazard recognition, planning quality, and execution.
Why I Joined FactorLab
When I first learned about FactorLab, what caught my attention wasn’t the technology.
It was the premise.
Instead of asking, “How do we collect more information?”, the question is, “How do we understand the conversations happening closest to the work?”
That’s a fundamentally different starting point and it gets closer to the heart of hundreds or thousands of conversations I’ve had with safety and operations leaders who want nothing more than to impact workers in ways that lead to safer, more efficient jobs.
Using SmartTagIt, organizations can capture pre-task planning conversations and field observations as part of normal work. The AI analyzes those discussions, providing visibility into risks, leadership behaviors and coaching opportunities that would otherwise remain hidden.
The goal is understanding, not surveillance.
Developing Leaders Where the Work Happens
One of the things that has impressed me most is the impact this approach can have on leadership development.
Every organization wants stronger front-line leaders. The challenge is helping them improve consistently and noticing them in the first place.
When we can understand everyday planning conversations, coaching becomes proactive. High-performing supervisors can be recognized and become mentors for others. Emerging leaders can be identified earlier and placed in positions of influence.
Building Trust Through Better Conversations
What surprises me most, however, is the connection between visibility and trust.
Trust grows when people believe their voices matter.
When organizations can capture, understand, and act on what people are discussing in the field, something changes. Workers see concerns being addressed and supervisors can be given recognition for strong leadership. Safety leaders can identify where help is needed most. Operations leaders gain a more authentic understanding of field conditions.
What emerges is a continuous process of listening, learning and acting. So different from “find and fix!”
With action comes credibility and engagement. And with participation, better insight.
The Future of Safety Is Understanding Work
The biggest shift for me so far has been this:
For years, I believed the future of safety tech was about collecting more information, constantly striving for automation that can save time gathering and processing data.
Today, I believe it’s about understanding work and workers more deeply.
The most valuable insights aren’t found in incident reports or dashboards. They’re found in conversations identifying hazards, solving problems, adapting to changing conditions and preparing for the work ahead. After spending more than a decade in the safety software industry, that’s the shift that resonates so well with FactorLab.
Not because it offered another way to collect information but because it offered a way to understand the human side of performance. Culture.
Because better conversations create better planning. Better planning creates better execution. And better execution creates safer, stronger and more resilient organizations.
