RCS Influencer Interview with Trent Cotney on Fall Protection - TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Trent Cotney of Adams and Reese. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Intro: Hello everyone. My name's Megan Ellsworth here at RoofersCoffeeShop.com, and I am back again with Trent Cotney to do an influencer interview. And this month for the month of August 2024, we're talking about fall protection. So, hi Trent, how are you?

Trent Cotney: Hey, good, how are you doing? Good to see you again.

Megan Ellsworth: Good to see you too. So this month's question is, what are your best practices for training around fall protection?

Trent Cotney: Sure. Big believer in having a culture of safety and you start with the basics, gray safety manual toolbox talks, regular instruction, job site audits, all that kind of stuff. But one of the things I've seen most successful when it comes to fall protection training is when you have somebody from the crew actually do the training or you have somebody talk about what happens if you don't have the right stuff on, right? If you've got somebody that knows somebody that's been hurt or even killed on a job site, have them kind of talk about the importance of safety. That to me, has the biggest impact on the workers. I know from personal experience, I haven't been a business owner that... Sometimes you can put all your employees in a room and tell them something, they'll never listen to you as management, but if you put somebody that is an employee or even a third party consultant in there, they're more likely to listen and get the message through.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. Well said. Any other advice you want people to think about when training their employees on fall protection?

Trent Cotney: Yeah, absolutely. Recognize people learn in different ways. So some people are hands-on, others like photographs or videos or written material. So the key is to mix it up, provide it in many different formats, make sure that you're also doing hands-on training. You can never really get away from that. A lot of contractors are starting to embrace AR and VR for fall protection training. But again, you got to have that hands-on. It's hard to understand what the risks are until your real world.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. Well, Trent, thank you so much and I'll be chatting with you next month.

Trent Cotney: Thank you. Sounds great. Thanks.

Outro: See you.