On this week’s episode of The Good Builder Podcast, HazardCo commercial general manager Craig O’Leary makes a simple case: safety isn’t a folder in a ute or a compliance form on a clipboard. It’s a daily communication habit that shapes behaviour, protects people and, done well, helps builders win work.
O’Leary’s argument is grounded in two decades across the building supply chain, from BlueScope and James Hardie to his current post at trans-Tasman safety platform HazardCo and reinforced by a personal creed of discipline. A CrossFit coach who trains before sunrise, he draws a straight line from “doing hard things” to leading teams that follow through on site.
“If your team knows you care, they’ll take your feedback as motivation, not criticism,” he says. “Culture follows action.”
A builder-first safety brief
O’Leary is blunt about the gap between intent and reality. The industry still records dozens of fatalities each year, and “around half” of builders and trades are operating without a structured safety system. The reasons are familiar: uncertainty about what’s required; the sense that safety is an admin burden; the belief that systems slow jobs down.
His counterpoint: safety done properly speeds work up. When inductions are consistent, toolbox talks are short and site-specific, and records can be produced in seconds, supervisors spend less time chasing paper and more time managing risk and sequence.
HazardCo’s model is designed to make that shift practical. Members get human advisors for guidance and 24/7 incident support, plus an app and web portal where sign-ins, inductions, toolbox talks, SWMS and site oversight live together. Integrations with BuildExact and Procore are live, with Simpro flagged as “coming”.
“It’s like having a safety manager in your back pocket,” O’Leary says. For small-to-mid builders, he adds, digital safety at roughly the cost of “less than an hour of a builder’s time” delivers enterprise-grade governance.
From checklists to conversations
The spine of O’Leary’s approach is communication. He insists that good safety looks less like a pile of forms and more like a steady cadence of site-specific conversations captured quickly and retrievable when needed.
A favourite example is the two-minute toolbox: dictate the key risks for today’s tasks, photograph the crew, save the note to the job. No clipboards, no chasing signatures. The gain isn’t the file; it’s the shared mental model created at the start of the shift.
“Communication is the cheapest insurance on a live site,” he says. “When something goes wrong, that’s the difference between chaos and calm.”
The same logic extends to visitors. Engineers, delivery drivers, videographers and clients walk into the same risk envelope as contractors; they should be inducted, and their presence should be recorded. A simple QR scanboard at the gate solves most of it.
Suppliers in the tent
Craig’s challenge isn’t restricted to builders. He argues that suppliers, merchants and manufacturers with mature internal safety systems have a responsibility to project that leadership outward.
“Lots of big brands preach zero harm internally,” he says. “The next step is helping customers lift externally. Are your reps inducted when they step on site? Are you packaging simple safety templates with deliveries? Could you co-host a 20-minute webinar on risk hot-spots linked to your category?”
He points to partnerships with Mitre 10, Reece and Dulux as examples of what good looks like: practical education, repeatable tools and a steady drumbeat of awareness.
The discipline behind the message
O’Leary’s coaching life is more than a side note. It informs his leadership. He cites Radical Candor, Kim Scott’s framework of “care deeply, challenge directly” as a guide for building teams that accept honest feedback because they trust the intent.
“Do the hard things daily,” he says. “Get up, train, lead toolbox talks, close actions. Your team will copy what you do, not what you say.”
Inside HazardCo, that shows up as “one-per-centers”: small daily upgrades to systems, language and follow-through rather than silver bullets. On site, it looks like standardising how risks are discussed, photographed and closed out; making sure controls (edge protection, void covers, harness anchorage) are both implemented and evidenced; and ensuring open actions don’t age out of sight.
Turning compliance into competitiveness
The practical upshot of O’Leary’s framework is that safety can shift from overhead to proof of professionalism. Connected to core project systems (BuildExact/Procore/Simpro), safety records become part of the job file rather than a parallel universe. That, he says, helps builders:
- respond to WorkSafe with calm, complete documentation
- strengthen tenders and prequalification with verifiable processes
- reduce supervisor drag from ad-hoc administration
- standardise set-ups across multiple sites, improving speed and consistency
Incidents, by contrast, are expensive in every dimension: people, time, cash flow and brand. Reputation damage, he notes, can persist long after a fine is paid or a claim is closed. “Incidents travel faster than your marketing,” he says.
Five takeaways from the episode
1) Make safety a conversation, not a ceremony.
Short, site-specific and daily beats long, generic and occasional. Capture it fast; move on.
2) Induct everyone who crosses the line.
If they’re on a live site, they’re in the risk profile. Use QR boards and keep it simple.
3) Photograph high-risk controls.
Edges, penetrations, scaffold tags, anchorage: visual evidence matters when memory fades.
4) Integrate where supervisors already work.
If safety sits inside the job file, it gets used. If it’s elsewhere, it gets ignored.
5) Scoreboard the basics.
Track toolbox completion and aged actions per site. Review weekly; celebrate improvement.
A community problem, a community fix
For O’Leary, October’s National Safety Month is a useful spur, but the requirement is year-round: treat safety as a shared community standard. The building ecosystem includes trades, builders, suppliers, associations and visitors. If the standard lifts collectively, incidents fall collectively.
He is realistic about the starting point. “There’s still a lot of ‘she’ll be right’ out there,” he says. “It’s all good until it’s not.”
The path out isn’t complicated, he argues. It’s a series of small, repeatable habits, the one-per-centers, reinforced by visible leadership and supported by tools that shorten the distance between intent and action.
What makes a good builder?
We close every interview with the same question. O’Leary answers without ornament:
“A good builder implements systems and processes that enable success. If you’ve got structure around how you lead, how you communicate, how you build culture, you can’t lose.”
It’s an answer that lines up with the hour that precedes it: modest in theory, demanding in practice, and wholly focused on behaviours that can be felt on site.
Listen to the full conversation
The Craig O’Leary episode of The Good Builder Podcast launches Friday 17th October on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.
If you lead crews or supervise jobs, queue it up for the drive. If you run a supplier team, share it with your account managers. Then trial the two-minute toolbox tomorrow morning and keep going.
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