⚠️ 60% of Site Injuries Happen in the First 6 Months – Fix It With Video Training!

How do you keep construction sites safer, smarter, and more efficient using video?

In this episode of the UK Construction Podcast, we’re excited to introduce our new host, Jimmy Webb. Having years of experience as a construction industry expert and as the voice behind The Construction Cogs Podcast, Jimmy brings a wealth of knowledge and energy to the show.

Jimmy sits down with Paul “Indy” Newman, UK founder of Luma1, to explore how interactive video technology is changing the way the construction industry approaches safety, inductions, and training.

From saving companies hundreds of thousands of pounds a year to helping workers understand critical site information in their own language, Luma1 is continually proving that video isn’t just a tool—it’s a game-changer.

🔑 What you’ll hear in this episode:

✔️ Why traditional site inductions fail and how interactive video solves the problem
✔️ How multilingual video training keeps workers safer on site
✔️ Real-world examples of companies saving time and money with digital inductions
✔️ The surprising stat: why workers are most at risk of injury in their first 6 months
✔️ The role of AI and mobile tech in reshaping construction training

Learn more about LumaOne here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-indi-newman/
https://www.luma1.com/
https://indi.luma.one/live/ 

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Thank you to our sponsor for this episode, WebMotion Media:

https://web-motion.co.uk/

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Transcript

Host: Could you tell me about what your organisation does, what you do and how you do it? 

Paul: Yeah, so LumaOne's a software platform and in simple terms what we do is help people understand stuff easily to keep them safe and being able to create video quickly, simply, add captions, add interactions and turn that around. Sometimes in, you know, I can make an interactive video. I don't know if I've done it with you yet, Jimmy, but, you know, I can make something in a few minutes.

Join us for your weekly deep dive into the beating heart of UK construction, from groundbreaking projects to game-changing innovations. The UK Construction Podcast brings you face-to-face with the industry's brightest minds and boldest thinkers. Each episode features candid conversations with construction leaders, architects, engineers and on-site experts who share their hard-won insights and behind-the-scenes perspectives.

We cut through the noise to deliver actionable intelligence on market trends, emerging technologies and the forces shaping British building. 

Host: Hello everyone. Before we start, let me introduce myself. I'm Jimmy Webb. I'm the new host of this podcast. Some of you may or may not know me from my own podcast, the Construction Culture Podcast, little plug there, but I'm honoured to now be hosting this one. 

So my first guest is Paul Newman, aka Indy, who is the UK founder of LumaOne and Lexicon Video. Indy, thanks very much for joining us. Thanks very much for being my first guest. 

Well, I'm very happy to be here as your first guest. Let's see what we can, let's see if we can make this one your best show ever. Yeah, fingers crossed. 

Host: So let's start, let's start simple. Can you tell me about what your organisation does, what you do and how you do it? Yeah, so LumaOne is a software platform and in simple terms, what we do is help people understand stuff easily to keep them safe. So what that means is generally with a video and the video could be something that their customer makes, it can be something that they've already got, or we've got that with a video, demonstrate or explain things that might be, and I know we'll come into it, but you know, how to do something, how to get on site safely. 

And importantly, we do that in many languages. So in the construction world, this is really important. Other places as well in the UK, let's face it, and around the world, but in construction above all, we've really struck accord with being able to help people understand stuff in their own language.

Host: Yeah, I was going to touch on that actually, because being in construction myself, I know that it is a multicultural industry. So that is very important. I've been in inductions where people don't speak very good English at all. So yeah, that's really good. So is this, do you just cater for UK or is it a global operation? 

LumaOne is global, founded in Canada, the developer and founder, CEO, both Canadians, but we are primarily selling in the US, and that's with a content partnership with a great woman called Rachel Hausman, and she produces, she's got a YouTube channel, Jenny, called Ally Safety, and she has pivoted from, I mean, she still makes the YouTube stuff, but all her content now is bundled onto LumaOne platforms. So they're growing kind of gangbusters in the US with that.

But yeah, we sell here, we sell in a little bit in Europe, one of the founding partners is in the Netherlands, but UK, Canada, US, that's the main markets right now. Brilliant, brilliant. So I'm assuming you have different people controlling different zones, basically. 

Host: So you're the UK guy, or do you do it with all of it? Yeah, I'm the UK guy, so I, you know, there was an advert when I was a kid, you probably didn't see it, but Victor Kayam said, I like the company so much, I bought it. It was this electric razor thing. So some people watching this will remember that.

And so I doubled down on LumaOne. I had an agency, which was a learning design agency that was beginning to slip away as the world has moved so quickly. And I met LumaOne along the way and I said, right, I'm going to bet the house on it. 

Host: Wicked. And you haven't regretted it since? Well, I'm still in the house. Yeah. 

No, I think that we are, there's so much going on in the world with how fast things are changing, right? And LumaOne is a part of that. And being able to create video quickly, simply, add captions, add interactions, and turn that around. Sometimes in, you know, I can make an interactive video. 

I don't know if I've done it with you yet, Jimmy, but you know, I can make something in a few minutes. And my agency would have taken three months to build something, you know, and that's, that's got its place. But we need to be able to leverage what's out there. 

And that's a combination of, it's very simple to produce video now because everyone's got a production company in their pocket. And it's then easy to use AI. So there's a bit of AI in the platform for the language, for the captions, and then for even generating questions. 

Host: Yeah. So can you give us some examples of what sort of videos you make for people? So in the construction world, typically, there's two places that we play strong initially, which is a company orientation. So, you know, and you see it all the time. 

This is what we stand for as a company. This is what we expect from you, your behaviour, those kinds of things. So that can be anything from a PLC down to, you know, a mum and pop, maybe less so. 

But yeah, smaller companies are producing those things. So we've helped with those quite a lot. And then from a, you know, a group induction, let's say a company induction, we might have a site-specific orientation.

And I think that's where we can really crack because site-specific orientations are being done all the time. They are a massive time suck for the site manager having to run off and do it again. And he or she is delivering the same thing again and again and again.

Although there might be a change, you know, the site office has moved or the site entrance has moved. So something like that. That can be done digitally very simply. 

And then from there, we get into things like how to, you know, how to instal prefabricated concrete blocks, you know, in groundworks. That's a repeated procedure. So some will call that standard operating procedure. 

Now, you need to see that physically, but you can then also be reminded on your phone. Oh, yeah, I did that last week just to skim through this. So there's the how to.

And then there's familiarisation. So plant familiarizations. We're doing those quite regularly now. 

And it sounds quite basic, but some people have been driving a dumper truck and reversing all their lives. And they need to be reminded, familiarised, if you're on the posh stuff, that you can turn the seat around. You know, it's as basic as that. 

But these are little helpful videos that keep people on the straight and narrow and keep people safe. Yeah, well, that's important, because the thing is, when people have been doing it a long time, contentment is where the accidents happen. Just like car accidents are most common within the first couple of miles of your house, aren't they? Because you're overconfident with it. 

So yeah, I think that's important. But touching on the inductions, sight inductions. So having sat through so many of these, you know, I've nearly fallen asleep through them. 

Host: And I've watched other people literally fall asleep through them. So how does yours differ from the traditional sight induction that makes everyone fall asleep? Well, I can't guarantee you wouldn't fall asleep, Jimmy, depending on the night you had before. But I think what we do is just make it quite efficient. 

So typically, you know, there are a bunch of things. Here's sight entrance. Here's the welfare facilities. 

Here are the first aiders. Here's the mental first aider now. And here's your sight manager. 

And yeah, yada, yada, yada, you know, there's maybe 10 things for a sight specific. I'm talking sight specific. These are things you need to know to come on site. 

Those are all slides on a deck being delivered by whoever happens to be free at the time. I do use the sight manager, but not always, right? And those slides can be very easily repurposed as either a video, you just go and shoot that video, or even you just take a picture. This is the sight entrance. 

And so what that then turns into is something that you can ask someone to do before they come on site. Here's the link, or there's a QR code as they're coming on site. It can then be presented in their language.

That's key. So it's easier to fall asleep if you don't know what's going on. I'm not saying that was your problem, but you know, then so it's something that is familiar.

I'm going to watch it. I can rewind. I can check that if I don't understand it.

I can ask a question at the end. Jimmy, did you understand that? Or ask a specific question on it, just to really check. Now there may be something that the site manager wants to eyeball you on as well. 

Okay. But you've done the basics. You've done 10 minutes that everyone has to do.

And let's face it, you know, when they ask the group, if it's a group, did you all understand it? Yeah. You know, I'm Albanian. I just arrived. 

I don't know what, but I need to get to work. So that's, I'm not saying there's that much more engaging. There can be a little bit of interactivity, but that's not the point. 

The point is how do we get people on site with some basic knowledge. If we need to eyeball them, we've saved that 10 minutes. And I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll break that down for you with a company that I won't name, but they're in London and at any one point in time, they've got 30, 35 sites on the go. 

Yeah. And they are inducting people onto that site every time someone comes on. So one contractor comes on, you don't like it, it gets a better offer up the road, he goes. 

So then another contractor comes on the next day and that might happen two or three times a week. And every time these people are coming on, the site manager is doing a site induction. It's taking him maybe 10 minutes to do the induction, but 10 minutes to get there, go down tools from wherever he is, 10 minutes to do it for the 15th time that month. 

That doesn't make him very happy. And then he's got to go back. Cascade that across 30 sites. 

We worked out on the back of a VAG packet or a vague packet, I suppose these days, but you know what I mean? We worked out that was costing them in time alone, half a million pounds a year. Wow. Wow. 

Because they're doing it two or three times a week. That's 90 times a week on different sites. Yeah. 

Host: It's mental. It is. Yeah. 

I'll tell you what is my bugbear and you probably cater for this as well, actually. So some, some sites, some tier one sites I go to, you have to do a prior online induction. So you have like a questionnaire, you have to watch these videos and all that. 

Host: So I'm assuming you cater for that as well, don't you? Yeah. I mean, there's things that tend to be, we do work with one tier one and we've done the, in like I said, new hire induction. So that's a bit longer. 

It's a kind of, you know, it used to be a one day thing and in COVID it went to a four hour teams meeting and we've taken that down to kind of a one hour. I'm not saying people particularly enjoy it, but it's a very useful scale down of what they were doing. But it's the same principle, although that's a bit more company. 

So that's a bit more group specific, you know, who's the MD this week. Yeah. 

Host: Can you name some of the companies you've worked with so far? So that was about coming up for three years ago now. 

We won a competition called the Big Idea, which was run by National Highways. I had to do a Dragon's Den thing in front of an audience. It was terrible. 

It was terrifying. I could hardly talk. But that was with Gallup Tri. 

So Gallup Tri, you know, infrastructure and about three or four other bits of business, but they're a fantastic company to work with, I've got to say. And they're aware that they needed to try and do more digitally. And my pitch was all about that. 

And they said, OK, well, come and have a go. So we had a go and we're still working with them. And they're such a positive company to work with.

But that's kind of at one end of it. And then, you know, we're in a few different things. So our first ever customer here was Ground Construction. 

Ground Construction is still with us now, coming on for the fifth year. And they were all over the multilingual because that's where they are. And they're only in London. 

So well, that first thing we did for them was a it was a site or it's a company orientation, but it's not about a company. It's all about the work that you're going to do. The, you know, the acid perture training and sticking in prefab concrete and that sort of thing. 

So that's quite a longish video, about 12 minutes. Actually, I was talking with the HSE lady because she's the one that commissioned it. And they've probably got to expand on that now with modern slavery, you know, those stuff and all that.

But go for it. GCL Hill Group is one of us. So that's the builders. 

We just did a little job, fingers crossed, it's the beginning of something with Persimmon. The HSE guy for the Hill Group is the chair of the Builders Federation and the vice chair is she's HSE director for Persimmon. So she was saying to him, what have you got? What are you doing? And he explained about us. 

Host: Oh, that sounds good. So yeah, quite a few then. 

Oh, yeah, there's a few more. 

And I've got to say one of the one of the more recent companies that we started working with is a company called Falco Construction. And they do utility repairs. And they just took to the platform like a duck to water. 

So the first thing that the HSE Director did is go out, he bought two of those little Bluetooth mics, you know, one for him and one for the guys. And they they've got a really good portal that they've built themselves, which analyses all the behaviour of their subbies. So they've got about 150 guys, and then about, you know, the two or 300 who work with them. 

And they, they know, the guys who are not going to have an accident. And they know the guys who have accidents all the time. So the first video they made was talking to, you know, half a dozen of the guys who've never had an accident. 

And it is gold dust, because they all just talk in very East London accents, or Romanian accents, but really authentic. And they all say roughly the same thing before I dig, you know, I take that I do all four modes of the cat genny scan, I look around, basically, I take my time. And this is one of the things I hear all the time. 

It's like, just take a bit more time. So that training is gold dust. Because you're getting it from the horse's mouth. 

But people who've never had an accident, and you watch it, and you go, no, I take my time, you know, what's the rush? Because if I go through something, I might end up on the opposite side of the screen. 

Host: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting, actually. 

I was reading something the other day, an HSE guy, where he does inspections. He can tell within the first five minutes walking around the site, if it's a good site or not. Because there's no tick boxing, he can just tell where people care, and when they're making an effort. 

And I think a lot of people checked on that. It's really quite true.

Yeah. I'm, I don't  know where I, where I come in, all our customers are doing the right thing. 

Host: Yeah. 

So I haven't, I haven't been, you've probably been on to a few grubby sites. I haven't. Because I think that people who are using LumaOne have already, they're always making an effort. 

And that's how, you know, we're, we're an innovation. Now we're new to this, we're new to this world of safety. And so someone's going out on a limb, but it's because they want to be better all the time. 

Host: They want to improve. 

Yeah, yeah, that's it. And so they should be. The only thing is, I mean, I've, I've been in the game a long, long time, especially on tier one companies. 

So it's quite a construction, it's quite transient industry. So there's, there's often a high turnover of sub-age, you've got temp staff coming and going. 

Host: How, I mean, what's the challenge of keeping everybody trained and compliant? How do you overcome that? 

I guess, you know, we, that ain't my challenge, I suppose. 

That's my customer's challenge. And I suppose what, where we fit into that problem is the speed with which you can make content, you know, the ease and speed with which you can make content, the ease with which you can share it. You know, we're not sitting on a company LMS, it can be a text message, it can be a QR code.

So it's very easy to get it to someone. And we fit in with the tier ones quite well there because, you know, the tier ones rule their internal training, they have a big learning management system, and you've got to have the right email address and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That doesn't help any of their subbies. 

So we, the way we can help is by making it easy to access that content. Maybe in an ideal world, we'll be able to keep track of individuals, whether they're moving from one place to another. And, you know, that's a tech, so we've integrated with a couple of workforce management platforms as early days, but we, you know, we're out there.

And obviously, I can see individuals might work in for this company one week and that company another week. Now, I don't know what the GDPR stuff says, but theoretically, I should be able to go, well, here's Jimmy, he's already got that knowledge. Why would I ask him to watch that again? Yeah, yeah. 

And that's one of the clever things that LumaOne does is it can do prescriptive learning. When you come on site, Jimmy, I can give you 10 questions that you need to know the answers to. And if you get seven of them right, you only need to watch three videos, and the system will dynamically build that for you. 

So again, that's all about the kind of speed we can do stuff with. 

Host: Okay. So you do training videos? Yeah. 

Yeah, mainly. Yeah. 

Host: So I mean, do you provide lots of certification for them or anything like that? 

Paul: Yeah. Yeah. So the system is built on a user management platform. 

Some people would call it like a mini LMS. You know, the term LMS, learning management systems. 

Host: Oh, yeah. 

Paul: Learning management system is, you know, it's what it's what company does what it says on the 10. 

But there's some really big cumbersome ones, and there's some nimble ones. But we've kind of integrated that part into it. So if Jimmy comes on to a customer's Luma1 site, we can serve you content automatically. 

Let's say we can send you out a toolbox talk every week, and you have to watch it. And we can keep pestering you until you do. And then we can track all of that. 

So we can look at Jimmy and go, okay, he's done his toolbox talks every week. That's good. And he's scoring a pass on each one of those. 

He's a bit behind. He hasn't done his, I don't know, such and such training. So we know where you are effectively. 

I've lost the point of what you were asking me. 

Host: Do you provide certification? 

Paul: So yeah, so obviously, at the end of this, you can, the system can award a certificate, which could be granted by the company. And it's just a digital certificate, or if you really want it can be printed off, but we have a record. 

And that record can then tie into when you need to do that again. So refresher training. Right. 

Host: Okay. So it's not, they're not like regulatory standards certificates. 

Paul: We're not aligned with CITB or anything like that. 

It's just a kind of more of a record, let's say, digital record that you've done it and you've got a pass mark. It's for compliance. Basically, when, if you get audited, this is where Luma1 can be just a goldmine of time saved. 

So orders come, right, show me your training records. Hold on a second. You know, and it's all CSV sheets with all the records. 

There you are. Days of time saved. 

Host: Yeah, that's right. I mean, yeah, I've been in offices, site offices and like been like big cabinet units with just hundreds and hundreds of paperwork in there. And they're like, we don't even know what any of that is. 

It's just like, no one looks at that. So in the olden days. Yeah. 

Yeah. So, I mean, I mean, there are still a few dinosaurs out there. So have you encountered any resistance? 

Paul: Yeah. You know, I don't sell to everyone. In fact, I said I sell to less people than I talk to, which is, you know, that's that is my that's that's life. 

All too much resistance. And it tends to be that the resistance that we are now, we kind of found our way how to overcome it is I like system pool who makes the videos. And that was always a bit of a barrier. 

It's like, well, now we've got we just go, well, we do with you. So I can come on site, you know, I've got this little DJI camera, which is shoots 4K video and I can put it in my pocket and it shoots amazing video. And it's really safe for me to be on site because I'm not this big cumbersome camera with two people to go around. 

That's that's where my career started. I can shoot like that and get out of the way of something if I need to. And when we did the telehandler training for Simmon, we got the guy to do a drive around and we put the thing in his pocket. 

And we got some really nice footage, you know, and that demonstrates to everyone who's never been in one of those how hard it is to see where you're going, because that's why they've got all these mirrors and cameras and stuff like that. So, yeah, it's the that's the main resistance. So we're that we've gone like I've lost too much like that. 

Let's just give them a solution. And we can do paint by numbers. So most of the familiarisation is a step by step thing. 

Three points of contact going in your, you know, put your seatbelt on. Customers shot it in about 10, 15 minutes in order on their phone. 

They ping us that video over. We edit it. You know, we turn that around in a day. 

Host: Oh, wow. OK, that's good. Yeah. 

Paul: So if they if they've shot it correctly, you know, it's only a one and a half minute video and it goes in a sequence. But for them to have done that on their own, it would have been, oh, where do we even start? So as you say, let's just go and do it like this. This is Stan. 

So we're getting some direction. Keep your boots on the ground, literally boots on the ground. Support your arm like that. 

Just use your phone. And it's starting to get very simple now. Yeah. 

Host: Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Well, the thing is, this is a digital age, isn't it? 

Paul: You know, it's this is what it's all about. Yeah. 

Host: I mean, you've got you've got the youth coming through that are getting more and more adept with this kind of stuff. So it's got to be. Yeah, it's got to be changing expectations of what is going to be standard in the future. 

Paul: Well, there is a challenge, isn't there? Because we've got in construction in particular, we've got so much knowledge with people my age right at the at the end of their career. And let's say some of them may be a bit more resistant than others to do stuff on the phone. So that's fair enough. 

We've got we've still they've got a lot of the knowledge, maybe not the safety thing, like I said, they can become reticent, can become a little bit. But that's one end. And then we've got all the people in the middle. 

And then we've got the people who are apprentices who are coming in and just joining who never get off their phones, you know. And that's kind of where we're coming in with people who come to work with the phone. We can reach them, we can teach them, and we can quiz them, check they've understood. 

And, you know, and it's a it's a natural place for them to learn. If I look at my two kids, they've done all their learning in YouTube. Yeah, school has not served them well. 

And that's I've got nothing against schools or teachers. I love teachers. But they're doing crowd control in state school. 

I've got 30 kids in there, 10 of them are quite badly. So when my kids learn, they learn on YouTube. 

Host: Yeah, sure. Same here. I mean, I've got a lot to say about schools. Not a lot of it is very good, to be fair. 

But all of my work that I've done, you know, website, YouTube and everything, I didn't have a clue how to do it. It was all YouTube that I just looked at, just learned how to do everything on YouTube. So yeah, it is golden. 

But you mentioned youngsters, I mean, they'll see the ones coming through and the ones that are coming on to the construction site. You mentioned before we record this, you mentioned a statistic about that. 

Paul: Yeah, there was a statistic that the ATSC quote, well, they didn't quote, they gave it. Yeah. So the ATSC, they don't chuck that kind of stuff around. And the statistic was, and it was it was it was global. 

We had one year's construction. It was all industry in the UK. But we know construction is one of the most dangerous, right? You are as likely to get injured in your first six months of career as you are in the whole of the rest of your career. 

I mean, take that in, you know. 

Host: Yeah, I can believe it. Yeah. 

Paul: So that makes sense in some ways. But it shouldn't do, should it? It should, we should be going, okay, well, these are, we've got to help these people stay safe. 

Host: Yeah. 

Paul: And then, you know, I think that's one thing. But I also think, you know, our mates who are coming over from the Punjab or Albania or Romania who are helping on site, we need them to also understand what's going on in their language. 

Host: Yeah, sure. 

Paul: So I think that's a very important part of what we can do. So there's two messages there really. And the message overall is just make it easy for someone at least to have a chance of understanding. 

Host: Yes. And make, yeah, there is that. Make them remember it. 

Make them remember it. Make it stick in their head, rather than just going one in and out the other, yeah. 

Paul: But if you can't make it stick, quiz them on it a week later to see if it's stuck and make them watch it again. 

Host: Exactly that. 

Paul: Yeah, there should always be refreshers, definitely. 

Host: Do you think we're heading towards VR and AR augmentation or other immersive technology? Do you think that's going to be the new normal? 

Paul: No.