Safety – A View from the Top

As a senior executive or senior manager for any type of manufacturing company, you undoubtedly are concerned about the quality of your company's safety program and how it effectively provides a safe work environment for your employees.

You probably have a safety manual; safety guidelines; appropriate signage throughout your facility; training programs; an environment, health safety manager; a strong, worker-based safety committee meeting weekly; and safety discussions with management monthly and quarterly. Or do you?

In 1996, when I first became CEO of Pacific Grain Products, a food ingredients company in Woodland, Calif., it appeared as though we had all the components for a safety program that was sufficient for our business. Yes, there were some accidents, but we had procedures in place to handle them.

It was not until an associate severed several fingers in some milling machinery that I realized we had a serious problem. We were relying too heavily on manuals and meetings, and not instilling into our employees what safety really was all about. The first time I heard the ambulance pulling up in front of our front door was a moment I did not ever want to experience again. Unfortunately, it happened again, and it was evident we had serious problems.

And the problem began at the top, with me. The fact is I was being reactive but not truly engaged in the process.

REALITY STRIKES

By the time reality struck, we had been acquired by a much larger company, Associated British Foods, and they were very much attuned to safety in the workplace and the need for total ownership. We became part of the ABF Ingredients Group consisting of five different operating businesses with numerous plants around the world.

The ingredients group had a manager assigned to a corporate EHS position. This manager visited all of our locations and then came back to report his findings to the group. He based his assessment on the CEOs' understanding of what constituted a best-in-class safety program.

He compared the road to true safety awareness to knowing the way to Damascus. In doing so, he concluded that some of us knew where Damascus was and were on our way there but weren't really sure of how to get there; some had heard of Damascus and knew it was important to get there but had no idea quite how; and some had never even heard of Damascus let alone how to get there. His report was direct and to the point: We were not all on the same page with respect to our understanding of how safety programs should and could be most effectively implemented in our businesses.

In the beginning, our strategy included benchmarking visits to companies with very high safety standards, implementing vigorous trainings on a continuous basis, placing safety at the top of every agenda and having every CEO own safety and push it throughout the organization.

Eventually, safety evolved to the point that it begins when people walk through our front door. We require all visitors to view a safety orientation video at our plant because we expect everyone in our plant — whether employee, contractor or visitor — to share the same passion for safety as we do.

Each day we have two employees from different departments conduct behavioral based audits of our plant. They walk the entire plant and enter their observations on a white board in the break room for all employees to review. Every employee is expected to submit a safety observation form each month that details an observation made regarding safety. We average over 3,000 safety observations annually and track for completion. These observations range from behavioral — such as a fork lift driver going too fast or an office employee leaving a file drawer open or running an extension cord across a foot path — to the physical — a line of site to a fire extinguisher being blocked by a pallet. Observations also can include installation or equipment issues that might pose a safety hazard.