Our new EE transition (work hardening) phase in seems to missed road bumps, but will know more by end of next week after Union comments are submitted. We all have the same goals and helping others to realize this same goal (to stop EE's from being hurt) it is one of the first steps in an environment where different people have different view points (and interests) and often these positions appear to be competing against one another.

Example New EE Transition layout (keep in mind the dis-incentives that may be in the present system, where Supervisors and Managers are incentived to help injuries occur - simply by the system that is in place):

There are two paths that we discussed (based upon population of employee's you are trying to transition into a job)

1st Path - Job by Job management, there are positives and negatives to this approach - one of each include: Positive - you design your transition into the workplace by specific job which gives you more bang for the buck (so to speak), however (Negative) can be extremely high in management time and oversight.

2nd Path - Group jobs by grade or pay range or by major departments, which allows for easier management of the New EE population (positive), however this method groups jobs that may or may not require an extended transition period (depending upon level could extend into several weeks of training/transition/work hardening).

Safety doesn't stop on the weekend, people continue to work. Helping team members think about safety as part of their normal work process can be a challenge. Some times this has to be forced even subtly or helping them make it their own ideas.

A challenge we all face is how to manage work orders and meld the corrective actions into prevention of these future unsafe acts (which generate the majority of work orders). Meeting this challenge must include involvement of employees in the corrective actions and helping to identify these "conditions" caused by unsafe acts, to help drive the culture into a preventative behavior instead of a reactive type behavior. If this balance cannot be achieved, then a list of facility safety work orders never ends, finding those sources of acts and helping those persons into the safety fold is the true challenge.

Luck is the result of hard work and perseverance.

We are working on implementing a Work Hardening program this week. Based on set schedules for new EEs (Phase I) for periods of time based upon hours to qualify for a job, should have a significant impact to RMD/CTD/MSDs. Very management intensive, we have a good team of trainers to manage the process.

Brave new world

Challenges of developing a Behaviorial Based Safety program at a pork processing facility with 2500 personnel and years of engrained culturial bias.