Proven to Make "It" Happen (continued)

4. Communicating incidents with all levels of the organization by;
a. Requiring a timely submission of incident summaries for near misses and recordables.
b. Requiring General Managers to share summaries with team leaders.
c. Requiring Team Leaders to share summaries in a team meeting with their respective associates within 7 days of receiving the summary.

5. Team Training
a. Team Leaders create, post, and use “Do’s and Don’ts” Cards in work areas (used in new associate training and pre-audit briefings).
b. Requiring auditors to receive work area hazard reviews provided by team leaders prior to the audit (earlier in the month).
c. Safety Audit and UnSafe Act training to all leadership, team leaders, and safety committee members.

6. Associate participation
a. Each associate participate in one internal Safety audit per year.
b. Each associate attend one Safety Committee meeting per year.

To be continued

Actions Items Proven to Make IT Happen:

The data supporting the actions (aka Key Components) was derived from over 5.1 billion man hours.


1. Internal self audits that;
a. Promote associate participation.
b. Promote supervisor and leadership participation.
c. Correct UnSafe Acts before they occur.
d. Instant preventative action.
e. Associate awareness.
f. Associate understanding of other operations within the facility.
g. Discover unidentified possible hazards.
h. Promote process improvements.

2. New associate training;
a. Task specific safety guidance “Do’s and Don’ts” Card and Signs.
b. General Safety Orientation Booklet
c. Team Leader Orientation Checklist
d. Review of the safety guidance after one month of employment.

3. Incident review and commitment of leadership:
a. Creation of a Zero Incident Policy is the first step.
b. Hold General Managers and Team Leaders accountable for incidents.
c. Communication incidents to all associates and leadership.
d. Ensure that corrective actions (CAs) are appropriate and preventative.Following through with accountability built into the system to ensure that the pre-existing culture is guided towards a Zero Tolerance for Unsafe Acts culture, whereby the population is interdependent upon each and self regulating.

To be continued....

What does IT mean?

This isn’t a discussion of semantics, such as what does "is" mean?

No… IT is basically the primary premises that we must agree to and drive our culture by to accomplish our goal of Zero Incidents.

The Principles of our Safety “Religion”

1. All incidents are preventable and Zero Injuries can be achieved and maintained!
2. There is no such thing as an “accident”.
3. Near misses are indicators of future injuries.
4. 99% of all injuries are caused by one or more UnSafe Acts (USAs).
5. Everyone is responsible for the safety of themselves and their co-workers.
6. Working Safely involves not only on the job safety but also off the job safety.
7. Supervisors and managers are accountable for UnSafe Acts of their team.
8. All associates must be trained to perform their duties safely.
9. All associates have a right and duty to prevent UnSafe Acts from becoming incidents, line stoppage authority.
10. Leadership must lead by example and ensure their decisions consider the safety of associates and customers.
11. Working Safely is a condition of employment.

Next Post: Actions Items Proven to Make IT Happen:

What are the Cost of Injuries?

What is the cost?

The cost of an injury must be broken down into two components:

Visible cost, these include;

• Medical Bills
• Worker’s Compensation Pay Out (disability, permanent, partial, etc)
• Reserves (money set aside to pay future medical bills)
• Invisible (Hidden) cost, these include;
• Overtime (cover for the associate)
• Loss of an experienced and trained employee (can be extremely valuable)
• Management resources
• Higher insurance premiums (long term cost – carried out for 3 years)
• Loss of confidence in the company (public, customers, and associates)
• Customer dissatisfaction (who wants to do business with a company with a bad reputation)
• Poor Quality (if associates are not following the safety rules then the odds are they aren’t following quality procedures either)
  

Of course with all of these individual issues we come to the greatest issue of all, a death. Having to attend the funeral of a fellow associate and attempt to comfort a grieving widow is one of the most difficult actions a leader may have to face in her/his career. But, this training is not designed to pull on heart strings; therefore we will only discuss this topic in the training when it relates to UnSafe Acts of associates.

The hidden costs associated with injuries have the greatest impact upon an organization, this is directly related to the fact that they are hidden and go unnoticed until their impact becomes unbearable.

Next Post: Are all Injuries Preventable?