Experience has taught me some valuable lessons. One of them is that the decision makers in any organization can make their workplace safer and save their companies money if they'd just do one simple thing: Listen to what the front line employees have to say.

A Sorry Situation

I work in a manufacturing company in Maine that produces wood and gas stoves, as well as fireplace inserts. Our employees handle a vast assortment of materials. Before I arrived, our accident and injury figures were dismal. In 2004 alone, we had 10 days of lost work and 539 of restricted duty. The first part of 2005 was not much better.

Our company's management has always been safety conscious. They knew that they needed someone to work solely on safety. So in September of 2005, the company decided to create a new Safety Manager position and hired me to fill it.

Reaching Out to Employees

I was given the freedom to listen and spend time with the employees. And that's just what I did. I made it a point to be out in the warehouse every day. I felt it was important to find out how employees felt about all the injuries and what they would do to lower the injury rate.

Many of the employees I spoke to felt ignored and told me that their concerns were not being heard. They also told me that the company's Safety Committee, made up of representatives of management, workers and maintenance, didn't really know what was going on. Some felt frustration about their workstations and tools.

Making Changes

Management also entrusted me with the authority to make changes. After hearing what the employees had to say, we started changing things. I worked closely with the Safety Committee since this is where the decisions are made and the money approved.

Inspections: One of my first actions was to enlist all the Team Leaders and train them to conduct month safety inspections of their departments using a new safety inspection form that the Safety Inspectors and I had created specifically for each area of the site.

Training: I conducted training classes on Ergonomics, Hazard Communication, PPE, etc. We also began holding weekly production meetings. At the end of each meeting, I would provide information for the next meeting and ask this question: "Are there any safety concerns that I need to know about that we have not already covered?"

Engineering and Work Practices: We added overhead cranes to lift and move cast iron and heavy metal fireboxes. We brought in lift pallet jacks so that no employee had to bend to lift and introduced new tools to make their jobs easier. The company even shut down for two weeks to make the production line leaner, thus eliminating the need for employees to walk long distances to get materials. We started stretch training and made stretch breaks mandatory. We also added incentives.

Communication: The company had a safety suggestion box before I arrived. But nobody was using it. So I replaced the box with a white board for employees to list safety hazards, concerns or suggestions - big or little. I posted the board in the warehouse in a conspicuous spot where everybody would see it as they passed by. I also began to write a monthly "Did You Know" bulletin on health-related subjects such as the right foods to eat, diabetes, smoking, etc.

Achieving Better Results

Change is never easy and, at first, there were a few employees who balked at the changes we made. But little by little, things began to improve. Employees, including those who had at first dragged their feet, started getting involved. They spoke up at the weekly meetings. The white board was soon filled with observations and comments (examples: "light bulb burnt out," "worktable needs to be lifted to the correct height," etc.)

And it wasn't just the climate. The numbers also started to improve. We made it from September through December of 2005 with just one injury. We reduced our 2006 injuries by 65%, out of works by 100% and restricted duty days by 85%.

Conclusion

Management support was a key to our success. The management team was instrumental in always stressing safety and training. Most important of all, the management team went out of its way to listen to what the front-line employees had to say about their own safety. And thanks to this, we are all reaping the rewards.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR SAFETY SUCCESSES

Have you got a safety success story you want to share with the members of SafetyXChange? Please send it to us at glennd@bongarde.com, or catherinej@bongarde.com, and we'll publish it in an upcoming SafetyXChange newsletter.

Glenn Demby
Editor-in-Chief
SafetyXChange

MAYHEM BY THE MOMENT

The violence that happens every 24 minutes

The FBI 'Crime Clock'

By Glenn Demby

The Federal Bureau of Investigation maintains statistics on total crimes committed in the U.S. each year. But on a certain level, crime totals don't do justice to the dimensions of the problem. So the FBI invented something called the "Crime Clock" to present the information more dramatically. Consider, for example, the mayhem that takes place on average every 24 minutes:

EVERY 12 SECONDS A burglary gets committed

EVERY 18 SECONDS A violent crime takes place

EVERY 21 SECONDS A motor vehicle is stolen

EVERY 29 SECONDS Somebody is the victim of aggravated assault

EVERY 54 SECONDS A robbery takes place

EVERY 5 MINUTES Somebody is forcibly raped

EVERY 24 MINUTES A murder is committed

Source: FBI , U.S. Crime Statistics, Figures are based on 1995 crime totals

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