Workplace Safety May Never Be A Priority

Rick Hellinga CSP, ASP, Senior Director Occupational Health, Safety & Loss Prevention, Simmons Foods Inc.

Many companies have a solid foundation for their Occupational Safety and Health program performance. Risk assessments, JHA/JSAs, OSHA compliance programs and processes, worksite inspections, observations, training, onboarding, and workers’ compensation participation and oversight are basic building blocks necessary to deliver successful results.

Executives and regulators consistently seek to understand how to move safety and health performance from average to exceptional. In my experience, there is no specific solution or proven process; however, one philosophy shift seems to be a common theme in highly successful programs: “Safety Is Not a Priority!” rather than “Working Safely is How We Work!”

Moving from the traditional safety mantra of “Safety is a Priority” to “Working Safely is How We Work” is the first step in changing mindsets. Digging a little deeper into what this means is more than semantics. “Working Safely” must be considered as one of three primary and non-negotiable work value imperatives:

1.Team Members must always produce quality products.

2.Team Members must always work safely.

3.Team Members must always work efficiently.

If any of these three are not possible, work will stop or will not start until all three imperatives are met.

Throughout my career, this shift in how safety is viewed in the workplace has been gradual and requires patience. At the beginning of my career in the food manufacturing and protein industry, there was a focus on workplace safety, but maybe not enough. At times, potential risks appeared to be secondary to operational needs, often resulting in injuries.

"The difference was that the team members perceived undertones from their supervisor that if operations were not going as planned, taking a risk or shortcut to meet production goals might be appropriate"

During the incident analysis, team members often stated that they intended to be helpful or perceived a need to hurry. Safe work methods and rules were in place, correct PPE was used, and workstations were designed to keep people safe. The difference was that the team members perceived undertones from their supervisor that if operations were not going as planned, taking a risk or shortcut to meet production goals might be appropriate.

To establish this new mindset, the new philosophy needed to be adopted at the top of the company. The next step was to intentionally scrub the old mantra “Safety is a Priority” and replace it with “Working safely is how we do it!” The old line was removed from signs, bulletin boards, stickers, letterhead logos, safety programs, documentation forms, training curricula, and committee charters. It was evident how embedded this traditional way of thinking was. It took several years to make a significant dent in the traditional priority messaging and required repeating the reason for the change constantly. Slowly, this new way of viewing the expectation of always working safely began to take hold.

Cultivating this new way of thinking included adding a safety and health metric to the company-wide scorecard to provide insight into how the overall company was performing. Generally, the time-tested Days Away Restricted Transfer OSHA severity rate was used for measurement. The OSHA frequency-based Total Injury/Illness Rate or Total OSHA Recordable Rate was selected as part of this change. The weekly-reviewed scorecard helped drive the momentum of the new mindset through added visibility and accountability, resulting in fewer injuries and illnesses. Going forward, the safety performance metric focus will include incidents and near misses.

Through intentional focus, consistency, and accountability from leadership and on the production floor, safety performance is now meeting and often exceeding expectations. To support our people-first culture, there will be a continuous focus to sustain this high level of safety improvement.