The dedication of employers and the involvement of employees are the “motherhood and apple pie” of occupational safety and health. OSHA stresses their importance in standards and guidance documents.  Consultants and unions encourage them. And owners of safe businesses attribute their success to them.

So how can you maximize them in your workplace? This white paper offers ideas and insights by presenters at the recent VPP Participants’ Association (VPPPA) conference in New Orleans. Look for ideas including the following:

• Making sure your safety programs are not headquarters-centric.
• Getting beyond “preaching and writing memos.”
• Boldly communicating what you as a safety leader expect from your workforce.
• Getting employees involved by noting safety concerns in a logbook reviewed daily by management.

JULIE SOBELMAN, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

As a senior EHS consultant to the State Department, certified safety professional Julie Sobelman oversees the wellbeing of a large, diverse employee population. Two state department facilities—one that processes visas and one that issues passports—are members of OSHA VPP.

In her presentation, A Year of Safety, Sobelman explained how to maximize employee involvement by keeping safety and health front and center all year long. She advises building a 12-month safety calendar with low-cost programs that get and keep people engaged.

Start by considering the demographics and culture of the workplace. Timing matters too. For example, a slower time of year is a good opportunity for executing a labor-intensive event like a safety and health fair. Busier periods are better for simpler programs like a Take Five awareness campaign. This reminds employees to slow down and make sure they’re following safety rules.

Safety, health, and wellness should be integrated into work and culture, not stand-alone programs. That helps avoid employee dissatisfaction with a program of the month approach. “It’s all about creating maximum opportunity for maximum participation,” she suggests.

Mix It Up

Sobelman shared with an attentive VPPPA audience the idea of incorporating several types of programs into a yearlong campaign. For example, always have at least one ongoing initiative in place. An example is Report It, Don’t Ignore It, which encourages employees to report incidents, hazards, and near misses.

At the National Passport Center in New Hampshire, the name of every individual who submits such a report during the month is entered into a drawing. Winners receive a coin, which buys them an hour off work.

In addition to ongoing programs, Sobelman recommends short-term awareness efforts, like a forklift rodeo at a large manufacturing or warehousing operation. The third category is what she calls “quick hits,” which appeal to a broad demographic. An example would be a fall or spring campaign to change the batteries in your smoke detector when you change the clock. Encourage participation by offering a mini-motivator like a four-pack of batteries.

Another example of a quick hit is a St. Patrick’s Day ‘1-hour late pass’ to all who volunteer to be sober drivers. This is a great idea if you have a 20-something workforce,” Sobelman adds. She encourages employees to get involved in program planning, especially by sharing ideas to reward and recognize participation.

Enough with the Posters

Sobelman urges safety professionals to “get out of the poster-coloring contest mentality” and get creative. She offers these affordable, engagement-boosting ideas:

Piggyback on existing events. A State Department site in Kentucky participates in an annual community fair by creating a children’s safety theater. Employees set up chairs and serve popcorn to youngsters who enjoy safety-themed videos especially for children. At an information table parents pick up literature on safety topics.

Hold a scavenger hunt. This works especially well during new-hire orientation. Send employees on a hunt for fire exits, safety showers, etc. by hiding safety glasses, earplugs, and other small prizes. If your workforce is young and techy, turn the hunt into a geocache event, which relies on smartphone GPS devices to track coordinates.

Focus your communications. You’ve got to communicate with employees if you want them to get engaged. Sobelman uses posters, bulletin boards, electronic reader boards, Twitter—even flyers posted on the doors of restroom stalls. “Know your demographic and what they’ll respond to,” she advises.

Cautionary Note

Finally, Sobelman reminded her audience to make safety programming as widely appealing as possible. If programs come out of a headquarters location, make sure they’re not “HQ-centric.”

For example, if a winter safety newsletter addresses the dangers of driving in snow and ice, employees at a Florida site will have no interest in it. You can still talk about safe driving, but in a way that doesn’t alienate large numbers of employees.

DON KING, WASHINGTON CLOSURE HANFORD

Don King is a union safety representative at Washington Closure Hanford (WCH) a nuclear plant cleanup operation known for excellence in job safety. He and his co-workers are represented by the Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council.

King explained that no matter how engaged employees are in safety, there can be no successful program without the full participation of management. He says a positive, shared commitment is much in evidence at WCH. This cooperative spirit has grown even stronger since the site joined VPP. In his VPPPA presentation, King shared successful tactics at the Hanford site.

Effective Tools

One of the most effective employee engagement tools is a safety log book at each of the 14 locations that make up the sprawling Hanford complex. Employees are encouraged to make safety-related entries by hand into the book. Every day a local supervisor reviews the content and transfers it to a computer database.

That database is accessible to all workers. It tracks identified problems and steps being taken to remedy them. “People feel if they write something in the log book it’s going to get attention and consider it an excellent way to get safety issues revolved,” says King.

Another way employees and managers get involved is by becoming safety-trained supervisors (STS). The Board of Certified Safety Professionals offers this rigorous certification program. While it is typically offered to managers and first-line supervisors, WCH gives employees at other levels the opportunity.

“We recently reached 300 STSs at Washington Closure Hanford,” says King. “Each of them is required to do two safety walkdowns (audits) a year. That’s not many, but when you multiply it by 300, it’s a lot of additional observations.”

The STS uses a checklist to conduct each walkdown, each of which focuses on a particular OSHA Subpart. Findings from the walkdowns are entered into the safety database in order to track progress.

Management commitment at Hanford is evident in leaders’ ongoing interest in employee opinions. Annually, 1,500 worker surveys are completed. The results help management and union leadership “keep an eye on the safety culture at all of the sites,” King adds.

If the survey reveals a problem, King will often meet with the relevant individual to discuss the issue. Then he and the employee sit down with a manager to make sure everyone is informed about the issue and what’s being done to solve it.

‘VPP Changed Everything’

King cannot say enough about the improvement in engagement and safety that followed the Hanford plant’s admission in VPP. (WCH was named a Star site in 2009). “When VPP came out here it changed everything,” he says. “It’s one of the best safety programs I’ve ever seen.” Focusing jointly on safety and health has been a win for both management and workers at the site.

King admits that when workers first learned about VPP (it is, after all, an OSHA program), many were not overly enthusiastic. “But once they saw the commitment management and staff had to create a safety culture, it was easy to get their buy-in,” he explained. Washington Closure Hanford went from a typical jobsite “to one of the biggest families you’ve ever been part of,” he says. The focus is on looking out for one another.

JOHN FULTON, CH2M HILL

CH2M Hill is a large construction and engineering firm.  John Fulton, who was recently named senior vice president for the company’s nuclear business group, shared some of his strategies at a VPPPA session on leader commitment.

A ‘Servant Leader’

“One thing I do from day one, and there’s nothing magic about it, is to establish expectations for how I want to do business,” says Fulton. He makes it clear to employees who he is, what his values are, and how he wants to operate.

The message is about safety, but it’s also about establishing himself as a “servant leader,” a manager whose job is to help workers excel in all aspects of their jobs. Fulton’s role is to remove barriers that prevent people from working as safely as possible. “I also put that expectation on my management team,” he notes.

Among other messages Fulton considers essential:

• The organization will take a 24/7 approach to safety. “It’s not enough to have a strong safety program at work and then go home and mow the lawn in flip-flops.”
• All employees are to be treated with respect whatever their role or title.
• Everyone is asked to give 100 percent effort every day with the understanding that some days it will be 90 percent and other days it will be 110 percent.

In return, Fulton says employees can expect him to take full ownership of management decisions (“the buck stops with me”) and to communicate openly and honestly with them. Fulton delivers this introductory message in person or by video to remote workers.

Getting to the Next Level

Top managers of already-safe workplaces are challenged to move to the next level. Fulton does this by getting workers to think in a new way, for example by articulating the next level of possibility so that people begin to picture it. An example is going from a million hours without a lost workday case to a million hours without a recordable injury.

Committed leaders must devote time and resources to acknowledging safety achievement. Fulton is a believer in the power of a great meal. More than once, he and his management team at a former project served a steak and lobster lunch to several thousand employees in three locations over a several-day period.

“The employees were blown away and thought it was great.” A token reward like a coffee mug or a t-shirt is not nearly as meaningful as a catered meal with the menu selected by the employees themselves.

Fulton believes that leadership skills must be learned. He makes sure his managers don’t just know the safety rules, but also know how to set expectations, hold people accountable, and help employees get what they need to work safely.

“Safety is a value that results in behavior, and you can’t change behavior without changing the value structure.” That means leaders must act in an open and honest way, conveying to employees that they mean what they say. “If employees believe you they are more likely to accept you. And more often than not that leads to changes in behavior,” he says.

Manage by Showing up

The best way to ensure that employees have what they need to work safely is to walk the shop floor. “Show up on the jobsite in your PPE, walk the talk, and interact with employees.”

Fulton has been known to share a cigar with workers at a picnic table, and he’s a big fan of brown bag lunches. By design, the conversation at these informal events focuses more on off-hours interests than on work.

Senior leaders need to get out from behind the desk and develop a relationship with their workers. If you don’t go beyond “preaching and writing memos,” you’ll never know what your people are up against, suggests Fulton. This is even more important for businesses that are experiencing cutbacks and layoffs. People are worried and interacting with leaders can be reassuring.