Published March 2001

Safety policies work when everyone has stake in them

Q. Our small machine-parts manufacturing plant has experienced a sharp increase in work-related injuries the past two years. During that time, we’ve had high turnover in the safety office, including the departure of a long-term manager and his administrative assistant. Whether these occurrences are coincidental isn’t an issue; we want to reverse our soaring injury rate and get our workers’ compensation claims back to a reasonable level. How can we get our arms around this issue?

A. For most supervisors and managers, keeping on top of safety issues can consume huge amounts of time. Often, the sheer amount of minutia can obstruct the bottom-line desire to simply reduce on-the-job accidents and injuries.

But safety doesn’t have to be a managerial milestone as long as it is not isolated from other managerial concerns. Industrial safety experts contend that safety can be turned into a strategic advantage — even a profit builder — if it’s integrated seamlessly into all elements of an organization’s operations.

While workplace safety has improved over the past few years, statistics still highlight the hazards many workers face as they perform their daily tasks. At latest count (1999), 6,023 Americans were killed and 5.7 million seriously injured or made ill on the job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The death toll is equivalent to a fully loaded 747 crashing every month. Cost to business is estimated at about $125 billion annually.

Getting to specific scenarios, a plant manager’s worst nightmare is the arrival of an ambulance with its lights flashing. Not only do injuries and illness go beyond statistics and costs, they change the course of everyday lives — and usually not for the better.

Industrial safety experts say the responsibility of turning safety into a strategic advantage lies not with an organization’s safety officer, as is often the case, but with the entire organization, from the chief executive to the janitor. They argue that if CEOs are ultimately responsible for a budget, they should be ultimately responsible for safety. If employees are held to meeting performance standards, they also should be evaluated on how they individually contribute to workplace safety.

This commitment must go beyond merely posting “work safety” signs throughout the site. A CEO’s safety commitment must be strong and public and filter throughout the organization. While senior and middle management are given the challenge of improving safety, line workers (who best know all the hazards of the job) should be given the task of devising reasonable safety regulations and policies as well as enforcement responsibilities.

Vehicle-parts manufacturer Tower Automotive follows this model. With 42 plants and more than 14,000 employees, it has only one safety officer. All major safety decisions and policies emanate from the individual shop floors.

Jerry Williams, global leader for safety and health for Tower Automotive, said workers do best when placed on teams, which are assigned to develop prevention policies for each identifiable hazard. Managers are responsible for measuring and monitoring results, he said.

Using this model, Tower Automotive reduced its workers’ compensation costs by $8 million, its OSHA violation citations by 97 percent and has had no third-party liability lawsuits for more than five years.

Eric L. Zoeckler operates a marketing communications firm, The Scribe, and writes "Taming the Workplace," which appears Mondays in The Herald. Contact him at 206-284-9566 or by sending e-mail to mrscribe@aol.com.

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