Aggregates Manager Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/841719
24 AGGREGATES MANAGER / July 2017 Create a safety culture W ant more effective safety training? Follow these three guidelines: • Keep it real; • Keep it simple; and • Keep it moving. "Make safety meaningful to employees," advises Chad Blanchard, corporate safety director for CalPortland. "It shows through. If safety is not meaningful to their direct supervisor, manager, or owner, they will pick up on that type of mentality. If the supervisor, manager, or own- er makes it a value to themselves and holds employees accountable, employees are going to see it as a value too, and hold others accountable." Creating a work environment that treats safety as a value, on par with honesty, integrity, responsibility, and accountability, is more impactful than treating safety as a priority, Blanchard says, noting that while someone's top priorities may exchange places all the time, values do not. "If you hold safety as a value, it should encompass every- thing you do," he says. Safety and simplicity also go hand-in-hand; not only when streamlining how a task is done, but also in how paperwork is handled. "Human nature is like water. We will take the path of least resistance. We want to do what's right, but we don't want to put so much effort into it that we don't feel like we're gaining a benefi t," says Sam Ayun, safety manager at CalPortland's Rillito Cement Plant. "With almost all things safety-related, you want it to be as safe as possible, but you want it all — paperwork, policies, and procedures — to be as easy and understandable as possible." By streamlining paperwork for workplace examinations, Ayun was able to achieve dramatic increases in completed forms, identify and mitigate safety hazards, and promote communication between various team members at his site. When conducting safety training, consider keeping seat time to a minimum. "Your mind can only take in what your back side can absorb," notes Matt Bunner, safety manager for Mulzer Crushed Stone. "We try not to do too much preaching or lecturing and use more hand-on activities." Storyboards — much like those used in middle school science fairs — provide the opportunity for a low-tech approach to safety training that can be performed without a computer. Visual aids and activities appeal to different styles of learners and may have a greater level of retention and acceptance from employees. The goal is to trans- form a safety topic from a requirement perspective to an understanding of why an action is in an employee's best interests. "If you can feel it, look at it, touch it, you're more apt to understand it rather than just being preached at or lec- tured to," Bunner explains. "You don't want to pull away productive time to have poor training. You want it to be time well spent so you get a good return on your safety investment." Three simple rules for more effective safety training Authenticity is at the root of any effective safety program. This means that anyone sharing safety messages, whether a supervisor, plant manager, or corporate offi cial, must treat safety as a value. Em- ployees can differentiate between someone who is providing training as a statutory requirement and someone who truly values it. Encourage employees to identify hazards and begin each task with an eye toward safety via a job task analysis. 1