Zero Injuries Is No Longer a Dream for Some

Anyone who thinks changing safety direction and outcomes at a large company is impossible should look closely at Lockheed Martin (LM). Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, LM is a global security business that employs about 146,000 people worldwide.

In 2003, 530 LM employees missed work due to an injury. By 2008 that number had dropped to 280, and the injuries were less severe. What’s more, the total number of missed days was down to 7,820, compared with more than 20,000 in 2003. The change—a 56 percent drop in the corporate injury rate—was no accident.

Tools and Practices

Essential to the 5-year safety turnaround was helping employees develop and maintain a "zero accidents" mentality, a culture where avoiding injury is possible.

LM identifies the four key components associated with that culture:

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  Visible leadership. Leaders personally perform frequent environment, health, and safety (EHS) area inspections; ensure that team members are properly trained; and solicit, listen, and respond to employees’ ideas for improvement. Leaders establish performance objectives and use injury data to identify injury trends.
• Accountability. Safety performance objectives are tied to employees’ annual evaluations. Honest reporting and prompt corrective action are rewarded. Leaders ensure that employees and managers receive training, most of which is available on the company’s internal Learning Management System. Also, the safety implications of all proposed process changes should be tracked.
• Communication. Communicating about safety is an ongoing activity. It includes everything from routine safety conversations to making sure that performance metrics are included in employee reviews and made available to all personnel.
• Employee involvement. Teams are asked for input about how leaders can make improvements. Cross-functional safety teams (including management, hourly, and salaried employees) participate in audits and communicate EHS information and actions. Employee and team contributions to a safer workplace are acknowledged through a corporate recognition program.

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Pulling Out the Stops

The company "pulled out the stops," says Dr. David Constable, LM’s vice president for energy, environment, safety, and health. Resources and attention were deployed to highest risk problems including slips, trips, and falls, as well as bruises, cuts, contusions, and ergonomics.

Safety professionals identified 25 areas with the highest numbers of injuries. Each was required to implement LM’s Corporate Injury Reduction Model (IRM), which requires a deep analysis of incident and safety performance data to identify root causes.

Among other actions that contributed to the improvement were:

• Safety Kaizen (employee-led quick change) events
• Return-to-work programs
• Behavior-based safety processes
• A multilayered, decentralized safety committee structure that includes grass roots and corporate involvement
• A commitment to OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Programs (eight sites are now members), including the current effort to achieve Corporate VPP
• Development of a safety control-zone concept, which builds awareness by encouraging employees to take control of risks and conditions within a 25-foot-radius around them

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LM’s approach to zero injuries also includes "a several-years-long effort to revamp safety training," according to Constable. An active training-advisory group is composed of representatives from all business areas.

The team identified needed training, updated existing options, and developed or purchased others. Constable says progress relied on more than selecting the right courses. It also required "boots-on-the-ground” and “people-on-the-floor"—employees partnering with supervisors to identify needs and develop solutions.

Tomorrow, we’ll continue the discussion of zero-injury programs and hear from a safety consultant who tells you how to turn the dream into a reality.

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