Read about a geographically diverse company that’s surmounted the challenge of maintaining a consistent, effective safety and health program.
Progress Energy, headquartered in Raleigh, NC, operates coal and gas facilities, plus nuclear, fossil, and hydroelectric plants in geographically dispersed areas. This diversity presents challenges to the company’s safety and health program, says Executive Director of Corporate Health and Safety Mike Engleman.
When Engleman took over the top safety job two years ago, he recognized the need to improve safety communications. “Messages were spread throughout the company, and we weren’t consistent in what we were saying.”
3 Main Themes
Engleman and his team worked on establishing consistent safety messages and sharing these throughout the organization. Now messaging is aligned around three themes:
- Personal accountability
- Hazard recognition
- Active caring
A committee made up of experts in communications and safety helped management develop a plan for how to communicate safety events up and down the chain of command.
The group also developed standardized reporting forms and created packages that are used by safety councils (safety committees) across the company. These packages include specific training and communication content, including print and video materials around the three themes.
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Other Ways to Spread the Word
Progress Energy also uses other methods to spread the word about safety throughout its organization. For example:
- An executive safety council with representatives from each business unit, which meets monthly to share best practices and ensure that all are aligned in terms of safety priorities and messages
- A daily dial-up between supervisors in different plants who conduct the company’s behavior observation program and a regional vice president to talk about what they observed that day, including any nonstandard practices as well as best practices
Thanks to the dial-up program, Progress Energy has dramatically improved incident rates over the 2 years the program has been in place. Engleman says that the supervisors were not initially thrilled about the required daily safety call, “but now they can’t do without it.”
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Spread the Word with Ready-Made Checklists
BLR’s Safety Audit Checklists provides safety and health checklists on more than 50 essential workplace topics to help you identify workplace safety and health hazards and spread the word about safety throughout your organization.
Each Safety Audit Checklists section contains:
- A review of applicable OSHA standards
- Safety management tips
- Training requirements
- At least one comprehensive safety checklist
Many sections also contain a compliance checklist, which highlights key provisions of OSHA standard. All checklists can be copied and circulated to supervisors and posted for employees.
All told, this best-selling program provides you with more than 300 separate safety checklists keyed to three main criteria:
- OSHA compliance checklists, built right from the government standards in such key areas as HazCom, lockout/tagout, electrical safety, and many more.
- “Plaintiff attorney” checklists, built around those non-OSHA issues that often attract lawsuits.
- Safety management checklists that monitor the administrative procedures you need to have for topics such as OSHA 300 Log maintenance, training program scheduling and recording, and OSHA-required employee notifications.
Make as many copies as you need for all your supervisors and managers, and distribute. What’s more, the entire program is updated annually. And the cost averages only about $1 per checklist.
If this method of ensuring a safer, more OSHA-compliant workplace interests you, we’ll be happy to make Safety Audit Checklists available for a no-cost, no-obligation, 30-day evaluation in your office. Just let us know, and we’ll be pleased to arrange it.