Window on Safety Success: A Company with a Clear Vision

At Marvin Windows and Doors (Warroad, Minnesota), Corporate Safety Manager Greg Peterson explains some of the key strategies his company uses in its nine manufacturing sites to protect some 2,000 employees.

• OSHA VPP membership. All but one of Marvin Windows’ manufacturing facilities is VPP (Voluntary Protection Programs) certified, with the ninth site in the VPP pipeline. Peterson views VPP membership as a "source of pride" and says that it helps keep the focus on employee protection. He also credits VPP involvement with creating a strong working relationship with OSHA.

• Safety committees. The company has nine safety committees—one for each product group. All new committee members, as well as managers, are required to complete the OSHA 10-hour training course. With employees rotating on and off the committees every 2 years, there’s been a lot of worker involvement in safety and a lot of training. "You have a lot of people out there very skilled in safety awareness," says Peterson. "This has been a real key in changing the culture.

• Employee training. Training is ongoing and focuses on a topic for each month, which is the subject of toolbox talks and other sessions. All employee meetings now start with a safety discussion.

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• Suggestion box. Employees share their ideas for safety improvements through a simple, but popular, suggestion box.

• Behavior-based safety observations. Introduced in 2010, observations are conducted within all of the nine product groups.

• Quarterly walkthrough. A quarterly walkthrough is conducted by the corporate safety manager, accompanied by site leaders. All deficiencies are noted and photographed. Ongoing monitoring ensures that changes have been made.

• Weekly monitoring. The safety manager monitors trends weekly to track injuries, near misses, and hazards.

Getting It Right

One of the hallmarks of the Marvin Windows safety process is a willingness to continually tweak and revise. For example, employees were given incentives to participate in the early days of the safety program in the 1990s.

Although the incentive program helped get people’s attention, Peterson says the company phased it out to make sure that the incentives did not discourage employees from reporting risks.

"It was a great beginning to build awareness, and it showed the com

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It’s Working!

It appears that the goal of making a safe company even safer is working. A recent employee survey canvassed opinions on many aspects of company operation.

"Ninety-three percent of employees rated the company a safe place to work, which is pretty incredible for the woodworking industry," Peterson says. "They believe management is concerned about their safety."

As well as creating a permanent culture change, Marvin Windows has experienced a significant drop in incident rates and has earned industry recognition for its commitment to safety.