Imagine a safety and health process so effective and highly developed that it can be successfully applied to other businesses.
DuPont, which has brought world class science and engineering to market through innovative products, has also created a world class safety process. Protecting its 58,000 employees and eliminating injuries is essential to DuPont’s core commitment.
"Many people have similar philosophical positions, but we’ve been able to actually live by those principles—they govern our actions and out decisions," says Bob Kryzwicki, global practice leader for employee safety.
About 30 years ago DuPont started sharing some of its safety principles and applications with other businesses. Today, DuPont Sustainable Solutions, a safety consulting service, helps clients develop long-lasting solutions by applying its "deep knowledge, unmatched experience, and science-driven innovation" to create safer workplaces, increase operational efficiency, and reduce environmental footprints.
The DuPont process involves a great deal of upfront work to ensure that consultants understand the client’s business and its worker protection needs. It’s the kind of upstream strategy that experts strongly recommend as a foundation for any safety process.
Check out this informative safety webinar, Measuring Your Way to EHS Success: Strategies for Measuring Performance and Improving Your EHS Program. Join us on October 18. Learn More
Safety Perception Survey
One of the first initiatives is using a data-driven tool known as the DuPont Safety Perception Survey. The survey is made up of 24 multiple choice questions that evaluate three elements of safety management:
- Leadership
- Structure
- Processes and actions
Companies can use the findings to benchmark their current status against other organizations and those considered best in class.
Analysis of data from thousands of completed surveys shows that it is possible to correlate the strength of a company’s safety culture with its actual safety performance.
DuPont also pioneered the evaluation of cultural maturity in safety with the development of the DuPont Bradley Curve, which ranks an organization according to four levels of increasing safety culture advancement validated by survey data.
Cultural Stages
The safety culture stages from least to most desirable are:
- Reactive stage: Employees see safety as a matter of luck rather than management and believe that “accidents will happen.”
- Dependent stage: Safety is perceived as a matter of following rules made by someone else. Accident rates decrease and management believes that safety could be managed “if only people would follow the rules.”
- Independent stage: Individuals take responsibility for themselves, and believe that safety is personal, which reduces accidents even further.
- Interdependent stage: Teams of employees own safety, taking responsibility for themselves and others. They believe that sustainable change can be achieved only as a group and that an outcome of zero injuries is achievable.
Knowing where you are is the first step toward improving, Kryzwicki explains. Using the outcome of the perception survey, the Bradley Curve, and other field assessments, DuPont consultants present clients with a detailed analysis of their status, as well as near- and long-term steps that will help clients achieve the interdependent stage.
The concept is that when you improve an organization’s safety culture, the collective value that its people demonstrate for safety and performance will follow.
Tracking performance is critical to continual improvement and success. Join us for an informative webinar on October 18, Measuring Your Way to EHS Success: Strategies for Measuring Performance and Improving Your EHS Program. Register Now
The Impact
Since involving INSafe in its efforts, Dicor has continued to work to effectively implement processes and procedures that promote workplace safety throughout its operations. The company believes strongly that the implementation of its injury and illness prevention program and focus on including safety considerations into processes when designing new products and training has benefited the organization.
According to Fore, these steps not only have resulted in improved worker safety and morale, but also have led to financial savings due to reduced lost time accidents, absenteeism, and employee injuries.
“Paying attention to the health and safety of employees is one of the basic responsibilities of employers, and few companies have the internal know-how to effectively implement and update health and safety efforts,” says Fore. “That is why INSafe is such a valuable tool, using up-to-date knowledge to assist employers in doing their jobs better and providing for safer and healthier workplaces.”
Tomorrow, we’ll highlight OSHA’s on-site consultation service, explain what it can do for you, and how you can take advantage of its free services.