Read about an employer that has developed a thriving safety culture which has contributed to an injury and illness rate about 60 percent below the industry average.
The E & J Gallo Winery is the largest family-owned winery in the world and the largest exporter of California wine. It’s also a company that is dedicated to employee safety and health.
In the late 1990s the company set out to improve safety and health by adopting the behavior-based (BBS) approach developed by Behavior Science Technologies (BST).
“We were looking for a lightning rod of culture change and a way to get employees involved,” Derrick C. Jarvis, CSP, director of corporate safety and health told BLR’s OSHA Compliance Advisor a few months ago. According the Jarvis, the experiment has proven quite successful.
Part of the Job
The behavior approach involves Gallo personnel at all levels. Line employees, team leaders, supervisors, managers, and top executives are all trained to conduct peer observations.
“Employees run and manage the process,” Jarvis explains. “Goals and objectives are established by local steering teams. The biggest challenge is to make BBS integral to the job, not something separate.”
Jarvis says this requires strong leadership out on the floor to ensure that employees understand the importance and value of the observations. The message at Gallo is that observing is as important as other job duties.
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Risk-Based, Not Rule-Based
When and how many observations employees are expected to perform varies. Workers coordinate with their supervisors to find the 15 to 20 minutes (for example, during a quiet part of the shift) to conduct an observation. Typically, observations are planned, not conducted without notice.
An employee will approach a peer and say, “I’d like to conduct an observation. Are you familiar with the process?” If necessary, the steps are reviewed and the session gets under way.
Overall, says Jarvis, the process is risk-based, not rule-based. This means that observers look for behaviors that could result in injury rather than for strict adherence to rules. A critical behavior checklist helps identify the desired behaviors.
Beyond the checklist, the conversation that takes place between the observer and the observed is the essence of the exchange. This is where feedback is delivered and the real learning takes place. Gallo emphasizes a positive tone. That means safe behaviors are discussed first before moving on to any at-risk behaviors.
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The conversation also focuses on factors contributing to any at-risk behaviors observed. These can be system- or management-related issues, or training and awareness problems. They can also be employee habits so engrained that the worker does not realize he or she is doing them.
This high-value feedback is conveyed to the steering committee and, ultimately, to management. Data from the observations help justify requests for changes or expenditures.
In one recent year employees completed over 6,000 observations. “That means there were 6,000 peer-to-peer safety conversations,” Jarvis notes. “It’s clear to me as a safety professional that there’s a very high value to these. Without blame, we’re working to uncover barriers that we can address.”
Tomorrow, we’ll highlight three critical strategies for improving safety culture.