Six Steps for Building a More Effective Safety Program

"Safety is no secret," PSSI Vice President of Safety Todd Mitchell writes in the introduction to Best Secrets Behind Successful Safety Programs for Plant Managers, a new report that draws on his 25 years of experience at PSSI.

At every level, collaboration is critical and sharing best practices is essential for building an effective safety program.

In that spirit, Todd details the steps team members have taken to build PSSI's safety program and shares the six most impactful lessons learned along the way:

1. Culture: Safety and compliance at every level are part of the company's core values and culture.
2. Training: Prioritize training and coaching oversight. Employees who have the proper training and coaching to make them feel supported and prepared are more likely to avoid injury—and help others avoid it, as well.
3. Goals: Set clear, measurable goals and monitor consistently. Start by identifying the most important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and create goalposts and deadlines.
4. Data: Identify strategic data or technologies to enhance safety programs, such as a Learning Management System (LMS), to simplify and streamline the training process.
5. Design: Partner with vendors to advance safety design when there are elements of safety around your plant that are not in your control but could pose significant risk to your employees.
6. Celebration: Celebrate success! Celebration is an empowering tactic that should be included in safety strategy. Recognizing employees for doing well keeps all team members focused on goals and helps build culture and camaraderie.

From organizational structure to culture to technology changes, our team has worked hard to adjust how safety is valued and managed at every level at PSSI. The results speak for themselves—we have decreased our OSHA recordables by more than 67 percent. Our team members should be proud of this achievement! The full whitepaper can be found here.