http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue A safety culture cannot exist without support from an organization's senior management. Each month, Safety+Health provides a forum for current executives to offer insight on leadership's role in safety and health. en bellinga@nsc.org Copyright 2009 2009-11-20T20:46:28-06:00 December 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/the_next_level_of_safety/ Answering this month:
- Vic Staffieri, Chairman, President & CEO, E.ON U.S.
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What is the next leap in safety management, and does it include a direct dialogue between upper management and the worker?
Staffieri: At E.ON U.S., safety is not a one-time project and it is not managed in leaps and bounds. We take a very long view and a methodical and continuous improvement approach. Building our safety culture to its current stage has taken a great deal of time and energy over a number of years, strong leadership, and an unwavering desire for improvement by both management and employees. The effort has paid off. Safety now is an intrinsic behavior for our employees, rather than something they are directed to do. Consequently, we have a top-led, employee-driven safety culture, which means management provides the leadership and employees – as well as our contractors – are responsible for safety every moment of every day. After all, they are the ones who are most directly exposed to potential hazards. No one is in a better position to manage the exposure than the worker facing it. In this type of work environment, safety dialogue between upper management and workers is an ongoing, natural component. There is no disconnect when management is not present. As we move through different safety stages, we make improvements that are right for the time and the situation. It is the responsibility of our leadership to ensure consistency in safety practices, information sharing and continuous improvement across the organization. A recent significant outgrowth of this effort has been more best-practice sharing and standardization of processes between our electric generation and distribution groups, which have different types of operations but share a desire to achieve safety excellence. This initiative will take us to our next level of safety performance. In tough economic times, many organizations experience conflict over budgets and priorities.


As a leader, how do you keep emphasis and focus on your safety program?
Staffieri: From a financial standpoint, the economic downturn does not affect safety in our organization because safety is driven by our employees' behavior, not money. Budgets and priorities may have operating impacts, but they do not affect the safe practices by which work is performed. When we began building our culture nearly a decade ago, we clearly established the fact with our management team and employees that absolutely nothing would be a priority over safety, including financial constraints. It was hard to convince some people that fundamental safety practices and attitude determine excellent performance and not budget, tools or other tangible factors. With that directive came a pledge by our entire management team to support employees and give them the unquestioned authority to demand safe work conditions, prevent hazards, correct deficiencies on the job or completely stop unsafe jobs. Our directive has been tested many times over the years, but has survived. We do realize, however, that tough economic times can affect workers personally, and they may become distracted on the job. Losing concentration can cause an injury, so we try to gear up the communication about being safe and staying focused on the job, and we use a variety of media to do so.


2009-11-20T20:46:28-06:00 November 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/origins_of_a_safety_culture/ Answering this month:
- George H. Rogers III, CEO, RQ Construction Inc.
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Please talk about the experiences that formed your commitment to safety.
Rogers: RQ Construction was founded in 1996 with a great entrepreneurial spirit. For five years we had the belief that our operations were "safe." However, we discovered that we were not so much a safe company as a very fortunate company during those initial years. We came to realize our shortcomings and lack of leadership in safety in 2001, when injuries to our employees and people working on several projects threatened the health of our enterprise. With enough safety incidents to get the attention of executives, we were fortunate to be introspective and critical. Rather than conclude that we were victims of circumstances, we concluded that we were responsible for the lack of good safety experience and, more important, responsible for the lack of a great safety program and safety culture. The shareholder group began to examine core issues and made safety a value. We sought out our employees and engaged with them in this process both for input and buy-in. Our employees responded enthusiastically. Safety was made a value: "Safety – We value people over all other things. We are committed to a safe work environment." We committed and communicated to all of our stakeholders that we are accountable for this value and asked our stakeholders to hold us accountable. Initially we believed managing to higher safety standards would have a negative impact upon production rates. However, when we made safety a company value we knew values supersede profits and were therefore willing to accept the cost of safety. Early in the transition we did experience some initial "cost" impacts with respect to safety training, gear and significantly changing company culture. Some people didn't want to change; they were let go. It didn't take us very long to realize that the right investments in safety and the struggles associated with the changes had just the opposite result on profits – enhancing them rather than being just a cost. In other words, we found safety to be a great investment with great returns. To give some perspective, our EMR was higher than 1.2 in 2002 but has been lower than 0.67 since 2006. This happened during a period of significant growth in the size and scope of our projects, the number of employees, and company revenue. Since 2001, we have incurred only one lost work day incident due to an injury or illness. In retrospect, safety was neither a value nor part of our culture in the early years at RQ. Those days are gone; it is now a value and embedded into our culture. As CEO, my core commitment comes from something I learned at a young age as a moral command, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." How can I ask our employees and stakeholders to work in anything other than a safe environment when I want to live and work in nothing less? 


What do you think is the most effective way to convert CEOs who still do not understand the value of safety and health?
Rogers: I do not know an excellent CEO who doesn't attribute his or her company's success to its people. My first appeal would be this: A company cannot credibly represent that it values people without being truly committed to a culture of safety. The true value of safety is founded in the value of human life. A safe work environment with management commitment and employee involvement helps us achieve bottom-line success and does not waste valuable human resources. From a financial perspective, there is a simple principle that affects company profits: We live in a world where the cost of accidents can drive our companies out of business.  As CEOs, we have to do everything in our power to drive a safe culture within our organizations. In my opinion, tolerating a workplace where employee safety is a low priority is not an acceptable culture. The CEO has the responsibility to prioritize and demonstrate commitment to employee safety. CEOs must value and inspire our employees to believe in their value as individuals and team members. Sometimes the ROI on safe practices can be a little tough to calculate, but the costs of failure are glaringly easy to calculate.


2009-11-01T19:16:36-06:00 October 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/defining_safetys_authority/ Answering this month:
- Davis Mullholand, President and CEO, CCI Mechanical Inc.
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What are some things you've done as a senior executive to influence and improve safety?
Mullholand: As president and CEO, I oversee and am ultimately responsible for the company as a whole. This includes the safety and well-being of each and every one of our employees. This is a responsibility I take very seriously and very personally, and I expect our corporate decisions to always reflect that understanding.  One of the best things we did was a change we made about six years ago. Until that time, the role of safety had been handled by a full-time director during high production times and by other management personnel during slim times. What kind of message do you think that sent? Six years ago, we went two years without a director and our safety program and culture reflected it, as did our insurance loss runs, EMR and incident rates. We had a good program, but no one was truly responsible for it or really driving it.  We hired a full-time safety director who had been contracting with us, and made a commitment that we would never be without one again. About three weeks after we hired him, he came to me and asked what his authority was. I asked him what he meant, and he said, "I need to know if I have the authority to fire someone." He went on to explain that he wasn't looking to do that, but needed to know his boundaries. He had experienced some resistance from one of our foremen and was simply trying to understand where he stood. In other words, "Where does safety stand in the company?" That's a question we had to answer; not only for him, but for the company as a whole. We began to see that to be effective, every person in the company needed to understand his or her authority, especially related to safety. It wasn't about a power trip or egos; it was about contributing to the company's success and illustrating our commitment to a safe working environment.  From the onset, our safety director has reported directly to the president. Through this structure, we eliminated operational conflicts of interest and placed our safety director on equal footing with our firm's division leaders. We also changed our commitment to safety from "when we can afford it" to "this is a critical success factor." A side note that some people may find funny, but that has also proven effective: Another aspect of our firm is professionalism at all times. We take pride in every aspect of our work. We asked our safety director to wear slacks and shirts with collars. It was a simple thing, but it set him apart as management. He was reluctant at first, believing it better to be "one of the guys" in jeans and a polo shirt. Although he still jokes about being the only safety guy he knows that doesn't wear jeans and kiddingly asks if he can have an allowance for dry cleaning, he confides that he has seen a change in how he is perceived. The interesting thing is that he felt more of a change from the office. It changed how people in the office looked at him and that, in turn, changed how the field viewed him and his role as safety director. "Dress for success" really has some truth.  We expect our people to want to do the job right the first time and every time. We are looking for each employee to be a safety director. We have given written authorization to all employees to stop work if they believe it is unsafe. Safety at CCI goes from the top down and from the bottom up. We provide quality products and services, safely.  By having a full-time safety director who reports directly to the president of the company, giving the director the authority he needs to be effective and maintaining our professionalism, we have made safety a corporate value, not "the safety director's job."






2009-10-01T22:47:37-06:00 September 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/recognizing_the_risks/ Answering this month:
- Richard A. Sperber, President and CEO, ValleyCrest Landscape Companies
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Please talk about the experiences that formed ValleyCrest's commitment to safety.
Sperber: ValleyCrest always has been committed to safety since day one, more than 60 years ago when we were founded, and that's because we recognized the unique nature and inherent risks of the landscape business. The safety of our employees is of utmost importance to us, which is why it is one of ValleyCrest's core values. We've adjusted and adapted over the years as the industry matured, and we've grown to become the nation's largest landscape services firm. Every employee understands that working unsafely will not be tolerated, which probably helps prevent more serious injuries because everyone is simply more aware of what's needed to work safer. The unique nature of the landscape services business means we must approach safety with a slightly different philosophy than a company that operates a fixed factory or plant where workers are somewhat contained at one location or in one general area. Our workforce is deployed outdoors on thousands of commercial customer jobsites every day across the country. In a typical day our crews are out on the road in more than 4,200 trucks, pulling nearly 2,150 trailers to jobsites where they'll operate some 7,700 pieces of equipment ranging from mowers, edgers and blowers to loaders, soil compactors and trenchers. That's a lot of moving parts at a multitude of locations, and it requires us to be on our toes every minute. Obviously, to achieve success we have required considerable attention and dedication from all levels. I am truly proud of our organization of more than 10,000 employees in more than 24 states who all support and uphold a model safety program and follow our safety rules and policies to meet the challenges faced every day. In fact, since 2002, when we recentralized and established our current safety program, we have succeeded in building an industry-leading model that even draws attention from customers who seek to replicate it within their own organizations. Our teams also practice ongoing field training beyond the required and formal training we do to comply with all federal, state and local regulations. For instance, each morning, our crews gather in the dispatch yard for a quick huddle. If there is a possible storm on the horizon, crew leaders may use the time to discuss wet driving conditions and remind drivers of the recommended safe distances when pulling a trailer on wet roads. We also developed a buddy system, and new crew members must wear a green safety vest for their first 90 days. This makes them more visible in the field and makes our tenured employees more alert to the actions of our newest team members. These are only a few of the simple ways we continue to teach and remind all workers to practice safe work habits. ValleyCrest's safety training initiatives are aggressive and proactive. They include a new-hire safety orientation, monthly training sessions for all supervisory field management, weekly safety conference calls, safety training compliance, a toll-free safety hotline and weekly tailgate meetings. In addition, the company offers quarterly safety incentives for safe work habits, culminating in an annual truck giveaway for safe workers – over the past seven years we've awarded 37 trucks. And we have continued our safety incentives in light of recent economic turmoil – we have not wavered from rewarding some very deserving individuals for their role in our safety successes. One of the annual events in our landscape maintenance division that is popular is "Field Day." The organization's management teams, which include top-level executives from all over the country, are out in the field with our crews for a full eight hours – in full uniform – doing the work that has made us the best, but always in the safest manner possible. In the history of the event, we have not recorded a single workers' compensation injury, which we believe stems from continued training and understanding of the only way to do what we do – the right way, which is, of course, the safest.






2009-09-01T17:30:19-06:00 August 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/senior_management_and_the_safety_professional_the_employers_role_in_off-the/ Answering this month:
- Joseph J. Ucciferro, President & CEO, Commercial and Public Sector Businesses, Day & Zimmermann
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What are some things you do as a senior executive to be actively involved in safety, health and environment?
Ucciferro: Back in the mid-1990s, Day & Zimmermann established the Day & Zimmermann Safety Council. The safety professionals from each of our major business areas get together on a periodic basis with me to discuss a number of things, including best practices, issues within the facilities and trends. All of that culminates with what I would call a safety summit. We bring executives and safety professionals together for a day and a half to talk about common safety issues their businesses face. This elevates the importance of safety professionals and allows management to clearly understand what the issues are in safety. It reinforces all of the elements that are key to strengthening the culture and tightens up the entire process. In those meetings, we talk about trends in the overall corporation and projects that have qualified for and been selected as the winner of the Day & Zimmermann Safety Award, as well as celebrate success. One of our safety award winners had been invited about nine years ago to the safety summit because he was part of one of the worst-performing businesses. I am proud to say his unit went from being the worst to the best performing, and that the summit was the driver for change. I think that by being involved from a personal perspective with the safety professionals, our executives have come to feel very comfortable – they "get it." We start meetings with safety topics. In performance appraisals, the first thing we talk about is safety ... and it catches on. The reason we care about safety is not because it is a business imperative. It is not because safety affects the bottom line. These things are important, but they are not the driver for us. We care about safety because we care about our people, period.


What role should employers play in promoting off-the-job safety?
Ucciferro: Of the 120,000 people a year who die of unintentional injuries in America, approximately 53,000 are workers who die off the job. How can you expect to develop a world-class safety culture if you don't wrap on-the-job safety with off-the-job safety and deal with them using a 24/7 holistic approach? The answer is you can't. I can't tell you how many times I've heard CEOs say, "I care about my employees, and I want every one of them to go home in at least as good a condition as when they came to work." Whenever I hear that, I can't help thinking the CEO just told those folks he cared about his employees only when they were at work. That's simply not enough. When most people think about dying of an unintentional injury off the job, they think about someone other than themselves. Well, they're wrong. Take the case of one of my safety professionals who was also a pilot. He got in an airplane knowing he was low on fuel, with the intent of flying to an airport about five minutes away to fuel his plane. He ran out of fuel, crashed and died. I'd been in safety training programs with him – he was the kind of person who would never walk past an unsafe act without stopping it or allow an unsafe condition to exist. Yet he got in that airplane knowing he had very little fuel. So, the 24/7 holistic approach to safety is the real deal. People who understand workplace safety can be the entry points into the home and community. You can be safety ambassadors and lead the way there. This is our biggest challenge. We must reverse the increasing trend of home and community deaths to reverse the trend of the increasing total death rate in America.


2009-08-01T16:10:27-06:00 July 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/topic/ Answering this month:
- Peter Bridle, Director, Corporate HSE&Q, Noble Drilling Services Inc.
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What do you think is the most effective way to convert CEOs who still do not understand the value of safety and health?
Bridle: I often purposely try to draw on a personal experience to make a key point. In safety, this almost always means something involving a close friend or family member. Talking about friends and loved ones is something we all can immediately relate to, and can be a powerful way of tapping into someone's interest. If the point is made, the follow-through is always to bring it full circle, relating the key point back to the work environment to make it "stick." By reframing the opportunities that present themselves on a daily basis in the form of what is important, what gets recognized and rewarded, and what differences can be attained in the workplace, we can preserve people's quality of life.  


What is the role of safety and health in relation to your company's competitiveness in the global economy?
Bridle: Noble provides worldwide drilling services to the exploration and production industry. We are a company that prides itself on delivering the highest standards – both in terms of operational efficiency and in an operating culture that is focused on safety. Our customers often deliberately seek out and employ contractors that consistently perform at such levels. This can lead to work being favorably renegotiated or extended, or to new work being won. Performance as measured by the industry metrics of lost-time injuries and total recordable incident rate can play an important part in influencing these decisions, and companies that have a poor track record on safety performance or lack commitment from upper management will struggle. Beyond the statistics and the direct correlation with customer relationships, Noble strives to achieve the highest standards for safety performance for another reason: Real lives are impacted if we get it wrong. Approaching safety from a sense of genuine care and concern, rather than as a compliance requirement, is "felt" by the organization and employees alike. This becomes contagious – and employees, supervisors and managers all embrace a way of work that makes safety personal and keeps a firm eye on all friends, families and loved ones whose lives could be changed forever if we get it wrong. We measure a job as well-done if no one gets injured.   Often, safety and health is not valued in the same way across cultures or organizations. What are the initial steps to lay down the foundation for a sound safety culture? Bridle: I think many companies traditionally have viewed safety, health and environmental management as an "add-on." Furthermore, many companies in the past have opted to employ Total Quality Management principles to manage better SH&E results. Although TQM seems like a sound philosophy, it often misses the essential truth that, for the most part, safety performance is inextricably linked to human behavior. Find out what motivates people – and frame safety conversations around this – and you are well on your way to creating a better safety culture. For example, if a company is in the midst of layoffs and its employees consider safety something "extra" they do for the company or customer, it will be a challenge to keep those workers motivated. However, if workers see their own safety and health as something that is an essential prequalification to getting future paid work, they will likely remain engaged. I have particularly found this to be the case with cultures in developing countries.


2009-07-01T19:22:20-06:00 June 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/safety_across_all_cultures_a_key_message_for_ceos/ Answering this month:
- Abdul Rahman Jawahery, President & CEO, Gulf Petrochemical Industries Co.
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Corporations are going through mergers and dealing with varying workforces, and safety and health often is not valued in the same way across cultures or organizations. What would you recommend as the initial steps to lay the foundation for a sound safety culture?
Jawahery: Organizational change issues are difficult for employees, management, business performance and long-term success. Whether the change is a result of a merger, a changing workforce or other business factors, the process is painful. Nevertheless, change is the only constant in any business if it is to survive and prosper in the face of competition. Moreover, management books and literature are full of information about organizational culture change. Several years ago, W.L. Frank gave a very powerful presentation titled "Essential Elements of a Sound Safety Culture," which addressed the key issues relating to safety culture in the process industry. I believe that those lessons are common to all businesses. Essentially, organizational safety culture change is about leadership. Business leaders have to determine the level of the safety culture in the organization. In the case of a merger, it is essential to know the level and effectiveness of the safety culture in each organization prior to the merger. Leaders can then decide where they wish to take the safety culture of the merged organization and set strategies, drawing a road map for the workforce to navigate toward a perceived vision. When establishing the above targets, one has to be practical and define the key characteristics or attributes of the desired safety culture, such as: Establish the mindset that safety is a core valueProvide strong leadership (at all levels) Establish and enforce high standards of performance Maintain a sense of vulnerability and fear of complacency Empower employees to successfully fulfill their safety responsibilities Establish and maintain open communications Establish a questioning/learning environment Establish and maintain mutual trust and respect for safety champions Provide swift response to safety issues and concerns Ensure continuous monitoring of safety performance These attributes were recently published in the "International Fertilizer Industry Association's Safety Handbook," compiled by IFA's Technical Committee under my chairmanship.


What do you think will be the most effective way to convert CEOs who still do not understand the value of safety and health? If you got the chance to have an "elevator talk" with them, what are the first two things you would share?
Jawahery: It is hard to believe that there are business leaders in today's business environment that do not understand and appreciate the value of safety and health. Nevertheless, accidents at the workplace and off the job are reminders that some of us are not doing our part to value safety and health appropriately. My key message to CEOs is the following: It is your job to ensure your company is profitable, and to do so, you must eliminate all unnecessary costs – especially costs resulting from poor leadership and poor commitment to safety and health. Safety and health are not confined to one industry sector. Safety and health form an integral part of any business, irrespective of size or type of product. CEOs have a moral obligation to embrace safety and health rather than regard it as a concept that requires legal compliance and carries compensation issues that need to be avoided.


2009-06-01T14:36:20-06:00 May 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/demonstrating_a_commitment/ Answering this month:
- Kent McElhattan, Chairman and CEO, Industrial Scientific Corp.
- Abdulkarim Al-Sayed, Chief Executive, Bahrain Petroleum Co.

Please talk about the experiences that formed your commitment to safety.
McElhattan: My commitment to safety became emotional during the 15 years I worked at a mining machinery manufacturer that built continuous miners, shuttle cars and locomotives used in underground mining.  During those years, three of our service people were killed in three separate mine accidents: one in South Africa, one in Australia and one in the United States. Two were gas-related; one was crushed. None of the accidents was high profile or labeled a "disaster" by the media, yet all three left families and friends as devastated as if hundreds of people had been killed. Almost 40 years later, the impact of these deaths is still felt by the families and friends of the deceased. The lessons I learned were about the power of one: each person, every single life. Those families did not care that fatal accident rates were a fraction of what they had been 20 years earlier in mining. Neither did I. It didn't hurt any less that only one person was killed each time. I love statistics and we use them relentlessly, but they're cold and empty when it's your husband, your father or your co-worker. I think it's easier to embrace safety as a value when that's the industry you serve. Industrial Scientific is a medium-sized, light manufacturing company. We have 900 employees in 17 countries and annual sales that will cross over $200 million in 2009. Our vision is quite simple, really – that no one should be killed at work. As a company, we've been tested many times through the years. Each time, I think of the three service men and am so grateful for the courage, commitment and perspective they give me in transforming our vision to reality.


What should a leader do to demonstrate a commitment to safety?
Al-Sayed: You can only achieve safety, health and environmental excellence by creating passion for it among employees. To do this, a leader must have credibility within the organization. To use myself as an example: I have worked for 43 years at BAPCO. Most of the shop floor employees today know that I am very much interested personally in SH&E and continue to be responsible for it. That means a lot to employees in terms of acceptance. I believe it has definitely helped convince our employees that safety is the right thing to do. It is important that leadership's philosophy for SH&E is very clear to the organization.
Ucciferro: To build a strong safety culture, the CEO must establish himself or herself as Chief Safety Officer. This demonstrates to everybody that the highest level of leadership is committed to safety. The CEO must have an unwavering commitment to safety. That means you can't be working on your BlackBerry when somebody is giving a safety presentation in a meeting. That means you have to be fully committed and never waver from holding the entire organization accountable. We don't have a vice president of SH&E at Day & Zimmermann. I function in that role. We want the entire organization to see me connected and aligned with the safety professionals. We have given safety professionals the power to shut down an entire project if there was a case in which management wasn't responding to safety issues. Yet we also make it clear that they are not responsible for safety. That is line management's responsibility. Safety professionals are very important – they are not second-class citizens.

2009-05-01T19:14:23-06:00 April 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/the_importance_of_maintaining_a_strong_management_system/ Answering this month:
- Sherri K. Stuewer, Vice President, Safety, Health and Environment, Exxon Mobil Corp.
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Please talk about your organization's safety, health and environmental management system.
Stuewer: The genesis of ExxonMobil's Operations Integrity Management System, or OIMS, goes back, in large part, to the Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, AK, and other events that occurred in the industry at the same time. The Valdez spill was a painful and emotional event for the people in the company. We thought we were better than that. But out of that traumatic event came the commitment to build a management system that could be used globally to strengthen the way we manage SH&E risks. Now it is woven into the fabric of our operation and is the foundation of how we manage our SH&E performance globally. OIMS was launched in 1992. We chose the term "operations integrity" to encompass all aspects, including safety, health and environment – and later, security. OIMS provides a common approach – a structure used in all of our facilities globally, from drilling rigs to refineries, from retail stores to our transport operations. At the highest level, OIMS is built around 11 elements of SH&E risk – beginning with management leadership, commitment and accountability. Supporting each of these elements is a set of common expectations that drives the detail of the areas to be addressed. There are 64 of these corporate expectations in total. But at the operating level – where the rubber really meets the road – the 11 elements and 64 expectations are operationalized by a family of management systems. OIMS is an umbrella management system under which there are more detailed management systems. Together, those systems translate OIMS expectations into actionable steps. It is not always clear what is meant by the phrase "management systems." At ExxonMobil, five key characteristics define a management system: scope and objectives, procedures, roles and responsibilities, verification and measurement, and a feedback mechanism. Simply declaring expectations to an organization doesn't mean they will be consistently implemented and deliver results. So, the 11th element in OIMS calls for a comprehensive process for assessment and improvement. Every assessable unit across the company conducts a thorough, annual self-assessment of the management systems and their effectiveness. In this manner, opportunities for improvement are identified and addressed by actionable steps that are stewarded to closure. These assessments are conducted by experts at the sites who are most knowledgeable about the operations. But to provide further verification, we have an independent validation of these assessments by a team of experts from outside the assessable unit. These external assessments occur every three to five years, and the external teams are made up, in part, of people from peer operations. Those peers bring the best practices from their operations, and they take away from those assessments ideas for improvement in their home operations. We are a company made up largely of engineers, so we like to measure things. OIMS is no exception. Every assessment provides ratings for each of the OIMS elements on two dimensions: first, the status – or quality – of the system itself; second, its effectiveness in delivering the desired result. The ratings for OIMS assessments are stewarded up-line to the presidents of our operating organizations. The aggregated ratings, as well as any outlying performers, go all the way to our management committee. It is that kind of stewardship that helps our system remain vital and effective. OIMS remains current and relevant, in part, because every five years we step back and conduct an integrated assessment of the whole process. Through those cycles of improvement over the past 15 years, we have strengthened and enriched the system.






2009-04-01T22:50:38-06:00 March 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/staying_focused_on_safety_during_tough_economic_times_the_organizations_rol/ Answering this month:
- Sherri K. Stuewer, Vice President, Safety, Health and Environment, Exxon Mobil Corp.
- Joseph J. Ucciferro, President & CEO, Commercial and Public Sector Businesses, Day & Zimmermann

In tough economic times, many organizations experience conflict over budgets and priorities. As a leader, what do you do to keep emphasis and focus on your safety, health and environmental program?
Stuewer: Large global organizations, in particular, have a challenge to adhere to budget if the business is tight. I have had the experience of being a refinery manager when refining was not making any money. Budgets were tight, and everyone was under a great deal of pressure. From a corporate level, the challenge is: When faced with the very natural pressure to push down on budgets, how do you apply pressure back to protect workplace safety and environmental integrity? In my industry, we have seen cases in which, without that backpressure, the downward pressure of budgets has resulted in the operation of substandard equipment. When this occurs, safety or environmental incidents can result. One of the things ExxonMobil has done through our Operations Integrity Management System is create risk management tools that provide leading indicators on the status of our equipment. Those indicators help senior management understand the implications of budget pressure. In our business, it is terribly shortsighted to let budget pressures increase safety and operating risks. No single thing can take a business down faster than a major incident. Figuring out how, in a management structure, to watch the accumulated risk and make sure you are continuing to address those risks in an organized fashion is essential. Without that backpressure, it is too easy to let budgets drive an organization to accept higher levels of safety and environmental risks.


What role does the safety professional play in your organization in promoting off-the-job safety?
Ucciferro: At Day & Zimmermann, our safety professionals are completely aligned in a 24/7 approach. In our safety meetings, a good deal of what we report on is not so much what our folks are experiencing on the job – it's what are they experiencing in their personal lives. We have been tracking off-the-job injuries for about 10 years now. Getting employees to report injuries that occur off the job is always a challenge. We went through a great deal of discussion about this. Some workers argued that OSHA had no requirement to report off-the-job injuries and believed that if they did so, some managers might view them as unsafe. Finally we said, "Look, just report them anonymously if you’re uncomfortable reporting under your name." We want to know if our employees are getting hurt away from work. We need to know if our off-the-job efforts are making differences in the personal lives of our employees. We send out off-the-job messages every week. At the end of the day, I wish I could tell you we have eliminated off-the-job injuries, but we haven't. We're doing a lot better, but the number of off-the-job injuries continue to be much greater than on-the-job injuries.


2009-03-01T23:28:30-06:00 February 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/what_to_do_when_ceos_dont_get_it_managements_role_in_training/ Answering this month:
- Joseph J. Ucciferro, President & CEO, Commercial and Public Sector Businesses, Day & Zimmermann
- Michael F. Henderek, Vice Chairman, National Safety Council Board of Directors

What advice do you have for committed environmental, health and safety professionals who are working in an organization where the CEO and other leaders don't really 'get it'?
Ucciferro: I can't tell you how many times I've been asked this question, and, yet, I'm not sure that I've ever been able to answer it effectively. But I will say that it's clear to me that even with all of the great work that safety professionals do, with all of the great skills and competencies that they bring, if your management – up to and including the CEO – is not completely on board with this process, you will never have a world-class, sustainable safety culture that will fuel itself. You need to find ways to push back and do what leadership and management do to you – they hold you accountable. You need to hold them accountable. There are a lot of ways to communicate. Surveys are one example. You might have engagement surveys or employee surveys. Put your thoughts in there, and be courageous about it. Say, "My leadership doesn’t get it. Here’s what they need to do." In fact, you might even encourage management to get involved with outside organizations where you're seeing safety and business performance being integrated. We've found over the years that better-performing companies have better safety records. This is not a coincidence. Look for ways to put pressure on your management team to mobilize them, creating a team atmosphere. Where there is unity, there is strength. You should not be working in an organization and tolerate a leadership structure that is not committed to safety.


After an initial safety summit to deliver the message of improving performance, what is the appropriate frequency of continuing training for supervisors?
Henderek: This is a question that cannot be easily answered. An initial safety summit is a good venue for leadership to deliver a message that a significant improvement in safety performance is expected. However, senior leaders must do more. They must determine the skills and supervisory behaviors needed to drive the improvement and assess the skills the supervisors currently have. If the organization is mature and supervisors have a good combination of leadership and technical skills, periodic meetings and regular field visits with senior leadership and the workforce may work very well to guide improvement. If the organization is less mature, a significant training intervention may be needed for supervisors and the workforce. For example, introducing behavior-based safety into an organization where the supervisors have only very basic safety skills would require major supervisory training with a management follow-up to ensure the training actually resulted in changed approaches. Ideally, such training should cascade from the top down, with active management participation in the training process and leadership ensuring that those at each level in the cascade have the appropriate skills to be successful in the new environment. Supervisory training is only one part of the total equation. Ongoing attention and senior leadership examples are essential, as is involving the complete workforce through the supervisors.


2009-02-01T22:01:57-06:00 January 2009 http://list.nsc.org/membersonly/index.php/executiveforum/issue/management_expectations_and_emphasis/ Answering this month:
- Joseph J. Ucciferro, President & CEO, Commercial and Public Sector Businesses, Day & Zimmermann
- Sherri K. Stuewer, Vice President, Safety, Health and Environment, Exxon Mobil Corp.

What do you, as a CEO, expect your safety, health and environment manager to do for you? What are some examples where you had to redirect what they did?
Ucciferro: First, let me say what I do not expect from our SH&E managers. I do not expect them to be responsible for safety (except for their own safety, of course). Line management is responsible and accountable for safety. I expect our safety managers to recommend and establish policy; interpret regulations governing our work; participate in the development of pre-task safety plans; share lessons learned and best practices; participate in self-assessments and root-cause accident eval-uations; collect and trend relevant safety data; conduct safety inspections and walkdowns; develop safety plans with short- and long-term actions; hire, manage and develop safety professionals; develop and conduct training programs; issue safety bulletins and newsletters; support our safety Websites; consider both on-the-job and off-the-job safety part of their scope of responsibility; organize our annual safety summit conference; and make recommendations for safety business unit and individual awards. Several situations come to mind where we had to redirect what we were doing to improve safety performance. The first is we had a couple of isolated project sites where site managers felt they could ask the safety manager to take care of safety while the site manager tended to other responsibilities. We had not been as inclusive as we thought when we were communicating that line management was responsible for safety. We had to go back and remind all management personnel of this. The second is we had some site managers who thought safety recommendations made by safety managers were "optional." To correct this, we communicated that safety managers had the power to shut down entire projects if the site manager did not implement recommendations. We told the site managers, "God help you if a safety manager has to shut your job down." It is probably no surprise we have never had a safety manager shut a project down. Another example of where we had to redirect relates to accident investigations. In the past, some site managers were asking safety managers to take the lead in performing accident investigations. We require that line managers take the lead in the investigations and the safety managers support them. This way, the line managers are totally accountable and drawn deeply into the assessment process.


What is the next leap in safety management?
Stuewer: There are a couple of areas where we are placing some new, additional emphasis. One is in the area of SH&E leadership – working on key performance tools, training and career development processes. Our objective is to help develop and improve the leadership behaviors necessary to achieve SH&E excellence. One key aspect of this leadership initiative is that we recognize that anyone can be a SH&E leader – not just managers. I think this initiative will strengthen the link between workers and management in the pursuit of better safety. Another new dimension is improving the balance between the leading and lagging performance metrics we use to measure and steward our safety performance. It's important to measure and track results, but it's also important to measure the processes we use to achieve those results and learn from incidents that could have been much worse.


2009-01-01T16:01:17-06:00