January 2014, Vol. 69 No. 1
Features
‘Nobody Gets Hurt’ Is Safety Culture Of Henkels & McCoy
“Nobody Gets Hurt” succinctly defines the safety vision of utility contractor Henkels & McCoy and the ultimate goal of the company’s safety initiative programs.
Bill Mattiford, vice president of safety, explains how Henkels & McCoy has built an award-winning safety program.
The success of a safety program begins with sponsorship and the higher the level of sponsorship, the greater the likelihood that it will be effective and successful. At Henkels & McCoy, sponsorship is at the highest level – chief executive officer – who recognizes that it is essential that the company has an effective safety program.
Approaching it academically, said Mattiford, there could be a chart showing the CEO as sponsor, always in charge and ultimately responsible. The chart then could indicate the targets for change or all the employees of the company. The sponsor directs development of programs and instructs the targets how the program is to be implemented. As the targets accept and implement the program, including changes as they are made, they become sustaining sponsors and pass the safety process down the line.
Anywhere along the line where the chain is broken, there is a break in sponsorship that must be addressed. “Grass roots implementation of a safety program can’t work without sponsorship,” Mattiford emphasized.
Developing and initiating an effective safety program in a large company doesn’t happen overnight. It can take years, depending on the size of the organization and its culture.
“To begin,” he said, “it is essential to define what the program is to be, its goals and how they will be put into place and achieved.”
Measuring progress
There must be a benchmark to measure progress toward achieving established goals, Mattiford continued.
“A benchmark could be the standard set by a company recognized as ‘best in class,’ ” he explained. “It could be OSHA recordable data rates for injuries with a goal of ‘zero’ over a specified period of time. Gap analysis can define where a company is in its program and where it wants to go. Employee surveys indicate employee attitudes toward safety with follow-up surveys helping measure changes in attitude as a result of programs adopted.”
Mattiford said Henkels & McCoy’s safety culture, process improvements and learning activities focus on the evolution of leading indicators such as training and safety coaching observations, whose real world value lies in systematic, reproducible and principle-focused initiatives.
Damage prevention is an integral part of the overall safety program. Qualified safety observers monitor project sites. “Spotters” are required any time a piece of equipment is moved to prevent it striking equipment or people. As with injury incidents, utility strikes and other damage events are reported, investigated, documented and analyzed.
“We rely,” said Mattiford, “on a safety management system using leading and lagging indicators such as coaching observation trends, work site audits, good catches, near miss incidents, corrective action follow-up, total recordable incident rates (TRIR), days away, restricted duty, and transfers (DART) to perform trend analysis and program validation of our safety performance.
“We also focus on the identification and management of root causes where present in the environment, mindsets or safety systems.”
Mattiford said guiding principles that energize the company’s safety culture and set performance expectations are essential. Principles such as observations with coaching, established training objectives, working safely as a condition of employment and promoting safety both at work and at home are critical to the success of a world class safety culture.
Impressive results
From the company’s Executive Safety Council and Regional Safety Steering Teams, to Process Improvement Teams and individual employees, safety represents a value that is interwoven into Henkels & McCoy’s culture and daily practices.
Applying benchmarks previously cited by Mattiford, results of Henkels & McCoy’s commitment are impressive:
• The company’s OSHA recordable rate improved by over 40 percent from 2008-2012, while the DART incident rate improved by more than 60 percent; and
• In January 2013, DuPont Sustainable Solutions presented Henkels & McCoy with its E.I. DuPont Safety Excellence Award in recognition of outstanding achievements during the previous three years. Mattiford said that at the presentation, DuPont representatives emphasized that to their knowledge, no organization outside of DuPont had ever received this award.
Sharing its safety experience with others in the power industry, Henkels & McCoy is a charter member of the Electrical Transmission and Distribution Partnership, composed of OSHA, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), Edison Electrical Institute (EEI) and other contractors and industry associations working together to reduce worker fatalities, injuries and illnesses in the electrical construction industry. Mattiford said the organization is one of only a few strategic partnerships between employers and OSHA.
Founded in 1923, Henkels & McCoy, Inc. is one of the largest privately held firms providing critical infrastructure for the electric power, renewable energy, communications, natural gas and pipeline and water industries throughout the United States and international locations. The company is based in Blue Bell, PA.
FOR MORE INFO:
Henkels & McCoy, 1-888-HENKELS, www.henkels.com
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