Employee Safety Process at an Ore-Processing Facility

Recently, the corporation, owner of approximately seven businesses worldwide, identified behavior-based safety as a best practice and encouraged its implementation throughout the organization. This was a convincing validation of the success of the VBSP described in this book. 

The production of alumina, which is extracted from bauxite ore, is a business with many hazards. Employees work in situations where they are at risk of burns from caustic chemicals, hot liquids, and extremely high heat as well as of injuries resulting from the traditional hazards common to most industrial settings, such as slips and trips. This particular plant, however, had more problems than most. It was 

Given the serious problems with the physical condition of the plant, we were a bit hesitant to undertake this project. However, employees believed that management was serious about improving safety, and we became convinced that management was serious about safety and would do all it could to maintain and upgrade the facility in conjunction with the behavioral process. These management efforts helped the behavioral process to be successful. 

To assist in improving the safety process, we first conducted a safety assessment as detailed in this book. A preestablished company safety team became the design team. Most of its 15 members were hourly workers. Quality Safety Edge consultants conducted a three-day workshop on values-based safety and then facilitated four two-day meetings to design a safety process that included the following components  

One goal of the safety process was to have all employees trained in conducting observations. However, given the large number of employees, a novel approach to observation training had to be taken. To accomplish our goal, we held train-the-trainer sessions in which we trained 12 area safety representatives on how to conduct observations, manage safety data, create action plans, and dehver feedback. These safety representatives then trained the other employees in their areas. 

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