Safety Culture & A Visit with Joe

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Welcome to week 12 of 2018 and I guess we’re on episode 78 of Warehouse and Operations as a Career.  It’s amazing how fast the years moving and shaking and coming together for us.  As you may know, this first quarter I’ve been very fortunate to have met several new Associates, Leads, Sup’s and Managers and have had the opportunity to visit facilities in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Denver and Texas so far.  It’s really interesting to see the different processes and procedures from place to place, I don’t know if any one procedure or process is better than another really but I do notice they seem to work at the building they were written for.  I personally believe any procedure can be improved upon, maybe easing the workload on our employees, streamlining the flow of paperwork or duplicate reporting or maybe even efficiencies or expense reduction.  If us as employees and Managers aren’t always on the lookout for a better way or more productivity and a Safer way to perform our task I’d have to question if were really doing our job right?

I’ve recently been structuring a class and presentation on Safety Culture, a class I’ll be presenting to groups of recently promoted Lead Men and Women and Sup’s and Managers so I reached out to our WAOC Safety Guy Joe Munoz for some guidance with the curriculum.  I was sharing a couple of questions sent into WAOC about the best way to rollout new objectives to the floor, a few of them pertained to Safety Procedures and Joe suggested maybe we could put together an Episode on the topic of a strong Safety Culture.

Joe, I won’t ever turn down a visit or an opportunity to learn from an experienced pro, how have you been lately Sir?

JOE –   Great!! It’s a pleasure being here and kinds seems like we head to the same places for different reasons, I am also proud to say I have received my official WAOC mug now too!

I can’t believe how the timing worked out on this project, I’m glad everything came together travel wise!  To catch our listeners up, I was traveling to Arizona last week for a facility visit and it just so happened Joe was booked by them to give a class and certify several Supervisors on CPR and ADE use.  It was great running into you out there!

JOE – That was a great time, you know I had the class to certify some newly made lead men in CPR and AED use AFTER they had to deploy that stuff in a real time work place emergency. Good thing for them they had prior training in its use and were still able to save a fellow employee. A very good job by those guys and to their company for also giving a hoot and getting these guys certed with me in the event of another emergency.

So Joe, I hear almost monthly from a Director or VP of Op’s or some member of a Management team a horror story about rolling out some process or procedure and how badly it went.  You know in my experience, and I’ll probably experience one now that I’ve brought it up, but I’ve just never had a bad rollout, not one that I’d call horrific anyway.  I know always being prepared, having a plan, even a plan “B” has helped but I do understand how things can go off in the wrong direction.  I personally think the Culture of the Shift is what makes the difference.  I mean, I find it difficult, if not impossible to teach something new procedure wise if the team doesn’t understand the What, Why and How of the project. In our Operations arena Culture may be more of a belief I guess.  I looked up the word culture from my go to source  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture  and it stated:

b : the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization

I’m thinking a better definition for us may be something like:

d : the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations

Isn’t that just saying Teamwork, following direction, maybe just doing what’s right as a whole?

Here’s where you get to disagree with me lol!

JOE –  It actually all applies Marty as long as you can get it to work, I have had some jobs where you had better not even think of going onto a clean room if you missed one of the decontamination steps, now could some one, yes but the expectation was so alive at the job site no one would dare not do it. Its like doing the right thing when no one is around. So whatever steps you take that make your employees care is a positive one.

So Joe, you’re presenting or teaching Safety Topics to Front Line Supervisors and Managers each week, are they always engaged?  I guess there needs to be a culture of learning too?

JOE – The biggest training problem I have with front line guys are the old heads. You know the senior employees that are used to doing it the “old way” and are resistant to new methods and learning but even so after a few times of doing something more efficiently the training sticks.

A listener recently asked why won’t my employees wrap the pallets correctly, how can I get across that it’s a part of their task and it’s not correct or finished until they’ve done it?  I’m going to go right back and tag it with that the learning or accepting isn’t built within the Culture at his facility?

JOE – Marty, cultures are developed by all employees and reinforced by leadership. When everyone is cool with not giving 100% or accepting substandard steps and procedures, that’s what will be accepted. Want a good example of how the right leadership and culture and attitude cultivate this? Just look at the ARMY, think they are ok with missing a step or not giving your all? Of course, not because all of them there EXPECT more, as should we at the job site. We all certainly expect our employers to care about us if we become injured on the job, then we should also care about being safe and following the procedures that were put in place to keep us safe.

OK Sir, and I totally agree with you, next to you I am Mr. Safety Conscience.  But let’s look at it from a new Order Selector or Loaders perspective.  They have an objective, maybe even their pay depends on productivity.  That new selector’s first instinct, human nature if you will is going to be to creep or walk his jack up 3 bays to the next pick slot.  He’s heard how dangerous that is, maybe even knows of someone that’s run over their foot or pinned their ankle between the jack and bottom bar, but its done a thousand times a shift.  How do you instill that culture in a shift so no one even thinks of doing it? Oh, here’s an example that I heard of this week involving a Supervisor.  A great guy, really engaged with his employees and a rock solid Safety Conscience man.  For a few weeks he’d been a little shorthanded on the production lines, he missed one day reporting this and one day reporting that and wasn’t available for the startup meetings a couple of days to practice a Safety meeting and the next thing he knew when asked about his safety file he was missing 4 days’ worth of topics and meetings.  As a Supervisor even, with the habit’s developed of reporting and documenting everything it got away from him.  Now he got everything caught up of course and is now working on his time management etc but how can we insure that Culture is embedded so deeply that when we as management drop the ball we can rely on a team member to say Hey, we haven’t done our meeting yet?  I think that’s what I’m wanting out of a Culture, how can I get there?

Joe – Well sometimes we can’t see the forest because the trees are in the way, so its important to keep focus. When I was starting out I was so afraid to miss a beat or detail that I carried a pretty large binder with me at all times. Just by following the rules because you believe in them is the first and hardest step. People will treat things the way they see them treated, so set that example and train your people that way, let them know the culture is being developed!

I think your right, I see it as the responsibility fall’s to training.  All our jobs, every position and task has individual steps to them.  If we teach those tasks correctly and not only encourage the Safety Rules with every step it’ll become a part of that task.  I think a lot of team members and managers try and use discipline to instill the Culture of Safety but I think it’s got to be in the training.  Theirs one of those opinions of mine I guess, how far off am I?

Joe – Not very far, when you have guys new to the warehouse or work for that matter what they first learn about an item or procedure or equipment will be what they were first taught in that initial encounter so teach them the right way the first time and every time!

So, can we as hiring agents do a better job on the front side even, well, I know we can do a better job on the front side I guess, I mean since we’ve decided the Culture of the team should be instilled with training we should include that training in our on-boarding and orientations.

Joe – Of course everything needs to reflect that the safety culture is in place and functional!

Joe, I really enjoyed the discussion today and I want to thank you for taking the time with us today here with WAOC Sir.  I can’t wait to step into your class and absorb some of that Safety knowledge you’re going to be spreading around later today!  You know I’m going to bug you again for another visit right?

Joe – it not a bother who else would listen to ranting!!

And as always, I want to thank our listeners, your what it’s all about & I appreciate all your email’s and suggestions!  Remember to take a minute and Like and Follow us on Facebook & Twitter, and we’re having some good discussions with the Facebook group Warehouse Equipment Operators Community, please like and share it as well with your friends!  We had some request for WAOC shirts and Mugs so we opened a store front at https://www.teepublic.com/user/waoc and I’ll add that URL to today Show Notes on our webpage at warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com.  I’ll tell you what we’ll do, we’ll have a drawing for a free WAOC Coffee Mug in 2 weeks.  Just email a thought or opinion on Safety Culture or a Safety Practice to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com to have your name thrown in the hat for the drawing by next Thursday and we’ll announce the winner the following Thursday!  Till next week let’s all work on our Shifts Culture and help a team member with a Safety Practice!