Overcoming Obstacles to Achieve Safety Excellence

If you are employed at a smaller operation - with potentially smaller resources such as little or
no EHS staff or less funding for EHS programs - you have unique challenges. Here's how one
company met some of those challenges.

If I say the name “Continental Mills,” you might not immediately recognize the name or
the products, because Continental Mills is a smaller, multi-site organization. You might
recognize some of their products, though: Krusteaz baking mixes, Ghirardelli Double
Chocolate Brownie Mix or Buck Wild snack chips probably ring a bell. The company has
over 800 employees at four locations across the country: Washington, Kansas, Illinois
and Kentucky.

“Smaller operations have unique challenges to achieving safety excellence, mainly in the
amount of EHS professional resources available,” said Bob Toohey, CSP, senior manager
of EHS for Continental Mills. “Yet, the responsibility to create a zero-loss environment
still exists, and OSHA requirements for compliance are no less applicable.”

Toohey partnered with Paul English, area safety manager for CMC Steel Texas, to talk
about “Overcoming Obstacles to Achieve Safety Excellence” at the Safety Leadership
Conference 2017 in Atlanta. Toohey shared his experience in helping smaller, multi-site
organizations effectively manage risk and achieve safety excellence with limited
professional EHS resources.

Toohey said safety takes two, parallel tracks at the company: long-term safety
management and daily safety management.
 The first track examines safety incidents and injuries, said Toohey, who noted that
“[incidents] happen when we fail to manage safety programs.” The second track, said
Toohey, focuses on “How do we manage safe daily work?”

In his presentation, Toohey quoted John Heily, owner and CEO of Continental Mills,
who said: “Creating a safe environment is management’s way of saying they care.”

Toohey called his safety philosophy “The Power of Zero and 100:” Creating a zero-harm
work environment while achieving – or perhaps because of achieving – 100 percent
employee involvement and engagement. To maximize limited EHS resources for world-
class results, Toohey made these suggestions:

 Establish EHS roles and responsibilities.

 Include EHS objectives in employee performance management.

 Conduct regular internal EHS systems audits that drive continuous improvement. As part of
that, determine ways to improve EHS skills and foster knowledge development among
employees.

Toohey suggested attendees “get organized” for EHS success. “The days of the safety guy
or gal are gone,” he said. Safety goes much wider than a single person or a single
department. There should be written EHS roles and responsibilities at every level of the
organization, suggested Toohey, from the senior vice president of operations to hourly
support personnel.

In addition, EHS performance should be part of the overall performance management

goals for each employee. That means specific EHS objectives included in employees’
annual goals that are tied into any bonuses, just like production or quality goals.

Because of limited resources, it takes a village to have excellent safety performance,

according to Toohey. He achieves it by engaging members of the safety committee,
safety coordinators at the facilities, safety program leads and teams and EHS program
sponsors, who manage safety challenges like lockout/tagout, confined space, hazcom,
electrical safety, etc., and who are part of site leadership. As part of the aspect of daily
safe work, these program sponsors conduct JHA’s and risk predictions, work area
inspections and behavior audits. “They’re not just counting injuries,” said Toohey. “They
are looking for ways to improve performance.”

The site safety coordinator and the EHS program sponsors report directly to the site
managers, so everyone is kept up-to-date on safety performance.

This attention to detail and responsiveness to safety challenges is paying off at

Continental Mills. In 2007-2008, the company had a total incident rate (TIR) that was
average for its industry and higher than the company wanted. The safety sponsor model
was introduced in 2009, and Toohey noted that started a fairly precipitous drop in the
TIR. In recent years, the company’s TIR rate is less than half of the industry rate and
since 2015, has dipped into what Toohey referred to as “best in class.”

“By involving all leadership and employees in specific EHS responsibilities, the
organization grew towards a zero-harm culture,” said Toohey.