How one Global Food Manufacturer Gained an Appetite for Safety
A global food manufacturer had an ongoing safety dilemma requiring them to rebuild their foundational learnings, create a unified safety vision and implement a transformational change. Roadmaps were designed to meet the site where they currently are as well as help them to move sustainability to the next level of cultural maturity.
Challenge
A global food manufacturer had an ongoing safety dilemma: From 2016-2022, company-wide safety performance plateaued between 600 and 700 injuries per year among its workforce of 18,000+. Recent acquisitions and leadership turnover diluted foundational learnings that had, at one point, contributed to a strong safety culture.
The company’s leaders were looking to bring new energy and innovation to their safety program that would help them build personal ownership and accountability among the company’s operations leaders and managers.
dss+ Approach
dss+ began by conducting a company-wide assessment to gain a deeper insight into the company's culture and understand how employees really felt about safety. The insights were shared with the senior leadership team, and a collaborative, phased approach was developed to align all levels of leadership with employees at the shop floor to build a strong and sustainable safety culture.
Consultants focused on site operational leaders by facilitating 23 regional workshops to target and strengthen capabilities and customize solutions to enhance existing processes and tools. Over a period of one year, dss+ consultants worked with 21 sites and engaged in coaching activities that helped develop capabilities to apply a science-based affective, risk-based approach to influence behavior and decision-making. Using the company’s existing safety leadership system, site-specific roadmaps were developed. Roadmaps were designed to meet the site where they currently are as well as help them to move sustainability to the next level of cultural maturity.
Assignment
To create a unified safety vision for the company across all levels of leadership and implement site-specific roadmaps to bring transformational change.
Offering
Operational Risk Management, Strategic Safety Leadership
Impact
- Hazardous condition reporting increased 213% between 2022-2023.
- Near miss reporting increased 226% in the same time period.
- Operational Incident Rate improvement increased 32% between 2022-2023, and overall recordable injuries fell 11%.
- Sites with dss+ support showed a 28% reduction in recordable injuries, a 41% reduction in average lost workday cases, and a combined $3.1 million in savings based upon average injury claim costs.
- Sites without dss+ support reported a 2% increase in recordable incidents and a decline in near miss & hazardous conditions reporting.