There are many hazards involved in handling and processing steel plate. Severe injury or even loss of life are things nobody wants to occur to them or their team. But there isn’t a switch to flip or a machine that can be bought that eliminates safety risk. The best way to keep everyone safe in risky environments is to embed safety into every process, every operation and every decision. Or, in short, to make safety a pillar of an organization’s culture.

Leeco has done significant work to ingrain safety within our culture, and these efforts are reflected in our strong safety record. As of March 2023, eight of our 11 distribution centers are over five years accident-free. Two of our facilities – Monterrey, MEX and Portage, IN – are over 10 years accident-free!

While we are extremely proud of this record, we recognize that there is always room for improvement. That’s why we appointed Jill Laumann as safety manager in 2021 to revitalize our safety program.

Jill’s leadership brings a tremendous level of cohesion to our now award-winning safety program, and I wanted to share with you some of the recent enhancements we made to build upon our safety culture.

Company-Wide Safety Meetings

We started doing monthly comprehensive, all-warehouse team safety meetings in 2014, but found that the meetings were repetitive and failed to engage the team. We realized that these meetings needed to be more robust and more collaborative.

To achieve this, we started covering a different safety topic each month. These vary between occupation-related and non-occupation-related topics, including anything from clean workspaces to safely working at heights. Crane safety is our number-one concern so, of course, this is covered every single month to keep it top-of-mind.

To make the meetings more collaborative and engaging, we set aside time for open discussions following each monthly topic to collaborate on best practices. These discussions have been invaluable in collecting feedback on current practices, but have also been instrumental in empowering every employee to be a safety leader.

Team Safety Discussions

In addition to safety conversations during company-wide monthly meetings, each warehouse supervisor holds weekly, all-staff safety meetings.

These meetings allow teams to cover safety issues and concerns specific to their building, equipment and workplace, and are less intimidating than company-wide discussions. From finger and body placement when moving steel plate to suggestions on where garbage bins and scrap areas can be moved to reduce tripping risk, these conversations encourage team members to not just look out for the safety of themselves, but of their entire team. We find that this goes a long way in making safety a team effort rather than an individual effort.

We also have daily five-minute safety talks at the start of each shift across all our facilities. Some mornings, there may be a specific topic to discuss, and other days, there may not. Either way, the meetings are meant to be short and communicate that team members need to be safe out on the floor. We find that these talks are crucial in getting everyone to think about working safely as soon as they start the day.

Team Member Empowerment

The third pillar of our revitalized safety program is team member participation and empowerment.

As discussed, we encourage team members to participate in open, continuous safety-related feedback, which includes pointing out potential safety hazards if they noticed a teammate being unsafe. These moments then become the topic of future safety meetings. Rather than being punitive, these meetings are honest and constructive, serving as a teaching moment to prevent future safety hazards.

Since the start of these discussions, warehouse supervisors have noticed an increase in organic safety conversations on their teams. All this communication created a cultural shift within our company to a team-oriented safety mindset.

We find that empowering people to take ownership of their team’s safety also leads to innovation. For example, one of our teams developed a method to cut and weld plate material that significantly reduces injury risk.

A People-Focused, Safety-First Culture

The final pillar of our safety program is empathy. We all have lives outside of work, and life’s curve balls sometimes affect our ability to focus. All warehouse supervisors make it a point to check in with every team member as they walk through the door to see how they are doing.

Our Mexico team has formalized this practice by holding daily morning talks where people can freely discuss how they are feeling. If someone indicates they are not feeling 100%, they are moved to a job function that does not handle heavy equipment. The team is always willing to cover for others, because that is the kind of safety culture we built.

There is no “magic wand” you can wave to keep people safe. A safety culture centered around open communication and a team-focused mindset goes a long way in keeping our people safe. We will continue to improve this program and further identify ways that our safety efforts can be improved.

Thank you for reading, and we look forward to sharing more of our safety achievements and updates with you in the future.

 

Chad Schuh

Vice President of Operations

Chad Schuh, Leeco Steel Vice President of Operations

Mr. Schuh retired in March of 2024 after 18 years with Leeco Steel.