Making zero the hero when it comes to workplace health and safety
Today's challenge
Nothing is more important to our company than the health and safety of our people. But making continuous progress on reducing workplace accidents is a tough challenge. In 2002, the performance at our Dofasco Hamilton plant in Canada had reached a plateau - it was good, but from the benchmarking work we'd done we knew it was not as good as the levels being achieved by world leaders in this field. Our standards and policies were world-class, the question was, how could we turn them into world-class performance? What were others doing that was making the difference?
Identifying the problem
We decided to speak directly to DuPont, and quickly discovered that they had been using a pioneering new approach based on one crucial insight: you cannot change people's behaviour unless you first change their beliefs. Extensive research had been carried out on DuPont, Milliken and other world-class companies using a survey of all their employees, asking them what they believed about health and safety. For example, did they think all accidents are preventable, and how high a priority did they think safety was for the company? The research proved that there was an extremely strong correlation between what people believed, and how well their site performed. We realised straightaway that there was potential to apply the same thinking at Dofasco.
Our response
Our version of the process started in 2003 under the title 'Journey to Zero', in other words, making the achievement of a no injuries or illnesses our ultimate goal. The aim was to engage people at every level of the organisation, and after the survey responses had been analysed we convened a number of focus groups to share the results, choosing them from a cross-section of management, employees and functions, from the CEO down. We identified the beliefs we wanted the company to have, and then established project teams to address the gap between where we were, and where we wanted to be.
Developing a practical solution
So far over 200 people have participated in 27 different projects. We've developed a shared set of 'Our Rules', which every employee has to follow in any potentially life-threatening situation. We've made health and safety more visible throughout the business by engaging with people at every level. We've substantially upgraded our planning and accident investigation procedures, which feed directly back into more effective prevention. And we've drawn up new accountabilities for the leadership team, who now have health and safety objectives included in their management performance review.
We're also developing a new health screening programme which we hope to offer to every employee at least once every two years.
The results
In the five years since 2003 we have seen a steady reduction in all of our key performance indicators. In particular our Lost Time Injury frequency went from 10.55 (per 1,000,000 manhours) to 0.99, which is a 91% improvement. We're making real progress towards the level of performance we aspire to.
Another survey was carried out in March 2008, as part of the ArcelorMittal Health and Safety Day, and we'll be sharing the results with the rest of the business before the end of the year. Early indications show that we've managed to make some significant shifts in our employees' beliefs about health and safety, which will help drive further improvements for 2009.
Lessons learned
The success of this whole process has hinged on gaining leadership and commitment from the top, and then involving all levels of the organisation in shared action plans. As a result we've made better and faster improvements than expected. When we started the process in 2003 there was admittedly some degree of scepticism: some people felt it was just another management fad that wouldn't last, and others felt the whole idea of a no injuries or illnesses was impractical and therefore unrealistic. Dogged perseverance has addressed the former, while continuous and careful implementation of the improvements convinced people that we must always aspire to 'zero', and this process is about the journey of incremental steps we take to get there.
Tomorrow's ambition
The Journey to Zero improvement process has been approved by the Group Management Board of ArcelorMittal and will now be implemented across the whole Group. Each of our sites has its own issues and challenges, but the beauty of this strategic improvement process is that it's easily adaptable to different circumstances, and can accommodate a wide range of different projects and initiatives.
John Macnamara, who helped spearhead the Hamilton programme, is now Vice President - Health and Safety for ArcelorMittal Global and is supporting the roll-out of the process across the rest of the business: "I'm proud of how everyone at Hamilton pulled together on this, and in August 2007 we celebrated the first period of 100 days we'd ever had without a lost time to injury. Quite an achievement. We've done that by engaging our people, and relentless and persistent execution. And now we're putting the same focus on the next phase of improvement - we've a way to go to match the likes of DuPont and Milliken, but the line on the chart is still heading the right way."
Lisa Williamson, Manager of Health and Safety at ArcelorMittal Dofasco, adds, "I can't stress strongly enough that this was a joint effort by everyone concerned, and this was the key to its success. Every level of the organisation got involved, and it's that momentum we can thank for what we've achieved so far."
Picture: An Employee at ArcelorMittal Dofasco