Are your employee safety initiatives enough?

When we come to work, we expect it to be a safe environment. Although employee safety is largely up to employers to structure and enforce, it is also the responsibility of employees to take those initiatives seriously to ensure their own safety.

In manufacturing, logistics, and other industries, where employees are either operating heavy machinery, or handling hazardous materials, it’s critical to have a multi-level safety plan. The list below is just a snapshot of initiatives that should be in place to protect your staff.

Leadership training. Every successful safety plan needs to undergo continuous improvement to keep up with the needs of the company. This responsibility should be given to a head of operations or an executive team member that is dedicated to the initiative. This includes attending OSHA classes and other training to learn about best practices in safety that they can bring back to their team.

Employee training. All new hires should be trained on a company’s safety topics starting on day one. This includes completing any special certifications, such as forklift training, before they can hit the ground running. Safety training should also be kept top-of-mind by holding monthly refresher courses with employees on a variety of subjects.

Get employees involved. Leadership should ask for employee volunteers interested in additional OSHA safety training. These “safety advisors” will act as an extra set of eyes checking for hazards in the work environment. Employees not designated “safety advisors” should still be given regular, structured opportunities to voice any concerns they might have regarding safety in the workplace. You might be surprised what they uncover.

Utilize audits. An audit schedule should be put into place to keep employees focused on continuous improvement. Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) audits not only highlight food safety, but also personnel safety. Behavior Based Safety (BBS) audits ensure that employees are behaving as they were trained, to remain injury-free.

Injury diagnosis. When an injury does occur, utilizing a PC365 nurse (24/7/365 nurse hotline) allows for injuries to be diagnosed on-the-spot. This ensures an employee will get the proper care following a serious injury.

Although it is now against OSHA guidelines to incentivize employees to prevent injuries, it’s important for companies to set high, yet attainable safety goals so that everyone has a number to work toward. After all, safety is a team effort, and requires both leadership and employee cooperation in order to make work a safer place to be. 

Benchmarking Warehouse Performance Starts With Data

Data is the cornerstone of getting a true snapshot of not only how well your distribution center is operating, but also the impression your company is leaving with customers.

However, in order to build toward the answers companies seek, they must start by laying that cornerstone and begin collecting data. Doing so brings a host of questions, including: What data is meaningful and what is just data? How often should we collect the information? What are acceptable numbers and what numbers are indicators of problems in need corrective actions? What do I do with this data to improve processes? All are important questions to ask and the answers may vary by company.

Below are a few important key performance indicators (KPIs) that can help companies get an idea of how their distribution centers are operating.

Shipping accuracy. Arguably one of the most important KPIs, shipping accuracy tracks that the shipment arrives at the destination exactly the way it was released, with the correct item and the correct quantity

Total damage compared to on-hand inventory. Simply, the amount of damage caused in the distribution center compared to the total on-hand inventory.

Inventory accuracy. How accurately is inventory managed? This KPI will review each inventory unit and check that it is in the correct location, has the correct count, and is the correct item compared to information in the warehouse management system.

On-time shipments. This is defined by each shipment leaving the distribution center at or before the scheduled appointment time.

Safety. Many operations will hold a standard of OSHA recordable injuries in a calendar year. While the goal of this KPI always will be zero, each company will set a standard based on past history.

Remember, while these are internal KPIs, each has an impact on how customers view your company.