Thank you.
I’m honored to represent Weyerhaeuser at this important conference and have the opportunity to further the cause of safety in our industry. I know that none of us in this room doubt that safety is our number one priority. Too many of us have made that dreaded call to a family telling them that a loved one won’t be returning home from work. Too many of us have seen the effect that the loss of a finger, hand, arm or leg has on the life of a co-worker.
Although our work is not done, we can take comfort in the great strides we’ve made to make our workplaces safer. Over the past five years, the recordable incident rate in our industry has declined 35 percent.
We are becoming a safer industry. But we still lag the petroleum refining and chemical products industries.
But the mere fact that we’re here at this conference tells me that we’re committed to catching and overtaking those industries. We truly believe that our industry can become the standard to which others hold themselves.
As we’ve worked to improve safety at Weyerhaeuser, we’ve discovered through our experience and benchmarking that there are five key lessons on safety. Many of you probably have the same, or a similar list, but let me quickly go through them.
First is visible leadership commitment. As leaders, we must show employees that we believe in safety through our behavior, not just our words. Leaders must create a culture where everyone is absolutely clear about safety expectations and the consequences for not meeting them.
The second key is meaningful employee involvement. As leaders, we must create a culture that motivates and engages employees in making our workplaces safer. If we do that, we will benefit from their ideas and ensure that the commitment to safety lasts long after those of us in this room have retired.
Third, you must have the basics in place of common processes and facts and data upon which to build safety plans. Safety audits, incident investigation and statistics on most frequent cause of incidents are examples.
Fourth, use facts and data to focus on areas of greatest potential improvement. To be useful, we must use real data – not numbers that tell us what we want to hear or make it appear that we’re doing better than we really are.
The final lesson is to recognize and manage risk. Not all risks are equal, nor can all of them be dealt with at once. Deal first with hazards that are most likely to kill or maim people, then move to the others.
I’m not saying that’s a complete list. Perhaps you’ve learned other key lessons. But, at Weyerhaeuser, we believe that list contains those things that will help us continue our safety journey.
We’ve also found that all are important. You can’t focus on just one, nor can you neglect one. It’s like a mosaic with each piece fitting with the others to complete the picture.
Having said that, I will focus on just one key lesson today because I believe it is at the center of the safety mosaic. Without it, the other pieces cannot connect.
That key is visible leadership commitment.
When President Kennedy challenged a nation to send humans to the moon and return them safely, he made a personal commitment. It was the ultimate stretch goal at that time when space travel was just a dream. The thought of putting a human into space, let alone on the moon, seemed impossible.
But President Kennedy staked his reputation on this vision and then challenged the nation to fulfill it. The nation responded, and seven years later Neil Armstrong took a “small step for man, a giant leap for mankind.”
That’s the kind of commitment and leadership that we need to improve safety. You are those leaders and the path to safety begins with you.
I have always believed that organizations change only when leaders change. If you embrace safety, if you model safety, and if you demand safety, your organization will change. It will become a safer place to work.
Don’t get me wrong, numbers are important to progress. Unless you measure something, you cannot improve.
But safety isn’t about numbers. It’s about people. We’re talking about mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. We’re talking about what leaders – those of us in this room – can do to make sure they are safe at work. We’re talking about the commitment you’re going to make to safety.
I’ve seen the difference that personal commitment can make and I want to share our experience with you.
I should point out first, however, that Weyerhaeuser isn’t perfect. We haven’t reached our goal of a recordable incident rate less than one.
But we have reduced our recordable incident rate from 8.2 in 1993 to 1.68 as of the end of May. We’ve made that progress because we have leaders who take it upon themselves to make safety a priority. We have leaders who are changing the organization and instilling the belief that safety is everyone’s responsibility.
At the top level, this leadership comes from a “safety champion” on our senior management team. It’s this person’s responsibility to embody safety and to continue to focus everyone’s attention on safety. This person becomes our internal evangelist for safety.
Currently, that person is Jim Keller, our senior vice president for containerboard packaging and recycling. Previously, Bill Corbin, our executive vice president of Wood Products, and I have held this role. Each of us have helped advance the cause of safety at Weyerhaeuser in a different, but complementary, manner.
Bill was our first safety champion and he set the bar high. Safety was always top of mind for Bill and he has the ability of always finding some way for people to operate safely. He also lived the belief that safety is our top priority.
For example, the first time our CEO Steve Rogel met with our top management team after joining us from Willamette, Bill presented Steve with a personal safety package – a hard hat, earplugs, safety glasses, and vest.
Bill also helped formalize our safety procedures through our “orange folder.” This book is used at all of our facilities worldwide and helps make sure we’re all on the same page when it comes to safety. The five basic strategies or lessons that I summarized are contained in this “orange folder.” I have orange cards for your use.
As senior vice president for Timberlands, I followed Bill, but I wasn’t a newcomer to safety. During my career, I’ve had the opportunity to work in our timberlands, wood products and paper businesses, and I learned that one constant runs through all of them – the need to have leaders who focus on safety.
As vice president, Western Timberlands, for example, I saw the power leaders can have on improving safety. During my time leading Western Timberlands, we reduced our recordable incident rate from 18 to 3 and now less than 1.
One of our more unique programs was called “Unbuckled, unsafe, unemployed” to promote the use of seat belts.
Now it may seem strange that we even needed a program like this. After all, in Washington and Oregon, where Western Timberlands operates, state laws mandate the wearing of seatbelts. One would assume that our workers would follow the appropriate laws and wear seatbelts when they were riding in a truck. Well, one of the first things a leader learns is to never assume.
So we started a program to drive home the point that seatbelts were required. We used a very simple statement to remind employees of this fact: “unbuckled, unsafe, unemployed.” The message was very clear. If you don’t wear a seatbelt, not only are you putting yourself in an unsafe situation, you could also lose your job. As I advised my people, “please don’t make the decision to be unemployed.”
I also knew that we needed leaders who would make safety a priority. I wanted leaders who would lead the change. This meant promoting managers with good safety records and removing those with poor records.
Believe me, this wasn’t always the most pleasant task. We had leaders who produced strong results in everything except safety. It would have been easy to let their other strengths overshadow their safety record. But we also had to think of the people and their families who could be affected by our inaction. So, we made some tough decisions and moved people out of key leadership roles and replaced them with individuals with better safety records.
When I assumed responsibilities for our international operations, we took the same approach. It wasn’t always easy, especially considering that other countries didn’t always have the same focus on safety. But, again, I had to think of the consequences of inaction.
In New Zealand, for example, we had just acquired a small sawmill in Kituna. This is our only sawmill in New Zealand and it was obvious that we needed to invest capital to make it competitive. But there was a problem. It had a recordable incident rate of 60 when we acquired it in 2000. Yes, you heard right, a recordable incident rate of 60.
It didn’t take long to figure out why it had a recordable incident rate of 60. When we acquired the mill, workers in the mill didn’t even wear gloves, let alone other personal safety equipment. Imagine the challenge of getting them to wear gloves and vests and hardhats, and eye and ear protection.
Again, as a leader, I knew I had to drive change at that sawmill and I needed to demonstrate how serious I was about safety.
My opportunity came whenever I met with management to discuss badly needed capital for modernization. Before they could begin outlining their capital request, I would tell them that I would listen to the presentation only if I was satisfied that they had improved safety. Needless to say, the first few meetings were very short. But after leaving a few of these meetings empty handed, the team at the mill got the message.
By 2003, we had lowered the recordable incident rate to 10 – still not great, but a far sight better than 60. So far this year there have been no incidents.
This improvement has not gone unnoticed. Local government officials point to the safety improvement to demonstrate the positive influence foreign investment has had in their region. And, along with other international companies, we’ve become a leader in changing the industry’s approach to safety throughout all of New Zealand.
In Europe we have a similar improvement story in three composite panel mills we acquired in 2002. When we acquired the mills, they had a recordable incident rate of 4. Today, those same mills boast a recordable incident rate of less than 1.
Our international presence has also taught us that there are many facets to safety. While some things remain constant – the wearing of personal protection equipment, for example – sometimes safety involves something we wouldn’t consider here in the U.S.
Uruguay is just such an example. As many of you know, we’ve gone into a region in Uruguay that was nothing but grasslands and we’ve created a forest. In the process of equipping our people with the standard safety equipment, we learned that drinking water is a problem. Thus, clean drinking water is an important safety consideration. So we take extra efforts to ensure that our workers have access to fresh drinking water while they’re at work.
So far, I’ve talked about leadership at the higher levels, but it can also have significant results at the mill level. We’ve also seen cases where a single leader can help us achieve our goal of a recordable incident rate of less than one.
In Plymouth, North Carolina, for example, our mill had good safety results in the 1990s, but didn’t demonstrate significant continuous improvement. So, in 2000, we began to focus on accountability and leadership actions. As a result of safety walks by the management and increased employee involvement, the mill has gone one million hours without a lost time injury for the second time in as many years and currently has a recordable incident rate of 0.65.
In Kingsport, Tennessee, our mill there went five million hours without an incident – including the time it was under construction – due to the leadership of the manager. He drove home the point by using terms like “unrelenting” and “vigilant” and “values” when talking about safety. For him, safety was a never ending task and he had the results to prove it.
And it should be a never-ending task for all of us. So, where do we go from here?
I want to end my discussion here today with two challenges to you.
First, if you haven’t already, you must develop a personal commitment to safety. Be a leader that moves an organization. Don’t wait for someone else to lead. Lead by example. Lead by embracing safety. Lead by demanding safety. If you lead, people will follow.
My second challenge to you is bigger. I want us to create an injury-free work environment. At Weyerhaeuser, our goal for the past five years has been a recordable incident rate of less than one with a belief in zero. Any other goal is unacceptable.
We must believe that so long as there is a single injury, our work is not done. We must believe that so long as one family grieves over a death, we cannot rest.
That’s where we need to go and I believe it is realistic. Champions, after all, never strive to finish one game short of the title.
But it will be hard. To get there, we’ll have to overcome four obstacles.
First are the industry challenges we all face. We’re seeing increased global competition, flat growth in some product lines and consolidation. Taken either alone or together, those forces give us plenty of excuses. It’s easy to say “I was really focused on safety until global competition forced me to work on improving productivity. I’ve got to focus on that first because if we can’t compete, we won’t have any jobs.”
Wrong.
Improving safety increases your productivity. Improving safety makes you more competitive because employees who feel safe are productive employees.
It’s no surprise to me that our safest operations are also our most productive. For example, our pulp, paper and containerboard operations are safer than they were in 2001. At the same time, we’ve increased annual production on a per employee basis by 25 percent.
The second hurdle is consolidation. As companies acquire others, safety can suffer due to all the challenges of integration.
Having overseen the merger and subsequent successful integration of Willamette Industries into Weyerhaeuser, I’m well aware of the process and challenges.
But again, our experience indicates that this is no excuse when it comes to safety. Yes, we’ve had minor increases in recordable incident rate rates or slower improvements in safety after acquisitions. But we’ve also found that by focusing on safety we’ve significantly improved safety in the operations we’ve bought.
Today, if you walked into one of our mills you wouldn’t know if it was a legacy Weyerhaeuser mill or if we’d acquired it from MacMillan Bloedel, Willamette or Trus Joist. That’s because each one places safety above all else.
Our third challenge is actually a combination of complacency and the fact we’ve made improvements. Complacency doesn’t mean that we’re satisfied with where we’re at. Rather, I’m talking about the fact that all of us can become distracted when things become routine.
It’s like when we were learning to drive. The first time we got behind the wheel, it was a new experience. We were aware of everything going on around us. Over the years, however, driving becomes routine and we are easily distracted from the task at hand. It doesn’t mean we’ve become bad drivers, but the routine nature of driving exposes us to potential incidents. That’s why I’m a firm believer in refresher courses for drivers as a standard part of our safety program.
As an industry, we too can become complacent. We’ve made such good improvements that it’s easy to take safety for granted. We’ve also reached the point where it is more difficult to see dramatic improvements in our performance. As such, we can become discouraged. But instead of being disheartened, we should be inspired by the realization that we’re getting even closer to our ultimate goal.
Our fourth challenge is our greatest one. That’s contractor safety. Unfortunately, contractor safety records and improvements don’t match the industry’s results.
But again, we can make a difference by being leaders. We must insist that contractors apply the same attention to safety and then hold them accountable. Remember, contractors are employees in every sense of the word except by legal definition. They’re helping us achieve our goals and deserve the same attention we give our employees.
That’s the approach we’re taking at Weyerhaeuser. We’ve developed a safety policy for our contractors and make them very aware of that policy. Does that mean we’d shut down a contractor we see operating unsafely? Yes. We’ve been known to shut down that operation either until the problem is fixed or permanently because you have to walk your talk if you’re going to succeed.
I won’t say that we’ve solved the contractor safety problem, but it’s an area where we are focusing and we will have the same success we’ve had elsewhere. It just requires leadership.
Well, I’ve probably spoken for what might be considered an “unsafe” period of time, so let me close by quoting President Kennedy when he explained why he had set the goal of going to the moon. He noted that there were challenges and obstacles. He agreed that there the task would be difficult. But he also said that “we choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Improving safety is not easy. Creating injury-free workplaces may seem impossible.
But that is the right goal for us. We choose to do it not because it is easy, but because it is hard, and it is the right thing to do. For if we do, and if we do not give up when things get hard, then none of us will ever have to tell some child that a parent is not coming home from work tonight.
Thank you.
