America's Safest Companies: LP Building Products

The foundational approach to safety at Nashville's LP Building Products is through FELT Leadership. This approach is characterized by an active demonstration by all leadership that the company is about the people, not the numbers.  

"At LP we strive to not just make safety one of the many things that we do or manage but to make safety part of everything we do," says Keith Harned, corporate health and safety director. "With that approach, safety is not a priority but part of the driving culture that guides our thoughts, actions and behaviors."

Safety is the first item covered in the biweekly senior management meetings, as well as the first item on the agenda at the company's quarterly business review. All recordable injuries are discussed with senior management by the vice president of the appropriate business, ensuring that the vice presidents are keenly aware of the safety and health activities of their business. Safety also is a standing agenda item in each board of directors meeting, and the board receives a quarterly EHS update/report.  

All supervisory personnel, including the CEO, have annual safety and health goals and objectives. These goals are built into the business plans and individual performance goals. Quarterly and annual reviews of progress are conducted with  supervisors. 

From the project planning stage to daily work activities, safety is paramount at LP. The company's EHS Council, led by Harned, provides oversight for and sanctions all new EHS-related work activities or projects for the company. This corporate-level council is composed of operations directors from each business, a plant manager from each business, corporate engineering, corporate legal and representatives from corporate EHS. 

"Some of our plants have worked 1 to 2 million hours without a recordable injury," says Harned. "They sustain this performance by continuing to focus on the small things and recognizing opportunities for improvement, acting on those opportunities and communicating the learnings throughout the company so that others can learn from them as well."