Solenis LLC
Wilmington, DE
Chemical manufacturing, pulp and paper, specialty and water treatment
1,300 | 10 sites | 16 U.S. / 16 EHS professionals
The second time is still the charm for Solenis LLC, now a two-time recipient of EHS Today’s America’s Safest Company award.
“Solenis is committed to continuous improvement and believes that our business is a better business when safety is our number one priority,” says Sean M. Maconaghy, EHS&S and global process safety management (PSM) manager.
Since first winning in 2015, Solenis has kept busy maintaining and raising the bar on safety. One example is through the creation of a list of Safety Expectations, developed by upper management and shared among all employees and contractors. Number one on that list is: Solenis employees are accountable for working safely.
Solenis puts these rules into practice by hosting safety days within its commercial and supply chain manufacturing teams to promote safety training, information sharing and new initiatives. So that all production employees, safety account managers, support engineers, field technicians and other employees can participate, Solenis shuts down facilities for an estimated cost of about $600,000 annually. Fifteen safety days are held in each of the 10 U.S. manufacturing sites and in various locations in North America for the Solenis Commercial Team.
In addition to dedicated days, there’s also a global safety month, where each region has a dedicated safety week to focus on specific safety topics, such as slip, trip and fall prevention; ergonomics; and chemical hazards avoidance. A recap of the week is then shared globally.
To ensure managers provide the most accurate and current safety instruction to their direct reports, Solenis has developed a number of training programs to support the top-down approach to safety. This includes a Safety for Leaders course and a two-day EHS Fundamentals for Line Managers course.
There are also Safety Impact Group Meetings for cross-facility visits of supply chain team North America plants to learn best practices and perform mini-safety audits. Solenis’ president and CEO personally conducts incident reviews. Afterwards, Safety Alerts are sent to all employees in the hopes of preventing similar incidents.
“Empowering our employees has led to increased engagement and communication,” Maconaghy says. “When our employees know and feel they have access to proper channels of communication, together we are better able to address safety concerns before an incident occurs. Each employee is empowered to be able to control their own safety. It offers them personal responsibility, accountability and ownership in the program.”