EHS Today is accepting applications for corporations wishing to be considered for recognition as one of America’s Safest Companies. The award is corporate-based, not facility-based, and honors world-class safety efforts.
Corporations wishing to apply for America’s Safest Companies must demonstrate support from management and employee involvement; provide innovative solutions to safety challenges; report injury and illness rates significantly lower than the average for their industries; support comprehensive training programs; believe that that prevention of incidents is the cornerstone of the safety process; have integrated safety into their corporate culture and communicate the value of safety to employees and customers; and substantiate the benefits of the safety process.
“We believe that safety and productivity are directly related and that by creating a participatory management culture and by focusing on how we do work, productivity will also improve,” said Marty Buell, director, Environmental, Safety, Health and Quality, O&MS – URS, a 2012 ASC winner.
For the past 12 years, right around this time of year, EHS Today opens up the application process for America's Safest Companies, which is a corporate-level award. More than 1,000 companies have applied for the honor. A total of 128 companies, ranging in size from fewer than 50 employees to U.S.-headquartered, multi-nationals with hundreds of thousands of employees, have been acknowledged as America's Safest. Companies can win more than once, but must wait 5 years after a win to apply again.
“We like to think that all 10,523 of our employees are safety professionals – as we invest both the skills and responsibilities in each of them to ensure the proper application of safety principles for every operation, every day,” said Mike Snyder, director of corporate safety, industrial hygiene and loss prevention at Dow Corning Corp., which was recognized as an America’s Safest Company in 2010.
Companies honored as ASC are transformational safety leaders. They might not call what they do transformational, but we do. They have no interest in being average or in having just compliance with federal regulations as a goal. They strive to be world-class.
“Safety, or HSE, is who we are. It’s a core value that is integrated into all business aspects. This is demonstrated by the complete integration of HSE into the Honeywell Operating System, the organization’s overarching business system…to drive performance in safety, quality, delivery, cost and inventory,” said Charles E. Osborne III, CSP, director, HSE Operations & Management Systems, Honeywell International Inc. – Honeywell Aerospace, an ASC 2012 winner.
Companies that are named to EHS Today’s ASC list understand the symbiotic relationship between safety and productivity, profits, morale and employee retention. As Koch-Glitsch President Bob DiFulgentiz put it in 2006 when his company was named to the list, the qualities that helped the company's Wichita, Kan., manufacturing facility become an OSHA VPP Star site are the same qualities needed “to deliver on time, have a high-quality product and have good productivity.”
“Amazingly, when we focus on safety, all the other measurements improved,” DiFulgentiz said. “It's just good for business.”