Safety essentials: Ensuring buy-in, from the C-suite to line workers

How to communicate your prevention programs in the office, factory or field

Safety essentials: How to communicate in the office, factory or field

A Pennsylvania food supplier attributes the stark improvement in its onsite safety record to an ongoing communication effort that has actively involved line workers.

Hatfield Quality Meats (the chief subsidiary of Clemens Food Group) reduced its serious safety incidents by 33 percent from 2007 to 2009. Part of the approach was stressing that promoting safety is not a campaign, but an essential part of the company culture.

“One of the biggest things is you have to engage every employee,” says Eric Haman, corporate communications manager at Hatfield. “We have some non-negotiables, and employee safety is one of them. Earning a profit never comes in front of a non-negotiable, and employees are empowered to shut down the line if they see anything unsafe.”

It’s common sense to promote safety in a factory setting like Hatfield’s, with its maze of machinery and always-moving production line, but corporate communicators say such messages are essential in an office setting as well.