Shifting mindsets to improve safety at JELD-WEN

“Our responsibility towards our associates’ safety and wellbeing is embedded in our culture; it’s part of our JELD-WEN values to build businesses ethically and safely,” said Jay Small, vice president, global environmental, health and safety (EH&S). “And that culture continues to grow, with ever-expanding commitments and advances around safety.”

JELD-WEN strives for zero injuries, zero spills and releases and zero fines and has implemented a robust environmental, health and safety management system (EHSMS) in every facility around the world. But ensuring that nothing takes precedence over safety in day-to-day operations relies on more than just plans and protocols. Overcoming limiting mindsets such as seeing safety as someone else’s problem has been a powerful way to make work as safe as it can be.

Avoiding incidents starts with eliminating likely causes

One critical area of focus is training site-based leaders to recognize and address safety risks; in particular, high-risk activities that have the potential for serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs).

Plant managers and supervisors are more quickly identifying and reporting near misses, and this is lowering the number of SIF (serious injury or fatality) incidents associated with high-risk activities.

Efforts to physically remove hazards or isolate people from them range from making machines and equipment safer to keeping pedestrians away from traffic such as forklifts.

“In our Penrith, U.K. site, for example, an electronic tag system has been built into all forklifts,” says Brian Mundt, senior director, EH&S, environmental, social and governance (ESG) and quality, Europe. “Every employee carries a tag that – if they come within three meters of a forklift – will make the forklift slow down and sound an alarm. If the distance is less than two meters, the forklift stops automatically.”

Empowering associates, rewarding safe behavior

Fostering a no-blame culture in which safety is everybody’s responsibility is key. All associates, no matter where in the organization they work, have been empowered with stop-work authority and are encouraged to intervene should they see someone at risk – with no fear of retaliation.

There is no room for complacency or excusing a lack of improvement with change takes time.

“We have a relentless focus on being a learning organization,” said Small. “Our senior leadership and managers are expected to promote a culture of trust, in which we can learn from mistakes. Rather than place blame, we are focused on identifying learning opportunities and implementing corrective actions that help us improve every day.”

JELD-WEN’s EH&S ShareIT program enables any JELD-WEN employee to scan a QR code and – anonymously, if they wish – to report EH&S hazards, concerns or near miss incidents, as well as safety or environmental improvement opportunities or positive observations. The program is designed to reward associates for providing information that helps JELD-WEN improve safety and prevent injuries. As of December 2022, Jay reported that more than 41,000 ShareITs were submitted by JELD-WEN associates globally.

Tracking progress

Each year, every JELD-WEN site completes a self-assessment of its EH&S management system (EHSMS). These assessments determine areas of focus for their following year’s improvement plan.

“Eighty percent of the incidents and near misses we see in Europe are related to non-routine tasks,” said Mundt. “Because eliminating these incidents through standardized work is difficult, it’s important that our associates keep safety in mind in everything they do. That’s our focus for 2023.”

The results of JELD-WEN’s commitment to safety speak for themselves: in 2022, SIFs, non-SIF lost time incidents and non-SIF total recordable injuries all realized improvements.

“The majority of associates we’ve surveyed feel confident that JELD-WEN and our management staff are committed to safety,” said Small. “More engaged managers have better safety conversations with our associates out on the manufacturing floor, and the sophistication of their safety investigations, corrective actions, and our opportunities to learn and improve have greatly improved in the past year.”