Safety first culture: How JELD-WEN is strengthening a culture that protects its people

At JELD-WEN, safety is more than a slogan or a campaign. It is a shared responsibility that guides how we operate every day. From manufacturing floors to executive offices, our expectation is clear: everyone deserves to go home from work the same way they arrived, safe and healthy.

“Safety is how we demonstrate respect for our people, through our actions, our decisions, and our leadership.,” VP of Global Environmental Healthy & Safety Simon Greenfield says. “It is not owned by a department; it is owned by every one of us.”

As a global manufacturer, we know safety excellence requires more than policies or procedures. It takes a culture that empowers employees to lookout for themselves and for one another. We are continuously strengthening that culture by increasing safety awareness, knowledge and accountability.

Building a foundation through education and awareness

A cornerstone of our safety journey has been the completion of Safety 101 training across our North America operations. Hundreds of employees across functions and seniority levels have completed this training, helping ensure they share a common understanding of safety principles, expectations and best practices.

More importantly, this training reinforces a key belief: safety is everyone’s responsibility. Whether an employee works on the manufacturing floor, in a distribution center, or in a corporate office, each person plays a role in identifying hazards, preventing incidents, and speaking up when something does not feel right.

Creating a culture of conversation and accountability

Training alone does not create a safe workplace. Ongoing dialogue is essential. That’s why we are focused on increasing meaningful safety conversations across the organization. 

Safety discussions now take place in many forms, from daily huddles on the manufacturing floor to enterprise-level leadership meetings. These conversations help ensure safety remains visible, relevant and integrated into how decisions are made.

By encouraging open dialogue, we aim to foster an environment where employees feel comfortable raising concerns, asking questions and sharing lessons learned. This helps move safety beyond a checklist activity and into a shared, everyday practice.

“Everyone is encouraged and empowered to be a safety leader,” Simon shares.

Proactively reducing risk before incidents occur

Our approach to safety is grounded in prevention focused primarily on preventing Serious Injuries and Fatalities (SIFs). We prioritize identifying and reducing risk through risk assessments, safety reviews, continuous evaluation of work processes and measuring performance against leading indicators. This proactive focus helps uncover potential issues and implement corrective actions early. 

By emphasizing prevention, we create safer work environments while supporting sustainable, responsible operations. In 2025 across North America, we reduced our SIFs by 91% and reduced our Total Recordable TRIR incident rate by 22%.

Empowering safety champions on the front lines

Across several JELD-WEN locations, Safety Champions play an important role in strengthening local safety cultures. These employees serve as ambassadors who help raise awareness, model safe behaviors, and support their peers in identifying and addressing risks.

Empowering employees to take an active role in safety reinforces an important message: safety leadership is not defined by a title. It is demonstrated through everyday actions, shared accountability and care for one another.

“Safety to me, is essential not only for protecting employees, but also for ensuring productivity, legal compliance, financial stability, and a positive organizational culture.” says Zaida Aguilar, safety champion and HR coordinator at JELD-WEN's Rantoul, Illinois facility.

Listening to employees through SHARE-IT

We recognize that employees are often the first to see potential risks. Through the SHARE-IT program, team members can report concerns, provide feedback and suggest ideas to make work safer. Listening is a critical part of learning and builder safer workplaces. Programs like SHARE-IT help us address issues quickly and collaboratively.

A commitment to continuous improvement

Safety at JELD-WEN is not a static goal. It is a continuous journey. As manufacturing technologies evolve and operations grow more complex, we remain focused on learning, adapting and improving.

This commitment is reflected in JELD-WEN’s enterprise safety goal to achieve a Total Recordable Incident Rate of less than 1.0 by 2030. This benchmark helps guide our progress, but more importantly, it reflects our long-term commitment to protecting the people who make our work possible.

A shared responsibility, every day

At its core, a safety-first culture is about people. It is about ensuring employees feel supported, protected and empowered to do their best work. By investing training, encouraging open conversations, proactively managing risk, and listening to employee feedback, we continue to build safer workplaces around the world.

Because at JELD-WEN, success is not measured only by what is built. It is measured by making sure everyone goes home safe, every day.