The Manager's Notebook

1. The work at Georgia-Pacific has not changed, but the way people think about it and do it has, thanks to a safety program that includes formal training, safety meetings, videotapes, rewards, and a work environment that constantly reinforces workplace safety. In addition to formal training sessions and weekly safety meetings at all its plants, Georgia-Pacific constantly hammers home its "safety first" message.

Thus, one of the most important things that Georgia-Pacific did was to create a work environment that reinforces the importance of safety. Exhortations about safety turn up on every available surface, in the form of posters, stickers (often on hard-hats), buttons, T-shirts, and jackets.

At division meetings, internal memos, and management speeches, the first thing on the agenda is always safety. The company's TV network and videos are also used to teach safety behaviour. The SafeTV television network beams question-and-answer sessions via satellite to about 350 Georgia-Pacific sites around the United States . It also produces and distributes documentary videos for use in safety meetings at the plants.

Success stories describe near misses and ways of avoiding accidents, such as how not to get crushed by a 2,800-pound lift truck. Near-miss reports are also written out on index cards, faxed all over the company, and posted on bulletin boards just inside plant entrances.

Georgia-Pacific also uses rewards and positive reinforcement to reinforce safety. Supervisors and managers are evaluated, and compensated, on the basis of how they do in four areas. Safety ? formerly an afterthought, with no impact on paycheques ? is now one of the four and carries the same weight as production.

To reinforce employee safety behaviour, every plant keeps track of how many consecutive hours it has functioned without an injury, with those figures posted at plant entrances and widely publicised elsewhere. Punishment has also been used ? workers have been fired for ignoring safety rules.

2. The effects of Georgia-Pacific's safety programme have been dramatic ? accidents have declined and productivity has increased. For several years running, it has recorded the best safety record in the industry, and its sawmills are now about 70% safer than the industry average. In a one-year period, 80% of its plants operated without any injuries at all. Best of all, nobody died anywhere.

The company's mill in Brunswick , GA , a vast, hot, clamorous (noisy) place that produces more fluff pulp (the stuff in disposable diapers, among other things) than anywhere else in the world, now records injuries of 0.7 per 100 workers annually. This is about one-third the injury rate at the average bank where the scariest piece of machinery is most likely the photocopier. Georgia-Pacific's safety crusade has worked so well that the company has begun applying the same principles to improving other areas of its business, including quality and customer service.

Source: Fisher, Ann (September 1997), “Danger Zone”, in Fortune 9, pp. 165 ? 167 (Courtesy: Time Inc.).