Green really does mean money at CardPak Inc.
When Tony Petrelli (pictured at left) was hired as president of the company in November 2006, he wanted to improve employee safety at the Solon-based manufacturer of paperboard packaging products. So he authorized a safety awards program that pays $100 to each of the company’s 119 employees for every calendar quarter that passes without an incident or injury that must be reported to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
And to help maintain that awareness, he hung a full-size traffic light over the time clock. A green light indicates that no OSHA-reportable incident or injury has occurred in the past 24 hours. A yellow light reflects a “near-miss,” and a red light means a reportable incident or injury has transpired.
Sending people to once-a-quarter or once-a-month training is like a soda in the afternoon — it boosts your energy for a short time but isn’t sustainable, Petrelli explains.
“For something to change, it’s got to be top-of-mind consciousness,” he says. “It’s got to be there every day. When employees walk in, regardless of the shift, they know that the money is still in their pockets if the light is green. If they ever see that light is red, they know they just lost money. And they’re upset about it.”
Employees have been getting the green light for some time. Thanks to that revamped safety program, the company has had only one OSHA-reportable incident in the past 18 months. In fact, CardPak’s incidence ratio for 2009 was 0.85 compared to the packaging-industry average of 3.6, and its lost workday rate, the number of lost workdays per 100 employees, was 0 compared to an industry standard of 1.
“We just presented the plant with a plaque from the Paperboard Packaging Council recognizing our achievement of reaching 125,000 hours without an incident,” Petrelli says with pride. “It hangs underneath the stoplight and above the time clock.”
The achievement is even more impressive considering the situation Petrelli found when he arrived at CardPak.
The company had recorded an ankle injury in 2005 and a hand injury in 2006 that contributed to a dramatic jump in lost time from work: from one and a half days in 2003 and four in 2004 to 211 days in 2005 and 94 in 2006, according to human resources director David Braddix.
“It was horrendous,” he admits.
As a result, CardPak lost its group health rating in 2007. Workers’ compensation insurance costs subsequently skyrocketed from $19,274 in 2005 to a whopping $143,241 in 2008.
“The employees were all very hard-working, very good people,” Petrelli explains. “But [the company] didn’t have any real good processes and procedures in place to develop a safety culture as a foundation for their manufacturing environment.”
Petrelli fired the safety consulting firm CardPak used to coordinate safety programs and gave safety coordinator duty to Braddix, the man responsible for implementing and managing an initiative focused on awareness, training and enforcement.
Monthly safety audit responsibilities were rotated among members of the safety committee, which was expanded to include a quality-control employee and a maintenance technician.
And each month an hourly employee is chosen to assist the committee member responsible for completing the 50-point audit, which checks everything from the use of personal protective gear to the cleanliness of bathrooms. That participation fosters a feeling of involvement on the floor, says Jeff Browsky, purchasing/facilities manager and committee member.
Training was improved by completing job-safety analyses for all manufacturing positions — a move that resulted in improved work-practice changes — and adding more safety training to the employee-orientation program.
Petrelli rattles off a list of benefits CardPak has reaped from the new safety program, not the least of which is lower workers’ comp premiums. He says the increases have been eliminated by the improved safety record. He even believes it’s partially responsible for the 150 percent increase in net income the company has enjoyed for the past two years.
“I have never worked for a company that has an unbelievable world-class safety record that wasn’t incredibly profitable,” he declares.