While some safety leaders measure success or failure by the number of injury reports, Bianca Castagna, leader of the Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) program at the GE Aviation plant in Auburn, Alabama, prefers to think further ahead.“If we define safety by the strength of our defenses against hazards, rather than just avoiding injuries, we will have better outcomes,” she tells the No Accident podcast, presented by TRUCE. Bianca has been with GE Aviation since she enrolled in a co-op program during her junior year at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering. She’s now responsible for ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the plant's 180+ employees.Instead of fixating on the number of injuries, Bianca focuses her attention on identifying potential dangers, and building procedures to eliminate these.One very effective way to do this is to ask the employees on the floor what hazards they are aware of, and what steps they’ve taken to protect themselves. Once Bianca and her team have identified these defenses — as they call them — they investigate further to make sure they’re effective, sufficient, and being properly maintained.“Those are the things that we should be focused on, because if you're just chasing zero injuries, you're too late,” Bianca says.Obviously no one wants to see someone get injured on the job, especially when a simple conversation with the people using the equipment could have prevented the accident. Bianca says that an added bonus of this kind of collaboration with employees is that it proves to them that the company is looking out for their safety. This in turn makes them more motivated to work harder and produce good results.“If people are safe and healthy at work, they’re more likely to make better quality parts, and to be productive and feel a sense of ownership in what it is they’re producing,” Bianca says. “It's all about getting products out the door to our customers, so they can be satisfied and we can make money.” Featured Guest👉 Name: Bianca Castagna👉 What she does: Bianca is Senior Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Leader for the GE Aviation plant in Auburn, Alabama. In addition to being responsible for leading all aspects of the EHS program, this summer she also took on a managing role in GE Aviation’s Global Operations Management Leadership Program. 👉 Company: GE Aviation👉 Key quote: “Safety is not the absence of injuries: It’s the strength of defenses.” 👉 Where to find her: LinkedIn Safe Takes⚠️ Know your workforce. A leader who is in regular, face-to-face communication with every worker on the shop floor — as opposed to one who adopts a hands-off leadership style — will be much more effective at motivating workers, which in turn improves safety and productivity. ⚠️ Make your people your Number One priority. “The people making the products that we sell to our customers need to come first, because without them we can’t ensure the delivery, let alone the quality of our products,” Bianca says. Make sure your staff feels healthy, protected, and heard. They’ll be much more motivated to help your business succeed. ⚠️ Act on your employees’ safety concerns. Safety leaders need to listen to employee concerns and address them. Bianca is leery of companies that report zero injuries in an entire year. It suggests that the company is ignoring employees when they report safety issues. “This is when it can get dangerous, because when workers realize nothing is being done to fix a problem, they stop trusting the leadership and stop reporting hazards,” she says. Resources⛑️ Why Prioritizing Workplace Safety Increases Profit — This article provides three tactics for increasing productivity by promoting a safe work environment.⛑️ The Factory of the Future Improves Safety, Quality and Productivity — Risk identification and hazard prevention play a large role in this vision of our industrial future. ⛑️ Revealing Hidden Risks: Tools for Enterprise Risk Management — This overview of risk mitigation strategies includes a detailed description of how the Strength of Defense Matrix works to validate solutions to potential hazards. ⛑️ Lean Safety – Improve Workplace Safety with Lean Principles Lean Safety is often thought of as primarily a manufacturing process, but it also improves safety, which helps businesses stay competitive. Top quotes from the episode:[3:57] “Often, people underestimate the impact of morale on a business’s culture, and safety and culture go hand in hand. You can’t have a good culture unless you’ve got a safe, clean environment where people can go to work.” [9:12] “With the integration of lean manufacturing and EHS over the past year and a half, people have come to see safety as an enabler that helps them do their job in a safer way.” [12:34] “We should always strive ...
