Observed annually in June, National Safety Month focuses on reducing leading causes of injury.
At C&W Services, our dedication to safety stands out in the facilities services industry, but nothing proves it more than tangible examples. And we have just that. In particular, the sites noted here—of thousands across North America—have demonstrated the value they place on safety for janitors, maintenance technicians and all other team members across our family of employees.
Our on-site maintenance crew at a 2.5-million-square-foot university in the northeast recently celebrated an important team accomplishment—1,000 days without an accident or injury.
“It’s taken us almost three years to reach this milestone,” says Donald, account director for the university. “Our goal is to have every employee return home in the same condition in which they started the day.”
This commitment ensures that not only do our employees stay safe and secure every day but so do the client’s staff.
Milestones like these occur throughout the company. A higher education site in St. Louis also celebrated an incident-free three years—a true achievement.
But it’s not just those university settings. The team at a biotechnology company in California hit three years incident free in July, 2016, equating to 226,280 injury-free hours.
Upon hearing this, John Ramsden, director of operations for C&W Services, thanked his team for adhering to high-quality service.
“Please take extreme pride in this remarkable achievement and continue to stay and work safely,” he says. “Our appreciation and thanks for everyone’s contributions is beyond words.”
Last summer, the Cargill site in Blair, Neb., received a platinum award from the Nebraska National Safety Council at Nebraska’s Safest Companies Awards Luncheon. The award recognizes and celebrates commendable safety programs. The Cargill site has received the award 14 years in a row. We congratulated them then and are congratulating them now as the team continues to make safety in the workplace a key driver in how we operate. Safety is something we pride ourselves on, and we wouldn’t be able to deliver without our teams.
A member of the National Safety Council, C&W Services works with NSC to distinguish accounts and/or individuals that demonstrate commitment and dedication to safety. For calendar year 2016, 68 C&W Services sites are earning either NSC’s Perfect Record Awards or the Occupational Excellence Achievement. The Perfect Record Award recognizes facilities that completed a period of at least 12 consecutive months without incurring an OSHA recordable incident. For CY16, 54 C&W Services facilities met this criteria. The Occupational Excellence Achievement Award recognizes larger facilities with Days Away (also known as Lost Time) Incidence Rates that are less than or equal to 50 percent of our BLS Industry Average (and no fatalities). For CY16, 14 locations met this criteria. Furthermore, four individuals received the Safety Service Awards for their personal contribution to our safety effort. In summary, C&W Services earned a total of 72 NSC awards for CY16!
We believe these milestones show that our safety isn’t a one-time win, a bullet point in a brochure or a happy coincidence. It’s a companywide practice.
Our comprehensive ?360 Safety” program/culture, and our safety systems and training across service lines, contribute to the recurring safety records that our teams achieve. Our chief executive, Paul Bedborough, speaks about safety as the first agenda item at every executive leadership team meeting and our quarterly internal company town hall meetings, demonstrating his commitment to safety.
“Our safety culture is a life journey instead of just a KPI we need to hit,” he says. “We strive to make safety one of the company’s core values that we instill in our people. It’s much more than just an initiative. ”
Thank you to all C&W Services employees—from Maine to Arizona, Florida to Washington and across Canada—who make our sites safe, clean and secure every single day, year in and year out!
