As safety manager for the west region, Mario is dedicated to making sure that every C&W Services” site in the Texas – Arizona region is following proper safety protocol and is actively working to make safety a key part of their culture.
“Safety is the most important part of my job,” he says. “I believe in the value of safety and promoting it to those around me.”
When Mario joined C&W Services in March of 2014, he immediately began a review of safety plans. He decided that a new plan needed to be implemented and—with the support of management—designed a system where each and every employee would make a commitment to safety. He focused on five main areas for improvement:
- Accountability
- Hazard prevention and control
- Training
- Committee leadership
- Employee motivation
Following this new plan, employee safety orientation training was reworked to include a wider range of topics, monthly site safety inspections were implemented, and all supervisors were retrained so safety could become a key part of their mentality. Additionally, all employees were trained in job safety analysis (or JSA), and supervisors now have to hold regular in-services and reviews.
Another strategic objective of Mario’s was to identify workplace processes where employee safety awareness could be improved. To achieve this, he implemented a process based on the DMAIC framework (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) that tracked the use and implementation of best practices. He also introduced a score card and benchmarking tool that helped measure safety performance in each department.
Within six months of implementing these changes, Mario began to see positive results: the Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) and the Lost Time Incident Rate (LTIR) both saw substantial drops.
However, Mario doesn’t see his job as finished.
“Safety is a continued effort,” he says. “It needs to be part of everyone’s mentality every day.” Mario’s dedication and passion for safety are reflected in his site receiving the Occupational Excellence Achievement Award from the National Safety Council (NSC) in 2016. As well, in 2016, C&W Services leadership presented Mario with the NSC Safety Service Award for his Safety leadership.
Mario says that he is honored by the awards, but the favorite part of the job is “speaking with employees, teaching them how to do their jobs in a safe way, telling them that they are appreciated. I love that.”
Mario is one of many stories we have from the field that demonstrate how our team’s culture is the backbone of our service delivery success.
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