On the safe side

Good safety practices are about much more than protective eyewear and steel-toe boots. For these three winners of PLANET's Safety Recognition Awards, it’s about showing your employees that they matter, and sending them home happy and healthy. Here are their top tips.
 

1. Warm up. The whole team at Senske Services based in Kennewick, Wa., does a flex and stretch program before heading out each morning. “We stretch everything from the legs to the back to the arms and get the whole body ready to go out in the field," says Tony Fisher, safety administrator.

Chuck Miller, founder of Mirrorscapes in Lancaster, Ohio, says it can be easy to get stuck in a rut, so he does mental warm-ups by holding regular, short meetings about safe practices. “Because it can become monotonous, if you’re a mower, you’re riding a mower all day, you can get a little lax in your operation sometimes and so we try to remind them of that,” he says.
 

2. Dress for the job. Each morning at Arlington Lawn Care in Erie, Pa., a crew leader inspects the team to make sure they have the right gear: long pants, work boots, hats and gloves. Teams won't leave until everyone is properly outfitted, says owner Rich Arlington.

Arlington says he can't count the times he's heard about injuries resulting from improper attire. “I cannot tell you how many stories I hear of blades coming loose and cutting people’s toes off. If you have a pair of leather boots, that doesn’t happen,” he says.

Since Arlington’s service area gets a lot of wet snow, crews bring a change of clothes, extra socks and gloves, and even a spare jacket during the winter to stay warm and dry.
 

3. Sharpen your tools. Before starting a job, Arlington crews make sure the truck and equipment are ready to go. That means tight blades, belts and gas caps.

"I tell all my guys, make sure your tools are sharp because another one of the big accidents that happens out on the field is when you’re using a dull set of pruners,” Arlington says. With a dull blade, technicians are working extra hard to prune branches, which can result in cut fingers or hands.

"It's just easier if you always make sure your tools are sharp," he says.

That’s why each Monday, Wednesday and Friday the in-house mechanic sharpens every single piece of equipment.
 

4. Be ready on the road. On all two-man crews at Senske Services, one or both of the technicians are professionally trained in CPR and first aid. While they already do a yearly training on both, Senske is planning to get a few employees certified in training so that they can hold trainings more frequently. “Then when we’re having one or two people come on during the season, we can just go ahead and do the orientation of safety and accident prevention and get these guys or gals ready to go out into the field,” Fisher says.

The company also has a policy of using a spotter any time someone is backing up a trailer, and they always use safety cones when stopped. “That way we’re not backing into things and jackknifing trucks and trailers,” Fisher says. “We’ve had to learn that the hard way.”

And before the trucks even leave, they undergo an inspection from in-house mechanics to make sure that fluid levels are correct and blinkers are working.

Once they’re rolling, crews at Mirrorscapes are still thinking safety. Drivers never answer the phone on the road. “Even if it’s me, they wait until they get to a stop to call me,” Miller says.
 

5. Buddy up. Every new employee at Arlington is assigned a buddy from day one. It’s someone a new employee can go to for help with their training, questions and concerns. “We have found that most new employees will not go and complain to their boss but they will complain to a mentor or partner at the job,” Arlington says. “And that buddy stays with them the whole season.”

Then, once the newer employee has progressed far enough with his own training, he has the opportunity to act as a mentor to a new hire.
 

6. Find the safety formula. Senske branches have safety committees of seven to nine people including technicians, management and mechanics. “It’s not just all driven by management because safety and the culture of safety, really happens at the ground floor,” Fisher says. “You have to have your technicians in a safety culture, or as a manager you can push it all you want and it’s just pushing and pushing and pushing. But if you breed that culture in the organization, where safety is just kind of second nature, it just comes naturally.”

That’s the way to get employees to look out for each other and report problems like broken guards or improper use of safety gear before an accident happens. “It’s important to let technicians know that management doesn’t want to reprimand or punish anyone; they want to find ways to prevent accidents,” Fisher says. “It’s all about making sure the employees know that safety is really about them. Once they really see that you care about them and it’s about them, that’s when they really start to come on board with you.”

Illustrations by Jeannie Phan