Louisiana Pacific Corporation: "Safety Brings You Home"

2001 Salute to Home Safety Excellence Award Winner

Award Overview:

The Salute to Home Safety Excellence award, created by Home Safety Council, is presented annually to a home industry supplier who displays leadership in home safety by conducting an educational program targeted to either employees or consumers. The award recognizes and honors companies for their initiatives promoting safer homes.

Qualifying programs may include advertising, direct mail or product inserts addressing safety in the home, or comprehensive events for communities and/or employees promoting home safety practices.

Executive Summary:

Louisiana Pacific (LP) developed a safety program in five of its manufacturing plants targeting employees and family members through a year-long home safety education program. The program focused on four major home safety topics: child safety, disaster preparedness, fire prevention and fall prevention.

Objective

The objective of the program was to take work safety one step further and create a long-running home safety program for the 1,000 LP employees and their families in LP's Oriented Strand Board (OSB) mills in the North Central Region. The five LP plants participating in the safety program included: Hayward, Wis.; Dawson Creek, British Columbia; Minitonas (Swan Valley), Manitoba; Montrose, Colo.; and Sagola, Mich.

Execution

The winning program began with the distribution of "Safety Brings You Home" signage to each one of the participating plants in March 2000. The five plants displayed signage in work areas to highlight and create a sense of curiosity for the upcoming program.

During the next 14 months, each location introduced subsequent elements of the program. These elements included:

• Children's safety poster coloring contest
• Development and distribution of five safety videos
• Interactive safety events at the plants
• Creation and distribution of safety calendars for the 2001 calendar year - the children's poster contest provided the artwork
• Production and distribution of home safety manuals to all employees
• Subscription to a family safety and health magazine for all employees

Successful Strategies

• Developed innovative program best suited for target audience
• Designed year-long program that can be easily integrated for other LP facilities
• Incorporated employees and family members
• Focused on several areas of home safety
• Used credible resources to guide program and communicate safety messages

Successful Tactics

• Held safety events at flexible times to secure corporate families' participation
• Incorporated families into safety videos to increase interest
• Integrated children's poster contest artwork into safety calendar
• Encouraged families to develop an emergency evacuation plan while at the safety events
• Secured significant participation of targeted employees and their family members

Results

The five participating LP plants yielded the best work safety records in their history from January - June 2001, and they have the lowest total OSHA incident rate of all OSB regions in the company. In addition, LP employees surveyed after the program stated that they, their children and spouses believe LP cares about the safety of its employees at work and at home. They believe the program raised many issues they were not aware of and taught them how to address safety in the home. This comprehensive safety program will expand in 2002 to additional LP plants.

LP Corporate Comments

• "We began to question if our folks were more unsafe at home than at the workplace."
• "The key issue reflected from [the outcome of this] program on the plant[s] is now employees are officially engaged not only in their own [home] safety but at the plant[s] as well."
• "Last year, the mills involved in the program had a better safety record than any other group of mills in our system."
• "This program has decreased the effect of [nonworking related injuries] that make it difficult for employees to make it to work."
• "We're looking to foster this [program] and go forward with this [program] because not only does it bring [safety] home to the person while they're at work to keep themselves and their fellow workers safe, it begins to train them to think about [safety] when they're home." -- by Mark Suwyn - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer