Final Reminder - Volunteer Quarterly Safety Meeting on 5/31/14!!!!

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:

This is just a final reminder of our second volunteer quarterly safety meeting of 2014 and it is being held this Saturday, May 31st at 7:00am.This safety training session will be held at our usual location at our shop at 28059 W. Commercial Ave. in Barrington, IL. The main safety topic for the meeting will be Behavior Based Safety being presented by Dan Balles. Dan is a Senior Risk Control Consultant from the Willis Group which is I.D.I.’s insurance agency. Dan has customized this safety training towards the types of work we perform at I.D.I. to help us in the battle against injuries. After Dan completes his session, we will then move on to reading the letters and showing the videos that were submitted by employees loved ones. You may recall that back in March, we sent a letter to all employee’s homes asking I.D.I. employees to have a loved one(s), a family member, a spouse, a child, a parent or someone who cares about you, to write a letter or submit a video as to why they want or need for you to work safe. We received in a total 5 letters and 4 videos. We advised in the letter that we would select the best three and reward them with a $100 gift card. We have contacted the winners and we have invited them to attend the May 31^st volunteer quarterly safety meeting so we can present them with their gift cards. We received in a variety of letters and videos and each one was terrific and really nailed it as far as what we were hoping to receive. We can't wait to show everyone what was submitted because each one is unique in their own way. Thank you to the family members who took the time to tell us why you want your loved one to work safe and for making this contest a success. We hope to see all of you on May 31st.

If you have any questions about this volunteer safety meeting, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham. Peter can be reached by e-mail at pgraham@4idi.com or by calling (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

** 1 Year Since Our Last Lost-Time Injury **

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees,

It's time to pat yourselves on the back, but please don't get injured while doing so!  International Decorators has reached the 1-year milestone as it has been 365 consecutive days worked since our last lost-time injury which covered 252,855 total hours worked. 

It takes a lot of team work to reach a milestone like this.  It requires each individual to take a personal responsibility to work safe.  It requires each individual to look out for each other.  It requires employees to be engaged with safety and keeping safety at the forefront of every task that is performed.  It requires safety planning, safety training, field safety leadership, communication amongst each other and most of all, it takes high quality employees that care! 

If we can work 1/4 of a million hours together as a team without sustaining a lost-time injury, there is really no reason why can't we keep repeating that and work 1 million hours without a lost-time injury. We can't let our guard down against safety.  Safety is not something that you just do once and the task is over.  Safety is something that needs to be engrained, a second nature habit, something that we are just doing all the time.  Safety is a culture!

Our longest consecutive streak of days worked between lost-time injuries over the past 15 years is 435 days.  So, our next milestone date is July 26th, 2014.  If we can work up until that date without sustaining a lost-time injury, we will break our 15 year record.

We are asking each and every employee to help continue this streak and to help us get to our next milestone date of July 26th.  We are going to be having a very busy summer so we have a huge challenge ahead of us.  We are asking you to keep looking out for each other.  Take it upon yourself to not cut corners and to stop others from cutting corners when it comes to safety.  Be on the look out for unsafe conditions and hazards at our job sites and continue to report them to our Safety Director so we can help to make the job sites safer.  If you see someone doing something unsafe, please stop them for Pete's sake (sorry, I just had to) and explain to them that you don't want to see them get hurt for their own good and for the sake of their loved ones. 

Awesome job everyone on working together as a team to reach the 1 year mark since our last lost-time injury. 

If you have any questions about safety, please call our Safety Director, Peter Graham.  He can be reached at (847) 417-1689 or by e-mail at pgraham@4id.com. 

Have a Safe Day!

OSHA To Publish Company's Names in Newspapers for High Dollar Violations

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees,

Our Safety Director, Safety Pete, serves on Lake County Contractors Association's (LCCA) safety committee along with representatives from the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA).  Yesterday, it was announced by OSHA at an LCCA safety committee meeting that OSHA has a mandate where as they are to publish an article in local newspapers including company names of those companies who have received OSHA citations of $40,000 or more.  The reasoning behind doing so is to help deter companies from receiving safety violations with the overall goal of making companies stay on top of safety for the safety of their employees.  OSHA is out to embarrass companies publicly if they are not doing what they are supposed to as far as safety. 

As all or most of you know, one of our seven major safety goals that we discuss at every volunteer quarterly safety meeting is for our company to not receive an OSHA citation.  OSHA citations are not only costly for the employer due to the dollar fine that comes with it, but they are costly to a company in that many general contractors will not allow a company to even bid their work if a company has OSHA citations on their record.  Another reason this is one of our seven major safety goals is because if we aren't receiving OSHA citations, that means that we are doing things the right way by keeping in compliance and helping make our employee's careers safer for themselves and for their loved ones. 

This new OSHA mandate does not worry us as we feel we do things right when it comes to safety.  Our employees are skilled and pro-active when it comes to safety. We hold volunteer quarterly safety meetings which helps keep everyone in tune with safety and on the same page.  We just wanted to heighten everyone's awareness.  Our goal is to not be in the newspapers for working unsafely, but to be in the newspapers for doing things right and constructing buildings in a safe and productive manner. 

 

Have a Safe Day Everyone!

Next Volunteer Quarterly Safety Meeting on 5/31/14!!!!

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees: 

We have scheduled our second volunteer quarterly safety meeting of 2014 and it will be held on Saturday, May 31st at 7:00am. This safety training session will be held at our usual location at our shop at 28059 W. Commercial Ave. in Barrington, IL. The main safety topic for the meeting will be Behavior Based Safety being presented by Dan Balles.  Dan is a Senior Risk Control Consultant from the Willis Group which is I.D.I.’s insurance agency.  Dan has customized this safety training towards the types of work we perform at I.D.I. to help us in the battle against injuries.  After Dan completes his session, we will then move on to reading the letters and showing the videos that were submitted by employees loved ones.  You may recall that back in March, we sent a letter to all employee’s homes asking I.D.I. employees to have a loved one(s), a family member, a spouse, a child, a parent or someone who cares about you, to write a letter or submit a video as to why they want or need for you to work safe.  We received in a total 5 letters and 4 videos.  We advised in the letter that we would select the best three and reward them with a $100 gift card.  We have contacted the winners and we have invited them to attend the May 31^st volunteer quarterly safety meeting so we can present them with their gift cards. We received in a variety of letters and videos and each one was terrific and really nailed it as far as what we were hoping to receive.  We can't wait to show everyone what was submitted because each one is unique in their own way. Thank you to the family members who took the time to tell us why you want your loved one to work safe and for making this contest a success. We hope to see all of you on May 31st.

If you have any questions about this volunteer safety meeting, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham. Peter can be reached by e-mail at pgraham@4idi.com or by calling (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

Unselfishly Safe

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees,
Below is an article that I came across in an online safety magazine.  This article fits in with the topic of our next volunteer quarterly safety meeting which is, Behavior Based Safety, being presented on May 31, 2014.  We hope that everyone at I.D.I. and your families have a Happy Easter!

Here is the article and it is entitled:  Unselfishly Safe

If it weren’t for diaper rash, I might not be here today.

Not too many people can make that claim, or at least would have the guts to admit it – especially in a national magazine. But it’s true. Diaper rash saved my butt – literally and figuratively.

When I was just a few months old, my dad (who was 22 at the time), happened to be watching me when a friend asked him if he wanted to go to the bookstore. My dad was – and still is – addicted to reading and collecting books, so this was like asking a kid if he wanted to go to Disneyland on a school day.

He regretfully declined. I can imagine him looking at me and lamenting, “My book collection will never make library status because of you.” I’m just kidding about that last part.

According to the story, I was a little cranky (a rash will do that to a baby), but more importantly, my dad feared the wrath of my mom if he’d chosen to take their firstborn to the bookstore instead of taking care of her poor baby at home (a wife will do that to a husband).

A short while later, my dad received a phone call reporting that this good friend had been in a very serious car accident and was lucky to be alive. This friend was a bigger guy, and as a result of his size and the steering wheel, was blocked from going completely through the front windshield. This was 1978 and there were no air bags.

My dad’s friend suffered injuries to his head and face and bruises to his upper body. My dad would have been holding me in the passenger seat (the California laws weren’t as strict as they are now), and buckling your seatbelt wasn’t required by law. So you probably can imagine what might have happened to us if we’d been in that car.

This story got me thinking about the choices that we face while performing our daily tasks, and the ramifications that those choices have.

When it comes to being safe at work, we often forget that it’s not just about what we want or what’s best for us or even our company. We forget that there are a lot of people in this world – family, friends, colleagues, roommates – who depend on us, and at the end of the day, these people need us to continue to be part of their lives.

We’ve become an incredibly entitled society. We’re bombarded with marketing messages telling us that anything standing between our desires and us is bad. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a huge fan of working hard, striving to be successful and taking care of No. 1. However, when I see this attitude toward safety in the workplace, it’s very worrisome.

Selfish Acts, Unsafe Acts

W.H. Heinrich, who is considered to be a pioneer of industrial safety in America, developed a theory we’ve come to know as “Heinrich’s Law,” which estimates that 88 percent of accidents and incidents are caused by unsafe acts. Most safety professionals are familiar with this theory. Whether you agree or disagree with Heinrich, I challenge you to look at the accidents in your experience and think about whether this theory has some truth to it.

During accident/incident/near-miss investigations, if you look at the contributing factors (human factors more specifically), you’ll notice that these events typically fall into one of these categories:

· Unsafe acts – These can be divided into two categories: errors (individuals’ mental and/or physical actions that fail to achieve their intended outcome) and violations (willful disregard for rules and regulations).

· Preconditions for unsafe acts – Individuals fail to prepare physically and/or mentally for duty (lack of rest, alcohol consumption, self-medicating, poor dietary practices, off-the-job overexertion, bad habits).

· Unsafe supervision – Failure to administer proper training and/or lack of professional guidance (risk without benefit, no risk assessment, improper work tempo, poor crew pairing).

· Organizational influences – Failure of resource management, organizational climate and operational processes (structure, policies, culture).

When I look at an accident and consider each of these categories, I can point to all of them and name selfish choices or decisions that were made by someone that resulted in failure to some degree.

The obvious ones are taking shortcuts (UA), choosing to work impaired (PUA), not preparing crews correctly and pushing production (US), and failing to own safety at the highest level (OI). If you’ve ever sat with family members in the emergency room nervously waiting to see if their dad will ever be able to walk again, you know exactly how “me” choices affect more than the injured individual.

So the million-dollar question is: What do we do?

Maybe it’s as simple as putting aside selfish desires and looking at the bigger picture. Maybe as safety professionals, we take a look at our own work habits and get more involved with our co-workers on a “human” level, instead of focusing on all the reports, meetings and audits that we have to complete.

I wish I had the right answer. But I do think this unselfish approach to safety needs to spark some conversations.

When the opportunity or invitation presents itself to gain a little bit more, go a little bit faster, reach a little bit further or take that quick shortcut, we probably should stop for a minute and consider the effects that this decision might have on our loved ones and the others around us.

I’m glad my dad did.

 

Work Cited - by Aaron J. Morrow in EHS OutLoud Blog on 4/15/14

 

Family Letters / Videos Contest Results!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  I just want to provide an update in regards to the contest in which we asked you to have your loved ones write a letter or submit a video as to why they want or need for you to work safe.  We asked for the letters and/or videos to be submitted on or before April 10th.  We received a total of 5 letters and 4 videos.  The letters and videos that were submitted were terrific and really nailed it as far as what we were hoping to receive.

Now what will take place you ask?  We have reviewed all of the submissions and selected what we felt were the best ones and we notified the employees and their loved ones that their submission was selected to receive a $100.00 gift card.  We are going to read the letters and show the videos at our next volunteer quarterly safety meeting which is being held at our office on 5/31/14 and we have invited the winners to attend this volunteer safety meeting.  We will be presenting the gift cards during the volunteer quarterly safety meeting. 

We can't wait to show everyone what was submitted because each one is unique in their own way.

Thank you to the family members who took the time to tell us why you want your loved one to work safe and make this contest a success.  We hope to see all of you on May 31st. 

Have a Safe Day!

Family Letter / Video Reminder!

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:

Below is a copy of a letter that was mailed to all of your homes back around March 11th. This is just a reminder that there are 10 days left to turn in the family letters and/or videos for this safety contest as the deadline to turn them in is on April 10th.   

Dear I.D.I. employee,

To help make our company safer and to encourage you to work in the safest manner possible, we are asking you to have a loved one, a family member, a spouse, a child or someone who cares about you, to write you a letter as to why they want or need for you to work safe.

This can be a simple letter or they can do this in a video format. There are no specifics such as minimum amount of paragraphs, pages, etc. It can be short and simple or as long as they need to express why they want and/or need for you to work safe. It can be handwritten, typed, they can include hand drawn pictures or however they want to do it. There really are no rules. They can be as simple or as creative as they want to be.

We are then asking them to send in the letters and/or videos to our Safety Director, Peter Graham sometime before April 10, 2014. If it is a letter, it can be faxed to (847) 526-7444. It can be mailed to International Decorators at 28059 W. Commercial Ave., Barrington, IL. 60010 to the attention of Peter Graham. You can bring the letter to work and hand it to a driver, your Superintendent or to me when you see one of us. A letter or video can also be e-mailed to me at pgraham@4idi.com.

After April 10^th, we will review all the letters and videos and select 3 winners. We will reward the 3 winners with $100.00 gift cards. We plan on reading some of the letters and showing some of the videos at our May 31, 2014 volunteer quarterly safety meeting. We also encourage you to bring your loved ones with you to the May volunteer quarterly safety meeting so we can present them with the gift card and so they can learn more about what you do for a living and to see why your safety is so important and valued at I.D.I. We will let you know before the meeting if your loved ones was one of the letters/videos that will be shown at the safety meeting.

If you or your loved ones have any questions, please call me at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

Peter Graham - Safety Director