What’s a particularly effective way of encouraging workers to take safety seriously? One way would be if family members publicly asked them to make promises about specific safety practices—and then seeing workers publicly make those promises, according to Heidi Meyer-Bremer, director of health, safety and environmental (HSE) at Michels Power, Neenah, Wis. 

Meyer-Bremer shared how she and her team have helped enhance Michels’ safety culture.

What safety practices have been particularly effective?

Our Stop Work Promise initiative has been the most impactful. Taking the concept of stop work authority and swapping out authority with promise makes safety personal.

We have recorded family members asking their loved ones—our employees—to make a promise to work safely for them, and in 2014, we posted the video on YouTube. Then in 2018 we had employees record messages for their family with their promises to work safely, and we posted that video in 2018.

Is there a specific injury or near miss that changed how you thought about safety?

Any significant injury makes you step back and pause to think about the what-ifs or what changes are needed to prevent it from happening again. Any time I’ve had to call a family member to let them know about an event, providing them updates or helping them navigate through life post-hospital discharge hits home—especially now that I am a mom. [It] makes me want to be a better safety professional. How can I help my HSE team be better next time and figure out what we as a company need to do to ensure it doesn’t happen again?

It’s not just the injured employee that suffers. The ripple effect of that significant event touches so many others—their family, friends and their co-workers. It is so important that we take the time to look in the mirror as individuals and as companies to identify the opportunities for improvement, implement the necessary changes, and hold all parties responsible for the follow-through of the corrective actions to ensure that the event is not repeated.

What challenges do you face in managing safety responsibilities at Michels Power?

Several key challenges include growth within our company and keeping up with the operations and the new opportunities we have; finding quality safety professionals who want to travel to support the work and understand line construction and maintenance; and ensuring that safety is being managed consistently across a diverse company across the country. 

[It is important] to keep up with the changing technology within the T&D space. The equipment used to complete the work is getting bigger with “more buttons.” The technology used by the utilities to control and operate their systems adds in new hazards that need to be addressed thoroughly to keep the men and women safe while working on the system.

Every day there is a new challenge to take on and figure out. Whether it is a new project with a new client that has different safety rules and expectations compared to other projects  [or] mentoring and teaching a young, new HSE coordinator and expecting—hoping—they can pick up on things quickly.

The last one, which is probably the hardest, is balancing the demands of the job and personal life. It is challenging at times to not feel defeated in this role. It is important to take care of yourself and remember to not take events personally.

How do you encourage crews to take safety seriously on the job?

Take it back to the personal piece. The only person that can control whether they go home safely that day is them; making that personal promise to themselves and their co-workers that [when] they have a questioning attitude, [they can] call an all stop if something isn’t right.

When we do our leadership training, I ask the class to think about who they were influenced by … positively and negatively … and challenge them to figure out how they want to be remembered and what they want their legacy to be—a leader who used their influence to build the next generation of lineworkers who care about safety, or the opposite? 

Do you have any other advice for safety professionals?

Take care of yourself. This job is very rewarding, but it can also break you down. There are more good days than bad. 

Find a company and boss that align with your values and outlook on safety. Build your knowledge of the industry by asking questions. Learn from the lineworkers you are supporting. Regardless of how long you have been in safety, you will learn something new every day.