S. A. F. E (Safety Agents for Employees) by Karen Yardley, Safety & Sanitation Manager
Todd Lorenc, Al Kvool, Mike Jacobs, Yolanda Cadenas, Cody McCallister, Mary McWethy, Ben Yates, Karen Yardley, Jason Carter, Beca Dodd, Kelly Stevens, Roman Kozak & Jake Warren
I’ve heard it said that everyone is responsible for sanitation here at Crest and I believe that should apply to employee safety as well. This year we’ve taken a step to reinforce that idea by creating a team of hourly employees that can help us promote employee ownership of safety. They are your Safety Agents For Employees – and they want ev- eryone to be SAFE ! The goal of the team is to help empower employees to be responsible for their own safety as well as that of their co-workers. We invited employees from each department to participate and we tried to include all shifts. Your “safety agents” are: Becca Dodd (A Production), our “Coordinator” – she leads the meetings. Cody McAllister (Karlin Ware- house) Todd Lorenc (A Mix), Jason Carter (A Ingredient Division Production), Jake Warren (A West Warehouse), Al Kvool (A Set Up Maintenance), Yolanda Cadenas (B Production West), Kelly Stevens (A QA), Roman Kozak (B Sanitation), Mike Jacobs (Building Maintenance), Ben Yates (Ingredient Division Warehouse), and Mary McWethy (North Plant). The team plans to meet each month to discuss whatever employee safety concerns they have or that have been brought to their attention. Valid concerns, ideas, suggestions, etc. will then be brought from this group to the Crest Foods Safety Team, which is mostly made up of management. During our first meeting we discussed why a team like this is a good idea. Several members mentioned seeing things (unsafe acts) first hand out on the floor and want to do something to prevent it. Someone mentioned that it is sometimes difficult to bring up employee safety to co-workers or supervisors and hope that a team like this can change that attitude. A couple of members have a background in safety related fields (firefighters, first responders). Some members felt because of their experience and involvement in many different functions, they could be of service to our group. It was also mentioned that sometimes a “fresh set of eyes” looking at a situation can help come up with a solution. During our second meeting we discussed recent accidents and injuries looking for “trends”, and discussed the topics that this team felt we should focus on in the future. Areas of concern for our group were Forklift Safety, Electric Handlift Safety, Lifting , Ladder Safety and Pallet Handling. We plan to “Have some fun!” as our culture statement puts it – employee safety “campaigns”, contests, and such. We also plan to use Redzone more to promote employee safety. We hope that all employees work safe each and every day and ask that you reach out to any of these team members if there is an issue that you would like us to look into.
4 Crest Ink January, February & March 2023
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