Safety Lights Burn Brightly on G-P’s Broadway Mill

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Not only are the employees at Georgia-Pacific’s Green Bay, Wis., USA—Broadway facility working hard, they are also working safely and earning awards for their efforts. Recently, the facility earned the Wisconsin Corporate Safety Award in the manufacturing/largest facility category. The award is given by the Wisconsin Safety Council and the Department of Workforce to companies based on safety and health leadership, training programs and implementation, and employee participation.

G-P’s Broadway mill produces consumer and private label tissue and a variety of private label roll towels.

Green Bay’s Safety 24/7 Workshop is a centerpiece of the Broadway safety effort. The eight-hour class includes five modules: Understanding and Identifying Physical Risk; Understanding Controls; Understanding Hazards and Risk Ranking; Understanding Personal and Organizational Risk Tolerance; and Managing Personal Stress.

"We specifically named the workshop ‘24/7’ to reinforce to employees that safety is a 24/7 effort, and we can get hurt just as quickly at home as we can at work," said Toby Vandenack, safety 24/7 workshop facilitator. Not only is the Safety 24/7 Workshop a success at Green Bay, it is also being considered a Region V, OSHA Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) best practice.

Through innovative training materials, group exercises, presentations, and honest discussions, employees at Green Bay have improved their hazard and risk recognition skills, lowered their tolerance for risk, and increased the overall level of care and concern for their team members. "The workshop is continually improving because of feedback from my fellow employees," said Toby. "There’s a lot of evidence that we are really starting to ‘get it’ and, most importantly, that it’s okay to talk about safety".

Randy Harbath, VP - manufacturing, noted that "while we are proud of our award and being recognized by the Wisconsin Safety Council and the Department of Workforce Development, I am most proud of the hard work and dedication to safety by all of the Green Bay employees, Being recognized by both organizations further validates our employees’ commitment to operations and safety excellence and creating a workplace where no one gets hurt."