Public Power - November 2008 - (Page 47)

SAFETY Practicing Safety, Texas Style by William Atkinson Tim Sanford arrived at Texas Municipal Power Agency in 1985, the agency had a weak safety program. “We were having a lot of accidents, including a lot of lost-time accidents,” said Sanford, manager of safety and emergency training. Sanford and his team began to review the accidents and found only about 10 percent were caused by unsafe conditions or equipment (management-controlled), while 90 percent were caused by unsafe acts (employeecontrolled). With this information in hand, TMPA created a new safety philosophy—one that said safety is a management function. At the same time, everyone would be accountable for controlling safety—management and employees. “We started to get a lot of line employees involved,” he said. TMPA’s basic philosophy became: No phase of operation is more important than safety. “We also started to become very open,” he said. “We began to talk about what we did well, what we didn’t do so well and how we could improve. We still do that to this day.” With the philosophies in place, the next step was to create programs and seek employee input and involvement in all of them. In 1985, according to Sanford, many of the employees didn’t want to be part of the program. “We found that their ideas on safety weren’t necessarily our ideas on safety,” he said. For example, some did not want to wear safety glasses and hardhats. Sanford and his www.APPAnet.org When colleagues had to emphasize how important this was. “We asked employees for suggestions and ideas on what TMPA could do to establish better communications, training, etc. to make safety more important to them,” he said. As TMPA created programs, it also created goals and objectives for these programs. Management created them, which were reviewed by the safety committee, and the information was shared with employees. TMPA updated its written procedures and shared this information with the employees. “We had written procedures before, but no one knew what or where they were,” said Sanford. The only time employees became aware of them was when a manager pulled them out to use during disciplinary measures. “We wanted to make sure that our communication system included employee awareness,” he said. “We wanted the information to be more than just sitting in a book somewhere.” Generic safety policy and procedure handbooks are available for purchase, but TMPA wrote its own so the procedures and policies would be specific to its operations, built from employee input. Supervisors discuss safety policies and procedures with employees every day. The safety procedures and work-related safety information are posted on TMPA’s Web site. The agency now has a safety committee composed of representatives from many different departments. “We gave the committee some teeth,” he said. “They now have responsibility and accountability.” Once employees realized this, the safety meetings began to “take off like a grass fire on a hot day,” said Sanford. That was 23 years ago, but the enthusiasm is still there. The committee encourages employees to make safety suggestions. It listens and pays attention to every valid one, so employees realize that their ideas have value. Once a month all employees meet for an hour of safety training. All employees are required to attend. Personnel who may be working alternate shifts or are otherwise off work can review the training material on a CD. All new employees receive a comprehensive safety training before they begin work. They are shown safety documents related to their specific jobs and introduced to the utility’s online safety videos and other presentations. The safety manual is also on the Internet. All TMPA employees are subject to random drug tests. Any employee involved in an accident must visit a physician. Any employee involved in an incident that causes equipment damage is also required to take a drug test. The agency found that drug and alcohol abuse played a significant role in on-the-job accidents in the 1980s. The utility created an Employee Assistance Program and employees with substance abuse problems were encouraged to consult with the EAP. Today, the program is available to employees to help them deal with personal, emotional and family issues. TMPA conducts safety investigations whenever an accident occurs. “Even if we just have minor equipment damage, we go all out to identify the root cause,” said Sanford. “We do a study and cost analysis on the accident itself, including time lost.” Investigations are conNOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2008 47 http://www.APPAnet.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Public Power - November 2008

Public Power - November 2008 Contents Perspective 10 Questions Capturing Knowledge Before It Retires Jackson’s GIS Search Keeping a Job Journal Japan Tackles the Kyoto Protocol Getting to 20 by 10 Damless Hydro Power Earthquake: The Hidden Disaster For Engineers Safety For Governing Boards DEED Hometown Connections Parting Shot

Public Power - November 2008

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