Safety first is not only a goal - It is a promise !

Safety is the first focus area of sustainability.At LM, “Safety first” is a promise and an objective that we want to live up to at all times. A safe working environment is a prerequisite for running a financially sustainable and profitable business, and we can always strive to be even better in this area. The following stories highlight some of this year’s global safety achievements and an innovative safety solution implemented in Gaspe.

This year has been a land mark year for LM, in terms of safety achievements. For 2014, we set a target of 2.0 lost time accidents (LTAs) per 1 million work hours. Now with the year almost complete, we are well under that target, with 23 LTAs worldwide, and a rate of 2.0 LTAs per 1 million work hours — the lowest rate in LM’s history! We sat down with Nils Mogensen, Senior Manager of Global Safety Excellence, to discuss this year’s successes.

What contributed to this year’s safety improvements?

Changing our mindsets is the best way to improve safety at LM.I believe that the blue collars, who could possibly get hurt, know exactly how to take care of themselves. Instead, we need to focus on training management, supervisors, and team leaders to have a safety mindset; it’s critical that they think about safety before they push people.

In 2013,our “Safety Excellence” tour trained 158 managers all over the world, with a focus on attitudes and behavior, rather than specific rules. We also implemented a “Safety Dialogue” approach, where management and blue collars learn from each other by first discussing what the worker is doing in that moment, and then what he is doing about safety. This year, HSE expanded that training to all supervisors—almost 500 people—and next year we will develop hands-on training for the next level of supervisors and team leaders.

Why is safety central to sustainability?

At LM, we have a “safety first” mindset, because we need you to come to work tomorrow. And we need your expertise to come to work tomorrow. From a sustainable business perspective, it just makes sense to take care of the worker from the start, and let him or her come to work. This kind of safety mindset isn’t complicated — it’s common sense — which is why it is so effective.

When is something ‘safe enough’?

When people are in doubt about whether something is safe enough, I ask them, ‘Wouldyou want your daughter or son to perform this task?’If they think maybe they wouldn’t assign their daughter to do it, then they should not assign anybody else to do it either!Everyone is responsible for improving safety at LM. Take two minutes before you start doing anything, to think and talk about the tasks ahead, so you know the potential dangers and what needs to be accomplished.