#67: Is Your Safety Culture Stressing Your Employees Out?

Could something as simple as a microwave be driving up injuries at your manufacturing facility?  We think it very well could be, but it goes deeper than that.  It goes all the way to the culture and environment your employees are working in.  Does your facility have any of these top risks that can drive up stress, and in turn risk of injury? Join us with special guest George Mazzuca this week where we break it all down, and talk about our experiences working in the plants, along with what stressed us out!  Full episode summary below: 

Key Discussion Points:

1. Smoking Areas:

Smoking areas can inadvertently increase stress when they are too far from workstations or in poor weather conditions.

Solutions: Install additional smoking areas closer to key work areas or provide sheltered, weatherproof spaces to reduce break-time inconvenience.

2. Guard Shack Delays:

Long lines at guard shacks during shift changes create delays and anxiety about clocking in on time.

Solutions: Increase the number of lanes during peak times, streamline inspections with clear bag policies, and optimize staffing for guard duties.

3. Parking Lot Challenges:

Large parking lots often mean lengthy walks to entrances, exacerbated by weather conditions.

Solutions: Designate closer parking spots for different shifts or implement shuttle services to ensure timely access.

4. Cafeteria Microwave Shortages:

A lack of microwaves leads to long lines and rushed meals during short break periods.

Solutions: Invest in additional microwaves to accommodate all employees or stagger break times to minimize congestion.

5. Wet Floors:

Wet floors during pre-op and sanitation increase the risk of slips and add to morning stress.

Solutions: Use squeegee teams to quickly dry floors, lay down anti-slip mats, and clearly mark safe walkways.

6. Leaving Work on Time:

Employees often leave a few minutes early to avoid parking lot traffic, creating coverage gaps and added stress for remaining staff.

Solutions: Stagger end times to reduce bottlenecks and improve parking lot flow.

7. Pre-Op Stress:

Pre-op sanitation and equipment setup delays affect the entire production schedule, increasing stress levels for all involved.

Solutions: Build buffer times into the schedule, ensure communication between teams, and prioritize efficient setups.

8. Lockout Accessibility:

Hard-to-reach lockout points deter proper compliance and increase frustration.

Solutions: Relocate lockout points to more accessible locations and provide practical solutions for elevated equipment.

9. Holiday Season Stress:

The holidays bring additional pressures with altered schedules, family obligations, and increased travel.

Solutions: Encourage flexibility, stagger schedules, and prioritize employee well-being during this busy time.

SEO Keywords:

Workplace safety stress, employee morale, guard shack delays, wet floors safety, parking lot management, lockout safety tips, cafeteria solutions, pre-op sanitation stress, holiday workplace stress, Allen Safety podcast, safety protocols improvement.

This video is intended for educational purposes.  Solutions offered are not designed to take the place of an attorney or medical professional, and should not be taken as legal or medical advice.  It is recommended that viewers consult a safety consultant, medical provider or an occupational safety legal team as applicable to help navigate their specific circumstances.  

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right.
Today's episode is safety.
Stressing you out yes.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Too much.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Yeah, that's today's episode.
Hi, welcome to our episode.
This Joe, this George, we'reout on safety Episode day.
Safety, stressing you out.
People say yes all the time.
Yes, too much, actually Kind oflike I'm wearing my OSU hat
Sometimes.
Watching them play footballstresses me out.

(00:26):
People say yes all the time.
Yes, too much, actually Kind oflike I'm wearing my OSU hat
Sometimes.
Watching them play footballstresses me out.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yes, anytime we watch sporting events right World
Series right now football canstress us out.
Also, dealing with safety inthe plants can stress us out
sometimes.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Absolutely so.
Holidays are coming up, we'llstart getting stressed and one
of the things they want to dothey want to go for a smoke.
So they want to go for a smoketo calm their stress down.
Where the smoking area is couldactually stress them out.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, so you wouldn't really think so, but how far am
I actually having to walk inorder to go have a smoke?
And if we put it way too faraway, that's cutting into my
break time.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Now it's bad weather.
Now far away that's cuttinginto my break time.
Now it's bad weather, now it'sa little slick.
Now I'm trying to hurry.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
There's 48 of us in this little bitty box, tiny
little shit, little shit or alittle yeah exactly, yeah, um.
So again we're saying, hey, youhave to go all the way out here
in order to smoke, so you canbe compliant, but I have to walk
that far, maybe two or threeminutes away.
I smoke for a few minutes, twoor three minutes back.
Now I really don't have a breaklike that.
Essentially, walking to thesmoke check was my break that's

(01:30):
correct.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
All right, so that's one of them.
I'm gonna give you a few heretoday.
Let's talk about the guardcheck and get ready to go
through a guard check at a plant.
Right, there's 40 people infront of me.
One guard checking things realslow.
That stresses me out, kind oflike when I'm getting ready to
get on a flight, you know, andI'm like, let's go, I need to go
, because it's hard to plan forhow long that's going to take

(01:53):
when you start work that day.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, so my start time might be five o'clock in
the morning or three o'clock inthe afternoon, and now I have to
adjust how much time I'mallotting for that because all
these?
People funneling funneling tothe the guard shack at the same
time, right, yeah, literally allthe exact same time.
So now it's affecting how long.
So instead of being able to getthrough the guard shack in five
minutes, it takes me 10 or 15.
I have to plan for that,otherwise I'm gonna end up

(02:16):
clocking in late, you know soit's a stressor.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Give me some more lanes in the morning, yeah
exactly it's like florida-based.
When you evacuate, sometimesthey open a lot of lanes or
they'll get rid of the tolls soeverybody can get through
quicker.
Well, guess what?
At a guard shack, give me somemore lanes in the morning so I
can get on into work.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Exactly no-transcript .

Speaker 1 (02:51):
It's just ways you can think about it.
There you go, yeah.
So we had smoking air, theguard check.
Let's talk about the parkinglots.
It seems like plant.
I got there way early, 40minutes early.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
I still can find a parking spot right and I'm
texting the plant.
Where do you?

Speaker 1 (03:08):
want me to park exactly longer and longer as the
day goes.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, so depending on what time of day you go to any
one of these plants I mean, someof these plants have, you know,
two, three thousand employeesman, I like parking lots as big
as walmart, but you're parkingall the way at the back yeah,
exactly.
So I'm either parking way at theback and it's going to take me
10 minutes just to walk up to,you know, to the entrance, uh,
or I have to show up reallyearly to get a decent parking
spot or a parking spot at allright, so that definitely
affects you now I got theweather.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
So now we're about do I run through the parking lot,
slip trip and fall?

Speaker 2 (03:34):
do I you know what am I going to do to get there
exactly any of your plants thatwere uh, you have colder weather
, could snow?
Uh, you know.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Now I'm having to worry about walking through the
snow or, potentially, you know,if they didn't get out to put
salt down or anything like thatnow I'm walking through a slick
parking lot potentially have aslip trip but the safety rules
are you know look in a certainarea, make sure you get your
stuff inspected with the guard,check, make sure you park and be
here on time, don't run in thepark no running, these things
are stressing the people out andI'm not saying they're good or

(04:03):
bad, but we should we shouldanalyze that and make it user
friendly for your people.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, anything we can do so safety is put in place to
protect people and to protectyour employees.
So anything that we can do tomake an employee's life better
is the whole point of safety.
Right, we're there trying toprotect people and save them
from an injury, not trying tomake it so stressful, or or add
to that right to the where theycould actually have an injury
because they're trying to makeit so stressful, or add to that
right to the where he couldactually have an injury because
they're trying to comply withsafety all right, here's one.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
It's kind of interesting.
This one is I'm going to thecafeteria, I'm going to eat
lunch and I decide I want to behealthy.
I decided I want some ricechicken, but I don't really like
eating it cold all the time.
I want to warm it up.
George goes, yeah, but what ifthey only got like three
microwaves and there's?

Speaker 2 (04:44):
a hundred of you.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, I'm stressing out Cause each meal takes a
minute to two minutes to heat up.
I'm waiting to heat up my food.
I'm stressed.
I got to get back to the floor.
I may be lightheaded Maybe,like you know, I need to eat
something because I want to dothe right thing and I've just
the time just gets away from it.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, there's the only time I have to eat, right?
Yeah, so one of the things thata lot of the plants, one of the
big complaints that we have, isnot enough microwaves or, you
know, too many people trying toheat up their food at the same
time.
It's not really something youthink about in these industries
until you've lived it and I'mtrying to warm up my food with a
hundred other people.
Like you said, there's ahundred.
Uh, one of the biggest issuesis my food didn't warm up

(05:22):
properly.
I didn't get there.
Yeah, exactly.
Now it's going to be like Lukewarm, I didn't warm it up the
way I should have, or I'm tryingto find other ways to be a
little more creative went up towarm up your food and the whole
point is trying to get there tobe able to warm up your food

(05:42):
faster, so that I'm able to getall that done in my short break
time, so that I can get back tothe floor.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Another one was the slick floors.
First thing in the morning Ishow up ready to go to work, but
I don't be wet first thing inthe morning.
So what happens is I go there,the floors are wet, wet.
The parking lot may be wet, theentryway may be wet, maybe my
workstation's wet.
It's a lot of water I'm dealingwith first thing in the morning
, and it's it's messagestressing me out, cause I'm like

(06:08):
I'm already wet.
I just started my day.
I would never say to my kid onlythe wet areas you need to walk
through, not the dry areas.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
It's wet here.
Go walk there, son.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
No, you wouldn't go around so you don't slip or fall
.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah exactly, and that's the thing that.
Uh, we deal with pre-op, right.
So you have pre-op and thefloors are all wet and we need
to sanitize.
Yes, food safety is veryimportant, we understand that.
But now I'm asking employees togo totally wet.

(06:42):
Now, if you don't, you know, ifI don't take the the excess
water off of that cutting board,or if I'm not careful where I
walk, now I I have another, youknow, a slip trip.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
You know absolutely all right, so now we've got um
going home on time so there'sbeen some events in history
where people have left earlybecause they want to get out of
the plant, to get ahead of thetraffic, get ahead of the
parking lot and there's beensome pretty major events over
there.
So it's you go ahead, cover forme.
I'm gonna leave about threeminutes early or five minutes

(07:07):
early, I'll cover for youtomorrow and then we rotate.
I can get out of the parkinglot.
It's all about the parking lotand how we manage that time.
Getting out of there is what'screating that stress of that
right yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
so I I have lived in the plants, I know that it works
like this and I need to get outat least five or ten minutes
early to beat the traffic.
If I don't, then I'm stuckwaiting for people to go out and
it just turns into a little bitof an issue there.
So we're going to cover eachother.
We work in the same department.
Hey, you leave early, pullingdouble count, essentially.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Absolutely Right.
So we put more stress on thepeople doing that job.
At the end of the day, whenyou're the tiredest, you're
stressing out.
Your body's tired, you startgetting injuries off of that?

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Oh yeah, of course.
Like you said at the end of theday, I've been working all day.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Now at the very end of the day, when I am tired, I'm
to also go a little faster.
So yeah, it creates some issuesfor sure.
All right, so now I got somefood safety pre-op in the
morning, being on time.
If you've ever had any plant,we're a food plant.
You ever any plant?
The startup time, the thingthat stresses everybody out,
with a lot of people bringing indifferent sanitation or doing
different tasks.
You're seeing that even justregular thing that you'll see
sometimes, the delay time in themorning because something
wasn't done.
Maybe a certain way that stresscreates its own environment
first thing in the morning oh,of course.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
So pre-op in general is stressful, right, I'm looking
for any kind of issues makingsure the sanitation, uh,
sanitation team did a good job,and then, beyond that, now we're
saying, hey, I need to start upat 5, 5, 30, whatever your
start time is.
Any minute past that, you know,is considered, you know, taboo.
We cannot go past.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
We're feeling it.
We're feeling the stress.
Everybody's like, well, I gottago, I gotta set my equipment.
Can I get back on the floor?

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Let's go.
You got maintenance, trying toset up the floor.
You got pre-op.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
I still gotta lock out, I gotta make sure I'm doing
this right Now.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
you got saw operators that are trying to set up their
equipment.
Did maintenance take theirs?

Speaker 1 (08:55):
and I gotta put my pp , all these things, everything's
wet so there's a lot I'm goingthrough what I'm trying to get
the floors, of course and it's,it's an overall feeling.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Anybody who's had to deal with that as a day shifter
or anybody working pre-op, youknow that that's kind of the
feel, uh.
But the big thing is there's areason why we're trying to do.
We want to do pre-op right sothat we have the floor in in the
proper condition, but we stillwant people to start and not be,
you know, putting themselves atrisk and potentially hurting
themselves.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Absolutely All right, lockout.
So I've got a lockout of pieceof equipment, but we put the
valve up there.
We put the valve over there weput the valve around over there.
I really don't want to go likethat.
I'm running out of time, I'maggravated, I don't want to lock
it out.
I I'm aggravated, I don't wantto lock it out.
I want to see.
Maybe it works, maybe it don't.
Maybe I just turn it off, yeah.
And you create that stress inthat environment because now, if

(09:45):
it's high, I could use a ladder.
Now I may have to tie off, nowI may have to get an elevated
work permit.
There's all these things thatmay do whatever plant you're
working at, just to lock out,lower the lockout yep, that's
what you gotta do make it moreaccessible.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
I mean, as a safety person, you say, hey, you have
to lock that out.
You also need to be practicaland realistic about where I'm
actually going to lock this out.
If I have my machine here andmy lockouts on the other end of
the floor, it's just notrealistic to think that every
time that I'm going to work onthat machine that I'm going to
go all the way over there tolock it out.
So then you'll start runninginto issues where people are
going to violate lockout,putting themselves at risk, and

(10:19):
so, as a safety person, we don'twant safety to stress somebody
out.
Right?
That's the whole point of thisvideo.
Make sure that you're making itmore accessible for them to
bring that and have a localdisconnect here.
That's fine, because what weend up seeing is I'll shut the
machine off and I'll run therisk of maybe I'm not going to
lock it out this time becauseI'm in a hurry.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
I got to get this thing going right now.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
You know, unfortunately, you run into
those issues as they violatelockout or potentially put
themselves at risk when inreality if you could just put it
right there you know you take alot of those excuses away and
you make their job easy.
Absolutely, these are ouropinions.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Please do a thorough risk assessment that your
facility.
Holidays are coming up.
They're talking about it.
A lot of different schedules,kids schedules, family schedules
, food schedules, travel, travel, stress.
So what we want you to do onthis episode?
Hopefully it gives you somethings to look at.
Think outside the box a littleand think yourself for each one

(11:14):
of these.
What could I do to gain timeback?
The number one thing thatpeople do not have seems to be a
time time at work, time at home, time, anything we got little
league and everything else goingon.
So how do we gain that timeback?
So take some of these ideas adda few more microwaves, maybe
get a second smoking area.
Maybe put a couple more guards.
The guard check in the morning.
Maybe for the the slick floors,have someone go through the
squeegee and try to get them asdry as you can.
Going home on time, maybe lookat the flow of the people.

(11:36):
Do we really need everybody tobe here at this time, or can we
have some people come in now?
20 minutes later, 10 minuteslater, you know what we stagger
it.
Yeah, stagger it out so we'renot having all people through
the parking lot at the same timetime.
And lock alley said move thestuff down to easier access.
We take your pre-op being ontime.
Work with your crews that attwo o'clock we need to be ready,

(11:57):
not 4 30 be ready.
Our plan on how we can be readyat two so we need time is a
buffer to 4 30.
That's fine to build in thosebuffer times.
Don't say we do a lot of pre-op, a lot of sanitation, so just
don't say you need to be donewith the job at five, I don't be
done at four, so something'swrong.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
You got that time yeah, that hour buffer exactly,
and that's, you know, this timeof year it's a general feeling,
right?
Everybody is going to havetheir mind on other things, are
going to be a little bitstressed out.
So, just in general, even withyour personal life, people are
going to be a little bitstressed out.
So just keep that in mind,right?
So, on top of the fact thatmaybe safety doesn't always make
it easy on us, make sure thatif you're a safety professional

(12:32):
in one of these plans, or ifyou're in management, you guys
are taking into account thepeople that do this stuff day in
and day out.
What am I actually asking youto do, right?
Is it making your job easier?
Is it making it more safe?
Am I actually creating more ofa hazard by trying to have you
comply with the safety programs?

Speaker 1 (12:46):
All right, that is our episode for today.
That is our episode for today.
Thank you, george.
Thank you and have a good dayeveryone.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
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(13:14):
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(13:36):
Thank you.