In late 2022, through routine plant visits, Clorox noted employee behaviors that were adopted during the pandemic as human health safety protocols were still being sustained out of habit. As a result, the company witnessed sustained social distancing, an overall decline in group engagement activities and a slightly increased RIR.  Clorox recognized that the success of the processes put into place during the pandemic were negatively influencing the ability to sustain its culture in the future. To re-engage the organization in behaviors needed to sustain a strong safety culture and engagement, they created a company-wide contest: The Clorox Cup, a three-month, worldwide competition designed to celebrate and spotlight activities that promoted a work environment consistent with corporate values on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. All sites were eligible to compete for the grand prize while also being rewarded along the way for accomplishing different milestones. In this keynote presentation, Carla Mueller, Clorox's Group Manager, Safety, Environmental & Security, will offer highlights from the Clorox Cup competition. She'll share details of the more than 140 tasks each company site could complete to earn points. The tasks included routine compliance activities along with engagement activities, such as TikTok-style videos, to earn bonus points. The creativity, engagement and competition involved Clorox employees around the world, and the Clorox Cup exceeded expectations and was considered a huge success. The company has already seen an improvement in engagement and a reduction in RIR. Observing the success of the 2023 contest, two other Clorox teams, Quality and Lean Manufacturing, joined the 2024 competition, and Carla will offer insights from the latest competition and how it's inspired a fresh attitude toward safety at Clorox.

If you are an ISO-9000 registered company, each of your employees can recite your quality policy. If you ask them to state the safety policy, or even to define what safety means, you will likely hear things like, “no one gets hurt,” “everyone goes home every day in the same way they came in,” or “I don’t know.” ProAct Safety defines safety as three things: identifying the hazards, controlling the hazards, and doing these things all of the time. These three things form the safety triad that lays a powerful foundation for a simplified yet impactful safety management system. The root cause of every workplace incident is found in the failure modes of these elements. When every employee has the same definition of safety and has the same goal, you will eliminate or greatly reduce the occurrence of the root causes of all safety incidents.

Key Takeaways: 

• Learn the three elements of the safety triad, as well as the potential failure modes of each of the triad elements. 
• Discover how to promote the safety triad as a shared definition of safety. 
• Understand how to utilize the safety triad at all levels of your organization.

Leadership is a virtue, not necessarily a title. Therefore, being an effective safety leader is not confined to just managing your company’s safety program. To be a better safety leader, you need to understand—and help integrate—safety into all aspects of the business: long-term plans, market positioning, values, goals and other organizational objectives. Safety needs to have a seat at the executive table, and it’s your goal as manager to determine how safety can contribute to other departments.

Key Takeaways: 

• Learn to work with, and listen to, the needs of other employees and departments.
• Discover  how to weave safety into the fold rather than operating as a standalone or siloed unit. 
• Use language and other communication techniques that help safety earn trust and respect of others.

Greg Pass didn’t think an active shooting incident could happen to his company. But, even if it did, he was confident that employees were adequately prepared to deal with such a situation. Unfortunately, one day an employee brought a gun to work—and everything changed. Pass will share his experiences leading up to that fateful day and detail everything his company has done since to be better prepared in the future. And he’ll offer guidance in how to make sure your company is prepared for the unthinkable.

Key Takeaways:

•    Learn how to avoid complacency and traps of false security and safety at the workplace. 
•    Discover ways safety professionals can take ownership of workplace violence programs—and how they can better work with other departments (e.g., human resources and maintenance) to keep workers safe.
•    Hear how to develop a safety audit process that can reduce workplace violence risks and vulnerabilities in the first place.

This presentation will begin with an overview of OSHA recordkeeping requirements. The speaker, an attorney with Fisher Philips, will then offer hypothetical injuries and illnesses and give guidance on whether those incidents should be recorded on that establishment's OSHA 300 log.

Key Takeaways:

• Learn when you should and should not record entries on your OSHA logs.
• Understand why recording an injury is a fact-intensive exercise. 
• Learn why having OSHA logs up to date and accessible is key to avoiding a recordkeeping citation.

This presentation will help you be prepared for an unexpected visit from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Pete Flatten will guide attendees through the entire process. He’ll also address your most pressing questions, such as: Should I request a warrant before letting them in?  Does OSHA have carte blanche during an inspection?  Can OSHA really go through all my safety records?  Do I have to give them everything they want from a records request?  What if they want to interview my supervisors or team?  When do they come back? Pete Flatten will offer advice post-inspection, too, including the options and best path forward for any formal citations.

Key Takeaways: 

• Learn what steps you can take to help your company prepare for an unexpected visit from OSHA.
• Understand what to do—and what not to do during the inspection.
• Determine the appropriate steps to take after an inspection.

Providing safety and health training to employees is obviously an important tool to creating and maintaining a safe work environment. However, there are also potential downsides to training that businesses need to understand so they can avoid liability associated with providing safety and health training. Some of these considerations include: What type of training should be provided? How often should it be provided? Who should provide it? Should it all be documented? What language does the training need to be in? Should supervisors be trained alongside of staff? This presentation will explore common mistakes made, including pitfalls of generic training, failure to include appropriate personnel, inconsistent documentation, and “quick orientation” training for new employees.

Key Takeaways:

• Attendees will learn that there can be “bad” training and how to identify and avoid these mistakes. 
• Discover how to create best practices in safety and health training. 
• Learn how poor training can affect OSHA litigation and/or third-party litigation and create liability for your company.

Workplace safety is central to a company’s ability to deliver on its ethical commitment to safeguarding people and the planet. Maintaining an effective safety program goes beyond compliance and regulation; it signals a genuine dedication to the well-being of all stakeholders. In an era where ethical considerations increasingly shape consumer choices and investor decisions, the EHS function has become a powerful symbol of lived corporate values. However, when it comes to competing against other corporate priorities, it is often difficult for EHS functions to articulate the ROI for EHS investment. EY sought to calculate that by analyzing data from 9,000 of the largest public companies from around the world to see if increasing EHS maturity can improve a company’s overall performance. Hear what EY found in this dynamic presentation.

Key Takeaways: 

• Hear how EY calculated the ROI and effectiveness of investments in EHS programs.
• Discover ways that EHS performance can affect a company’s overall performance and bottom line.
• Learn how EHS can cut across silos and other data you can use to sell management to support your safety program.

Every safety leader has the ability—and indeed the responsibility—to make a difference. Whether your company is starting its safety journey from scratch, you’re trying to revitalize a stagnated safety program, or you’re trying to change negative attitudes from a disengaged workforce, there are things you can do to turn the safety ship around—and they don’t have to cost a fortune. Hear from James Wiedow, who has made a career out of being the first safety professional his employers have ever had. He will share the first steps he has taken to build trust and gain buy-in among front-line employees, which have been effective across industries. He will share other tips to continue to improve safety even as his safety programs grow, mature and thrive.

Key Takeaways: 

• Learn how to build trust among employees.
• Develop effective communication techniques that help safety be visible and omnipresent.
• Create a road map to advance safety by implementing programs, policies and procedures. 
• Brainstorm creative solutions to problems you have the power to correct and learn how to navigate roadblocks rather than avoiding them altogether.

This session will examine the critical role of operational leadership in shaping an environment of safety, discuss effective leadership strategies to promote safety, health, and well-being, and provide a blueprint for how 3M facilitated nine Plant Leader EHS conferences around the globe in less than nine months.

Key Takeaways: 

• Learn proven leadership strategies that effectively promote safety, health, and overall well-being in an organizational setting.
• Explore actionable insights and approaches that both EHS and operational leaders can adopt to foster an environment of safety and proactively address challenges. 
• Gain practical guidance for your organization as you learn about 3M's approach to Plant Leader EHS conferences.

Owens Corning has made great strides in prioritizing safety within its extensive network of over 130 factories. After research into how to reduce serious injuries and fatalites, the company identified the primary contributors to workplace incidents—forklift-human collisions and unauthorized entry into restricted areas. In response, they crafted a data-driven AI safety approach aimed at determining site-specific risks, quantitatively evaluating risk reduction efforts, and implementing real-time AI preventative measures where higher risks persist. Owens Corning strategically deploys temporary computer vision cameras in high-risk zones, collecting and analyzing gigabytes of data to discern traffic patterns and pinpoint areas of heightened risk. Subsequent modifications to workspace and procedures are informed by this intelligence, fostering area-specific risk reduction. For heightened risk areas requiring additional measures, they've implemented real-time AI sensors utilizing advanced computer vision and laser-ranging technologies. This sensor fusion delivers real-time warnings to drivers, pedestrians, and safety professionals, addressing potential risks promptly. Learn how a Fortune 500 company has utilized data-driven AI to achieve a safer and smarter working environment.

Key Takeaways: 

• Learn how Owens Corning elevates safety with AI, turning data into a powerful shield against workplace risks. 
• Witness the immediate impact of AI sensors, and how they provide a safety net that reacts as risks unfold.  
• Experience the synergy of AI in enhancing workplace safety, while contributing to smarter and more efficient manufacturing. 
• Uncover the art and science behind Owens Corning's tailored approach, reshaping safety protocols for a secure and proactive future.

It is an absolute need to have a safety system in place within your organization, and this presentation will focus on the steps to develop a safety system and the components needed to create a sustainable safety culture. The components include compliance, training, employee empowerment and leadership. This presentation will examine each of the components with examples (good and bad) and their importance in developing a safety system, with the goal of achieving safety excellence. Along the way, learn how SBM Management gained the status as one of America's Safest Companies twice in the past decade.

Key Takeaways: 

• Learn what a safety system needs to be effective.
• Understand the process to generate management and employee buy-in.
• Learn how to define and build a safety culture at your organization.

This presentation offers an in-depth look at the Start When Certain (SWC) safety culture initiative launched by global medtech leader Baxter. SWC was customized across key principals to make a training program scalable to local needs within a global organization, customizable to relevant hazards and engaging for all levels of employees. The program focuses on leading indicators of safety performance, building tactile safety skills in both technical and professional applications. This presentation will offer a roadmap for attendees to build a similar cultural training initiative customized to company-specific goals, processes and initiatives.

Key Takeaways: 

• Learn how to build a network of accountability and responsibility.
• Learn how to scale safety training to meet both local and global needs.
• Discover the ‘magic formula’ for training attentiveness.
• Gain a better understanding of how to integrate data (e.g., safety DNA profiles, safety climate scores). 
• Learn goal-setting strategies, as well as how to monitor and measure performance.

Discussion on how the EHS hiring process has grown confusing for those filling positions and for those trying to get into those positions.  We will discuss how our job postings, resumes, and interviews (not to mention our attitudes) have limited growth opportunities and hindered the profession.

Key Takeaways: 

• Hiring for a purpose
• Resumes that are specific
• Allow EHS professionals to specialize

This presentation explores the crucial integration of Environment, Health, and Safety priorities within organizational change. Emphasizing the transformative impact of a growth mindset, it delves into how fostering this mindset helps create a culture that values and prioritizes environment, health, and safety goals. The presenter will highlight successful instances in which her organization strategically implemented a growth mindset to drive positive EHS outcomes.