Client: HOLT CAT Top Caterpillar dealer creates safety-culture sea change

San Antonio-based HOLT CAT gets results by combining training, communication, and involvement, while furthering the dialog on how people respond to business decisions.

Within 18 months, 75-year-old Caterpillar dealer HOLT CAT implemented a culture-change initiative to champion safety as an authentic core value. The result? “It worked and it’s working,” says HOLT CAT’s Guy Clumpner, V.P. of Human Resources.

Between 2006 and 2008, the San Antonio-based dealer reduced its DART (days away restricted or transferred) rate from 7.3 to 2.9, OSHA Total Injury Report Rate from 9.3 to 4.6, and severity rate from 56 to 32. Comparing the same span of time from the year before, HOLT CAT experienced approximately 40 fewer incidents. The best measure of all, however, goes beyond the statistics. “Even without citing any recordable rates, we know we’ve come a long way,” Clumpner says. “The infectious amount of enthusiasm can’t be quantified.”

“The level of understanding and communication about what we value as an organization has transformed everything about safety: how we talk about it, how we ‘own’ it, how we involve ourselves with it,” adds Clumpner. “We’ve experienced a sea change.”

HOLT CAT is one of the largest Caterpillar dealers in the world: over 2,000 employees serve machine and engine customers from 20-plus locations, from Texas’ Red River to the Rio Grande. HOLT CAT’s 800 service technicians support the large volume of Caterpillar machines and engines operating across 118 counties.

Identifying the key players

To lead the charge in garnering support from key leaders throughout the company, HOLT CAT assigned a point person to help coordinate the many moving parts. Enter Director of Safety & Environmental Culture Noe Cisneros, a former employee of the OSHA family. Cisneros not only keeps a pulse on advancing the safety culture initiative, but he also oversees the team that handles workers’ compensation issues, OSHA and environmental compliance, and contamination control.

“We can never be lulled into thinking the job is done.”

Pete Donahoe
Director of Building Security and Safety Administration Services
HOLT CAT

“Noe’s role is equal parts catalyst and conduit, rather than problem-fixing or policing. He’s someone who understands how we can influence one another. There is a significant difference in changing the attitudes and behaviors of people within an organization, versus ‘telling people to be safe,’” explains Clumpner. “The second approach doesn’t work. To get it right,” he adds, “we’re laying a foundation to ensure long-term sustainability.” The legwork involves complete upper management support and the formation of volunteer safety action teams, as well as activities that influence, promote, acknowledge and reward actions to drive the company’s mission toward a zero-incident work culture.

“Culture change and what we hope to accomplish doesn’t happen overnight,” says Cisneros. “It’s not that people weren’t concerned about safety at HOLT, but with everything else that goes on during the course of a day, it wasn’t getting the attention it needed.”

Getting Started: Safety Perception Survey

With the help of CoreMedia, HOLT conducted its first organization-wide baseline perception survey specifically designed to gauge the health of the safety environment or “culture.”

“We chose CoreMedia simply because of their complete approach and proven product,” says HOLT’s former Building, Security and Safety Administration Services Director Peter Donahoe. “Not only did we feel like we could learn from them, but they know what’s needed to transform a company culture.”

The Safety Perception Survey methodology is based on a Univ. of Minnesota (Duluth) study, led by the late safety pioneer Dan Petersen, Ed.D. Successfully implemented by CoreMedia for nearly 20 years, the assessment has amassed its own multi-industry database that is often used to compare companies with peers in their industry. The survey’s 99 “yes-no” survey questions measure employee perceptions across 21 statistically validated safety culture indicators or categories that are able to pinpoint vulnerabilities in the health of an organization’s safety culture. After surveying virtually all of HOLT’s 2,000-plus employees, results were then cross-tabulated by hourly employees, supervisors and management as a way to assess the culture, identify priorities for improvement, and compare “gaps” in perceptions among the three groups.

“Communication is a big part of this process,” says Cisneros. “And CoreMedia’s approach recognizes this. If we have employees saying one thing and their supervisors saying something completely different, we need to know about it and bridge the gap.”

As a follow-up to the survey, CoreMedia helped HOLT create volunteer teams for HOLT’s four regions; each was tasked to address “safety culture categories” that emerged with low overall scores or significant perception gaps. In addition to the four Continuous Improvement (C.I.) Teams, HOLT enlisted a Six Sigma black belt to identify company-wide standards in four key areas: Safety Accountability, Safety Training, Safety communication and Incident Investigation/Near Miss Reporting.

Continuous Improvement (C.I.) Teams

The first round of C.I. Teams gathered in December 2006 and met every other week throughout the next six months, at two specified locations. Three years later, HOLT is wrapping up its second round of C.I. Teams to take on specific areas of improvement. The approach is distinctly non-traditional.

“CoreMedia really helped us see that it can’t be the Safety Department talking, but rather everyone buying into the concept and suggesting ideas that would really work for HOLT,” says Cisneros. For example, an all-volunteer team assigned to improve safety communication developed a pilot model for facilitating safety meetings, which emphasized a question-and-dialog approach to invigorate discussion and ideas.

“We’ve moved away from popping in a videotape and hoping everyone will get it,” Cisneros says. “We want to encourage dialog.” The new approach fosters ownership and leadership to establish active participation and initiative at an informal level. Meeting facilitators — not necessarily a supervisor — are given a series of questions to prompt discussion, but the greatest benefit, says Cisneros, is involvement.

Cisneros describes how what may have once appeared to be a problem can now be viewed as an opportunity. The meetings — not always pleasant or tidy — often generate ideas, insights and suggestions that might otherwise never get heard (e.g., annual hearing tests, purchasing work shirts with reflective tape on the back, and incentive programs for proactive safety practices).

Safety Accountability takes discipline

Because the initiative emphasizes systematic and methodical safety accountability, the process took at least six months to firmly take hold, according to Cisneros. “Applying thoughtful solutions to activities is challenging and can seem slow at times, but we’re now seeing the fruit. I can mention how we’ve established teams to address potential vulnerabilities and how we’ve defined job-task accountabilities, but what’s really exciting is the level of energy, the look on people’s faces, and all the other attributes that can’t be quantified.”

At the root of the accountability philosophy is looking at upstream performance measures successes rather than failures and incidents, explains Cisneros. “The business of counting accidents reminds people of futility and failure. Instead, we’re looking at the number of inspections and aim at a figure we should complete in a year. The team also looks at safety meetings and decides how many we should have, how often, and what we all want the results to be.”

And while near miss reporting has always been important at HOLT, the process has received an innovative transformation after its C.I. Team asked, “What good is near-miss information if people can’t get to it?” The 2007 team outcomes ultimately led to HOLT’s new Web-based reporting system, endearingly referred to as the “Near Miss Knowledgebase.” Launched in 2008, the intranet site gives everyone throughout HOLT quick and easy report submissions, automatic alerts, tracking, searches, and lessons learned. “Not only are we closing the loop on no-loss events by applying improvements and mitigating risks,” says Cisneros. “We’re also embracing the enormous value in using the information to avert incidents and injuries.”

At every opportunity, Cisneros and his team are constantly communicating — and hearing — how each near miss is viewed as an opportunity to quickly react and revisit the tasks and steps needed to prevent future near misses. As a result, beams Cisneros, “No one appears to be hesitant about when or why a near miss gets recorded, nor do we feel anyone is hung up on the definition of a near miss. If someone thinks it’s a near miss, than it’s a near miss. Near misses are golden opportunities to look out for another. Blame has no place in our near miss process. It’s simple, actually.”

Safety is a Core Value

Toward the end of 2007, a six-member executive team led by majority owner Peter Holt and CEO Allyn Archer decided that “safe” needed to be part of the company’s vision-mission-values statements. The message was loud and clear, explained Holt at the time: “Safety is essential to excellence in everything we do. And it applies to every single one of us.”

So, how did a set of statements created in 1985 get revised? “The all-volunteer Safety Accountability Continuous Improvement Team took charge,” explains Donahoe. “Ultimately, we all agreed that if we’re honest about being a world-class organization that finds it unacceptable to put anything above our safety and wellbeing, then we had no other choice but to revise our values statement to include safety.”

As simple as it sounds, explains Cisneros, the revision also meant reprinting and replacing statements in dozens of places and placards. “Taking the time and effort sent a strong message; we took immediate action, which gave us one more way to make safety part of every conversation. Safety had a renewed relevance for leadership and the rest of us — right down to the newest hire. A ‘well, sorta’ or ‘yes, but’ about safety was no longer tolerable. The 150 words that compose our vision, mission and values needed to cut right to the heart of what we believe in.”

Open communication opens everything

“By putting our energy on aspects we can control, we’re focused on the positive, which in turn reinforces and perpetuates open discussion. With an ongoing dialog, we’re always delving deeper to understand the reason a particular practice is used. We then try to find a safer approach while ensuring buy-in as we go. Meanwhile, CoreMedia is available as a sounding board to prevent us from working in a vacuum. One of the unspoken advantages of CoreMedia is their depth of experience. They’ve seen it all. We’d rather learn from other people’s mistakes rather than make them ourselves. CoreMedia gives us a greater dimension that we otherwise wouldn’t have.”

There’s a long-term challenge in changing perceptions about how HOLT views safety. By reinforcing the right activities and behaviors, Cisneros explains, everyone begins to recognize their impact. “They’re leading indicators. If you have proof that these things make a difference and align with HOLT’s core business values, you have a recipe for sustainable continuous improvement.”

Branding safety is a key step

“The initiative definitely generated enthusiasm,” says Donahoe. “And we wanted to be stewards of that level of commitment.”

As the “culture-change movement” evolved, Donahoe and Cisneros decided to get volunteers thinking about developing a brand and identity to reinforce the cause. Cisneros’ office received 35 entries from employees; the winning logo was introduced during a quarterly recognition meeting, then introduced company-wide using statement stuffers and the internal newsletter. The winner? SAFETY MATTERS!

“We wanted to create something that would connect what we were doing with something visual or iconic. It adds tangibility, something tactile, while communicating that this isn’t going anywhere. I was amazed by the level of response and commitment that the contest generated,” Cisneros says. “This has been a very unifying experience.”

Safety Posters?

Cisneros took the suggestions and had them refined with the help of its marketing department and CoreMedia. To build on the campaign, a series of “Safety Matters” themed posters were produced, shot at HOLT facilities with actual employees. The series of four full-color wall posters are being added as a “tip of the spear” to HOLT CAT’s ongoing campaign to add visibility to its safety awareness commitment. The first poster in the series was unveiled during the second week of April. Today, a series of four three-foot tall posters and dozens of framed prints can be seen mounted on walls at locations throughout the company.

The first poster in the series focuses on a safety-culture message that tout how “we’re all in charge of our safety.” Its headline — “Who’s responsible for safety?” — is supported by text that explains how everyone needs to be held accountable for doing the right thing: “Each one of us is responsible not only for our own safety, but to be the eyes and ears for wherever there’s a potential for an incident or injury.” The message also urges everyone to watch out and speak up to ensure everyone’s wellbeing. The family of posters not only demonstrates how HOLT can do better, but also adds clarity to key safety messages. Each image in the series is paired with an evocative Socratic question and a supporting text or story, as well as an intranet address (or URL) where employees can go to learn more.

“Again, CoreMedia pulled everything together,” explains Cisneros. “I don’t think there’s any other resource out there that is able to do what they do. Their consulting, training tools, and custom production resources make them an entirely unique company. They always see the bigger picture — instead of looking at everything through the lens of safety, they’re looking through the lens of how people respond to business decisions.”

No letting up

HOLT CAT continues to gauge its success on how well it’s able to minimize its tolerance for risk, heighten incident prevention and eliminate complacency. But while good safety news is always great to share, the company is unwilling to rest on its laurels. Says Donahoe: “Our safety-culture journey — and our successes — is similar to filling up at the gas station: it’s nice to have a full tank of gas, but we’ll eventually need more. By definition alone, ‘a sustainable culture of safety excellence’ — one that is based on continuous improvement — means we can never be lulled into thinking the job is done.”

“Were going to succeed,” Clumpner adds. “We have teams excited about the work and we have CoreMedia giving us ongoing support. But most important, we have commitment that starts at the very top. Combined, we believe we’re in the process of creating one of the most forward-thinking safety cultures in the industry.”

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