Simmons responded with a company-wide effort. The company established a comprehensive safety program consisting of fourteen elements that defined safety objectives and key tactics. The leadership teams at each of Simmons’ plants developed site-specific safety action plans.

With management already on board, it was important to recruit the line workers in this effort. Simmons organized employee dominated safety committees responsible for safety inspections, training, accident investigations, and hazard abatement. As all of the pieces of the effort came together, Simmons started to train.

The Training

Dr. Dawe understood that an effective safety program must address essential concerns like hazardous conditions, ergonomics, regulatory compliance management and safety regulatory training. However, he believed that these initiatives alone would help Simmons achieve only partial success. A well-rounded safety program would also need to maximize employee involvement and minimize the human errors that could lead to workplace accidents.

Behaviour-Based Safety (BBS) offered a potential solution. Yet Dr. Dawe felt that Simmons needed something that would kick- start the company’s safety effort more quickly. He was also leery of the paperwork, cumbersome administrative procedures, and requirements for rote observation that came with typical BBS programs.

When Dr. Dawe came across a preview copy of the SAFESTART program, he quickly realized he had found an ideal complement for the other core elements of Simmons’ safety program. According to Dr. Dawe, there were important reasons for his choice.

“Number one, it was common sense information,” he commented. “The materials are presented in a way that our associates can relate to, whether it was on the job, at home, playing sports, or whatever. The most appealing aspect was that the program is very jargon-free.”

While SAFESTART is based on many of the same underlying principles of BBS, it takes a simpler, more direct approach to raising awareness and changing behavior. The program illustrates four critical errors that lead to 80 to 90 percent of all workplace accidents:
eyes not on task; mind not on task; moving into or being in the line-of-fire; and loss of balance, traction or grip. SAFESTART then focuses on the human factors or “states” that typically contribute to and sometimes even cause a critical error. These human states include: rushing; fatigue; frustration; and complacency.

In April 2002, Simmons’ employees were prepared to facilitate the SAFESTART program. Simmons began the company-wide rollout of SAFESTART the following month. Every associate of the Simmons Company at every plant and at corporate headquarters now participates in SAFESTART training classes.
Each person takes the course in five, two-and- a-half hour sessions, limiting class sizes to 15- 20 students.

The courses, which use both instructor-led training and videotapes to illustrate key concepts, teach associates, supervisors, operations managers, and executives how to recognize various states such as rushing, frustration, fatigue, and complacency that lead to critical errors. However, what particularly appealed to Dr. Dawe was that SAFESTART helps employees “self-trigger” on these states so they avoid making critical errors that so often lead to injury. The program’s impact extends beyond the workplace - participants find the SAFESTART lessons remain with them when they are driving, participating in sports, or working around the house.

To reinforce the training, Simmons places huge banners in its plants that highlight the four states of rushing, frustration, fatigue, and complacency. Even the accident report investigation forms include SAFESTART concepts. The company also uses the training program’s language all the time in meetings and memoranda.

Simmons trained production workers at each of its plants to oversee and facilitate the SAFESTART program. Facilitators are responsible for scheduling and delivering SAFESTART training, getting feedback, and evaluating the program’s success. “When you give workers ownership of the process, it’s not a case of ‘management telling us what to do,” Dr. Dawe commented. “It’s peers teaching each other, looking out for each other. This dramatically enhanced employee commitment and the program’s overall success.”
Best of all for floor associates, Simmons rewards them for achieving excellence. The company added what it calls the Zero Waste Bonus. Waste as the company defines it consists of anything that doesn’t add value to the end product or end benefits to the consumer.

“Accidents are waste. Broken equipment is waste. Down time is waste. Worker’s comp premiums are waste,” Dr. Dawe explained.
“Poor safety is a financial burden to a company. The zero waste bonus, which is on top of all the regular pay for associates, is almost like profit sharing. The more we drive waste out of the business, the more operating income comes up, the more people get paid.”
Simmons tied this bonus to four key areas:
safety, quality, service and cost savings. Reflecting the premium the company places on safety, Simmons made safety the largest 20 payout area of the bonus.

Results

The results that Simmons Company achieved are nothing short of extraordinary. OSHA incidence rate statistics dropped from a rate of 17.6 recordable occupational injuries and/or illnesses per 100 full-time workers in
2001 to 4.5 in 2003 (see figure 1). Moreover, rather than decreasing productivity, safety actually enhanced it. Simmons Company increased productivity by more than 12% between 2001 and 2004, reaching the highest level of productivity in company history.
to 160,000

Simmons’ manufacturing plants, once considered almost uninsurable by the compensation insurance carriers, are now recognized by its insurers as among the best performing in the industry.

Achieving that status has an enormous impact on the bottom line in terms of premiums. In fact, workers’ compensation costs plummeted from over $2.5 million in 2001 to just $609,637 in 2003, a dramatic costs savings (see figure
free of OSHA inspections for three years. It’s the first bedding manufacturer ever to be so recognized.

Lower costs, increased productivity and improved safety along with dramatic changes in the company culture have combined to help Simmons prosper. Sales and earnings have risen steadily for the past three years (see figure 3) and Simmons has recently completed construction of two new plants in the U.S. (Reflecting the vital role SAFESTART plays at the company, Simmons required all employees hired for its new plants to successfully complete the training before the plants even opened.)

Ultimately, however, safety is  more than just statistics.  According to Dr. Dawe, the SAFESTART program gives  each associate something he or she can use to help themselves or fellow workers  in the company.

“The best thing about SAFESTART is it’s something an individual can decide to do something about, right then and there,” he said. “They don’t have to wait for management; they don’t have to ask for permission. They’re given a process, permission, and protection right up front.”

Obviously that works because Simmons was recently named to Fortune Magazine’s top 100 companies to work for, a real testament to the working environment it has created.’