Actively Identifying and Reducing Risk

JDI began to also look to “leading” safety indicators as a more holistic approach to safety performance and a better predictor of the effectiveness of the safety management system. We believe a more detailed breakdown of injury data provides better insight into the severity and impact of the injury, rather than only looking at the Recordable Injury Rate. We want to better understand the risk of injuries we have yet to be exposed to.

That is why JDI has shifted our focus to the effectiveness of our safety management systems as part of our journey. This involves the management of all aspects of safety in our workplaces: compliance to regulations, providing safety training, documenting systems and procedures, and initiative-taking steps to prevent injuries. Proactive safety management includes looking at where potential injuries can happen and engaging our team to identify hazards and report near misses. In 2020, we launched a corporate internal Safety Management System Maturity Assessment and evaluated our sites and operations against best practices in health and safety management.

The Safety Management System Maturity Assessment is driving to a higher caliber of safety management. This is a JDI created tool to evaluate our management system effectiveness and to highlight action plans to make system improvements. Our management system will assist on our journey to being world-class in safety standards and expand our focus beyond injury performance to the types of prevention initiatives to ensure success into the future.

HAZARD IDENTIFICATION PARTICIPATION RATE

Employee engagement and participation in health and safety are not only best practices, but they are also crucial features of the Safety Management System. When employees and their supervisors participate in the safety system, they take responsibility for their own health and safety, actively working to improve health and safety in the workplace.

Employees identify workplace hazards, dangerous conditions, potential problems that could cause injury, safety observations, and near misses. The rate calculates the percentage of employees that communicate a condition to their supervisor each period. The goal is to increase employee participation and proactively identify and correct conditions that can result in injury . By tracking ‘hazard ID’ submitted by employees, our goal is to reach 100 per cent participation each period.

In 2017, this program was first launched within the Sawmills Division and has now become one of the key measures our organization uses to track how we are doing at managing safety. Most importantly, it is an indicator of how our employees view and contribute to safer workplaces.

THE SAWMILLS “X” FACTOR – A CASE STUDY

The Sawmills Division was the pilot to start the process of focusing on hazard identification. Since starting the process of hazard identification, safety observations of unsafe conditions, and near miss reporting, the Sawmills Division employees have increased the volume and quality of hazards identified each period. Supervisors are discussing hazards as part of their daily communications with their employees and are actively requesting employees to look for and report hazards and unsafe conditions.

By increasing the focus on hazards and near misses, the Sawmills have shifted the attention to leading activities and actions taken to prevent injuries, as opposed to acting after injuries have happened. The trend lines on each path form an “X” at the point where the two trend lines converge.

The case study, an example within our own operations, is evidence that a focus on leading safety indicators has a positive impact in driving a reduction in Recordable Incidents.

RISK ASSESSMENT PRIORITIZATION INDEX (RAPI)

To help manage reported hazards, JDI has implemented the Risk Assessment Priority Index (RAPI), a prioritization method to ensure that higher risk hazards are given higher priority. Hazards identified by employees are ranked by their risk and potential for serious injury. The most severe hazards or unsafe conditions, Critical Hazard IDs, are identified and assigned corrective action.

By focusing on identifying hazards with potential to cause injury and prioritizing those hazards that can create severe injury by using RAPI, we are actively working to reduce risk in our operations. RAPI is about removing the risk of injury before the injury happens - a leading activity to ensure focused prevention activities.

TRAINING COMPLIANCE – LEADING METRIC

Health and safety training is a leading indicator for safety management systems. JDI has a managed process for ensuring employees are assigned, scheduled, and receive training for both regulatory compliance and safety training. JDI measures percentage of training completed according to assignments. This ensures that we meet regulatory requirements and that training information for our employees is kept current. Our organization provides health and safety training to equip our people with the needed knowledge to identify hazards, implement controls to reduce risk, and how to use the safety systems that are in place.