Challenge

A multi-million-dollar accident and an expensive OSHA citation brought home to a building materials and supplies company’s executives the necessity of improving their safety program across the company’s hundreds of locations.

Each of the company’s more than 650 warehousing and distribution locations had been responsible for tracking its own safety and compliance efforts. Sites used spreadsheets to monitor their programs, storing the documents locally and sometimes forgetting to update them. The lack of centralized reporting and processes left leaders questioning how extensive—and expensive—their compliance issues might be. They asked Hylant to help provide insight and guidance.

Solution

As the company’s strategic safety partner, Hylant engaged third-party auditors and provided guidance to corporate leaders on how to properly train 22 of the company’s safety managers to conduct compliance audits at more than 100 key locations.

Using surveys Hylant customized for the company, the trained auditors gathered data in a consistent manner across the assigned locations. Using cell phones and tablet devices, they entered their findings into the Hylant Risk Management Center, an online platform for centralizing, tracking and managing casualty risk management documents and processes. The platform assigned an unbiased, numerical score to each audit, enabling the team to rank the sites from strongest to weakest.

Consolidating the findings, Hylant summarized key compliance issues, safety hazards, life safety concerns, and missing processes and documentation for the leadership team. To help them understand the extent of the risks, Hylant calculated the financial impact of potential OSHA penalties for serious and repeated violations found by the team for just the audited sites. They totaled more than $11 million.

Now fully understanding their responsibilities and legal exposures, the company leadership directed Hylant to design a companywide safety and compliance program in alignment with the organization’s corporate policies. The plan included the following:

• Using the company’s existing but previously underutilized online platform for centrally filing safety policies and training materials
• Implementing controls requiring and incentivizing compliance with the company’s policies and training practices
• Tracking certificates of insurance

Armed with trained people, a clear process, a list of prioritized sites and corrective actions, and a system for monitoring and managing their program companywide, the organization implemented an effective audit and compliance program. Program data is used to support continuous improvement and inform discussions with underwriters about the company’s risk management efforts.