The Year 2011 in Review - From the EHS Point of View, Part Two

In my last posting,  I was remembering 2011 and celebrating the successes for MUIR. Two such areas of success for the EHS Department could be found in new partnerships and company teamwork. Sharing at that time our new-found partnerships, the discussion now turns to teamwork and the people who exemplify the characteristics of good team members and great teamwork.

Teamwork

I experience a great feeling of success when I think of the two teams for which I have the privilege of working with: The MUIR Safety Team and the MUIR Internal Auditing Team. 

In 2011, both teams were given new challenges and responsibilities and both teams rose up to meet those challenges and responsibilities with success and pride.

Our Safety Team consists of four members coming from workstations that are located in such a manner that they nicely cover and represent the company. They manage demanding responsibilities on a daily basis while taking on an additional responsibility of Safety Team Member. Each month Opal, Bryan, Jenny and Truongson perform safety audits in their assigned regions, inspect fire extinguishers and meet with me, the Safety Team Leader, to report any areas of concern.

We had been operating under this routine for about two years when I added a new element to the team responsibilities. We were to hold a Safety Promotion in 2011 that was designed to increase employee awareness about workplace safety “Playing It Safe in 2011” was scheduled to run from June (National Safety Month) to December and each team member would be responsible for a segment of the promotion. They looked doubtful in the beginning, but they came through beautifully. All employees who participated were entered into monthly drawing for a safety-related prize- a weather radio, home fire extinguisher, first aid kit, CO/Smoke alarm, etc. All monthly entries were collected and held for the Grand Prize Drawing at the Company Christmas Party for a $250.00 gift card. 

Each team member was assigned a month in which they were to develop a quiz/puzzle/question with multiple choice answers. They did a great job developing their activities and carried on the task by handing out their contest slips and collecting completed entries. In many ways, the promotion and their assignment provided a great opportunity to stretch and grow.  2012 will present new challenges as the team’s annual promotion will focus on gaining employee awareness in an Off the Job Safety focus.

The MUIR Internal Auditing Team faced new challenges and responsibilities, as well, in 2011. Just like the Safety Team, these team members hold down various positions throughout the company. Their appointment to the Auditing Team was an added responsibility in addition to an already full workload.

As the lead internal auditor, I had spent the last few years trying to overhaul, tweak and overhaul again our internal audit program in order to make the auditing process less cumbersome, more rewarding for the auditors and more effective for the MUIR QMS (Quality Management System) and EMS (Environmental Management System) benefitting the company as a whole. 

Tobbias Day is the MUIR QMR (Quality Management Representative) and I am the EMR (Environmental Management Representative), but I coordinate the Auditing Team activities. This year, with Tobbias’ help, we broke the audits into smaller segments resulting in more audits with more focus that were easier to plan, conduct, and finally, report. One departmental goal (of mine) for 2011 was to design a program that would facilitate on time audit completion. I created the schedule in February, gave the auditors the new resource document and provided training on how to use it to plan their audits. I set calendar notices for the beginning of the assigned month, a reminder that the audit should be started shortly and was due at month end. I scheduled a second notice for the end of the month stating the audit was due with a reminder to show two weeks prior. These were to be constant reminders to stay on task.

We started the year with six auditors and by September, we were down to four. However, with a little rescheduling and prioritization, the team completed their assigned audits on time and in good form. Hat’s off to Angie, Opal, Sean and Chris for working through the challenges and helping to meet our goal.

The MUIR Auditing Team is scheduled to meet in January to review the “effectiveness of the Auditing Program”. It was a huge success in my book and I am hoping they see it that way too.

MUIR has many teams that pull the extra load to help push MUIR to Excellence. Only through teamwork, can we set new goals and reach for the stars.