(The following article is being reproduced with permission from Gempler’s ALERT, the newsletter of Ag/Hort safety and employment law compliance, web site: www.gemplersalert.com)

Florida-based Nursery Attributes Safety Record to Top Management Commitment

A Florida nursery operation that has dramatically reduced its employee injury rate over the last four years attributes its success to making safety a top priority from upper management on down.

“Four years ago, we had 40 to 60 accidents per year companywide. These
included back strains, bee stings, foreign objects in eyes, and sprains,” says Ginger Stevens-Calkins, director of human resources at Skinner Nurseries in Bunnell, Florida.

“Safety was not an important focus. We were production oriented. It wasn’t the primary focus of the company.”

Skinner Nurseries employs approximately 260 full-time, year-round persons at its two nursery operations in Crescent City and Bunnell (Flagler County), Florida; its management company in Jacksonville, Florida; and its four distribution centers. The distribution centers are located in Orlando; Houston; Jacksonville, Florida; and Hardeeville, South Carolina.

In fall of 1997, the company implemented a new safety program. “We looked at
the accidents that had occurred and saw that they should have been prevented,” Stevens- Calkins says.

One issue the nursery discovered was the “out-of-pocket time” being spent by
managers when an employee got hurt.

“I was driving people to the clinic myself. Then I’d sit there for five hours,” Skinner’s Chief Financial Officer Donald DuMond says. “The lost time was even more important than the money.

“We didn’t want to promote any kind of unsafe thinking,” he continued. “The
motivation was really that our employees were getting hurt – and it was for ridiculous reasons.”

Incentives and training
The company embarked upon a campaign “to let everybody know that ‘your
safety is our motivation’ – that safety comes first. So they had to report even paper cuts,” Stevens-Calkins says.

A safety incentive program was started. When a facility went 30 days
injury/incident-free, doughnuts and coffee were provided; 60 days meant lunch brought in from a Mexican restaurant or Pizza Hut; and 90 days injury/incident-free meant $40 in cash for everyone at the facility.

“Time lost, medical attention sought, or property damaged are all counted against the program,” Stevens-Calkins says.

In addition to the incentive program, the company implemented weekly “tailgate” safety training sessions – using GEMPLER’S Tailgate Training Tip Sheets in both English and Spanish.

“We also started a safety committee made up of both management and
employees. At first it met once a month; now it meets once a quarter,” Stevens-Calkins says.

One year-plus injury-free
The company’s efforts have had huge results. What had been 40 to 60
injuries/incidents per year dropped to just eight OSHA-recordable illnesses/injuries as of last Dec. 7.

The company keeps track of days each of its facilities go injury/incident-free. While all of the facilities have gone a large number of days, the company is especially proud of its Crescent City nursery operation, which last April 28 celebrated one year injury/incident-free and was still injury-free at the time of this writing.

“Crescent made it the first 90 days and just couldn’t stop,” Stevens-Calkins says. The large tree facility employs about 60 fieldworkers and 20 other office and management staff.

Skinner Nurseries as a whole “really is safer,” she says. “We recently had a big series of focus group meetings with our employees, and every survey we saw said: ‘Safety is important and we like it.’ ”