Quebecor Safety Champions Make a Difference!

Jack Butler, Amy Kleinhelter, and Jeff Russ are Safety Champions for implementing a VBSP process at Quebecor World Hazleton

Quebecor World Hazleton is a telephone directory printing company with approximately 330 employees. In 2000, Jack Butler, Director of Human Resources at the plant, decided to use the Values Based Safety Process to increase employee involvement and promote a positive approach to safety. He was also committed to employees acquiring the skills to maintain their own behavioral safety process. Two of the Design Team members, Jeff Russ, a night shift Press Room supervisor, and Amy Kleinhelter, then a temporary Bindery general worker, learnt to train all other employees as Observers. They, and 4 other Trainers, trained approximately 320 Observers in 8 weeks. Jack, Jeff, and Amy (since promoted to permanent Customer Service Representative) promote their Values Based Safety Process at every opportunity, prompting their peers to conduct observations, recognizing those who do participate, leading Steering Committee discussions, and modeling an enthusiastic and positive approach for everyone. Their efforts appear to be paying off – as the number of monthly observations increases, the number of injuries decreases, showing that Safety Champions like Jack, Jeff, and Amy can make a difference!

For more information, please see the Butler, Kleinhelter and Russ (2001) presentation at the Behavioral Safety Now 2001 conference.