How Interstate Battery Improved Safety Culture and Reduced Risk
Interstate Batteries has marketed and distributed portable power solutions for more than 65 years now. The company has over 3,000 employees with 260 independent distributors, 180 All Battery Centers, and 200,000 dealers across the United States and in several Latin American countries. Interstate Batteries is a national powerhouse with core values that have contributed to their years of ongoing success.
Interstate Batteries has transformed its safety culture by utilizing the power of mobile devices and mobile EHS apps. By focusing on the involvement and engagement of workers and stakeholders, especially those who do not have offices, sit at a desk, or are running a route on trucks has helped in making the company culture safer while reducing health and safety risks.
The company has four key EHS initiatives powered by mobile EHS apps:
- The Safety Champion program
- Safety Engagement Score
- Team Member Engagement; and
- Incident Engagement Committee
Safety Champions serve as the foundation to truly utilizing the benefits of an EHS mobile app. The company trains Safety Champions on-site which transfers a portion of accountability to the location in order to keep up with necessary safety inspections. Along with regular assessments, responsibilities include, lead toolbox talks and document management adoption.
The next initiative function touched on the Safety Engagement Score. The use of this score is essential for accountability and KPI’s to be visible to location management and to senior executives. The components that are measured to get the safety engagement score are, facility self-assessments, MGM observations, tool-box talks, safety champion meeting attendance, and location manager safety meeting attendance. The main goal is for all locations to achieve a 100% engagement score every month to ensure no misses in safety commitments.
The company promotes employee involvement to reach that designated goal by safety violations/stop work authority, unsafe condition reporting, daily or weekly inspections, observations, and C-Suite level involvement.
The next initiative function touched on during the Roundtable was the Safety Engagement Score. The use of this score is essential for accountability and KPI’s to be visible to location management up to high level executives. Elements that make up the safety score are, safety champions, location leaders, and the rest of the team. Going more into detail, the components that are measured to get the safety engagement score are, facility self-assessments, MGM observations, tool-box talks, safety champion meeting attendance, and location manager safety meeting attendance. They stated that the main goal is for all locations to achieve a 100% engagement score every month to ensure no misses in safety commitments.
They promote employee involvement to reach that designated goal by safety violations/stop work authority, unsafe condition reporting, daily or weekly inspections, observations, and C-Suite level involvement. They mentioned that potential future elements are unsafe cognition reporting, safety sirens, and environmental assessments.
The fourth of Interstate Battery’s key functions used to increase the company’s safety culture is their Incident Investigation program. The goal of this program is to create alignment in all recordable incident investigations from leadership all the way to the shop floor. This creates a sense of urgency around incidents and aids in building transparency and accountability through access to reports, dashboards, and focus sheet calls. Finally, this program helps in the formation of an incident review committee which was formed in pursuit of alignment and visibility for different levels of the business on outcomes and actions.
Anoop Sreedharan
VP, Customer Analytics
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