In this episode of the Longshore Insider Podcast, AEU Loss Control Manager John Bloess talks with Mike Jernigan to discuss what it takes to identify and develop an effective safety program.
Announcer:
Welcome to the Longshore Insider Podcast. From the American Equity Underwriters at AEU, we are passionate about helping waterfront employers protect their workers and their businesses. Join us as we explore practical strategies for improving workplace safety, effective claims management, and much more. So let's dive in. Welcome to the Longshore Insider Podcast.
Mike Jernigan:
Hello, and thank you for listening to the AEU Longshore Insider Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Jernigan. In this series, I'm speaking with AEU’s very own loss control managers to learn how they help organizations across the maritime industry develop, maintain, and improve safety cultures. I'm joined today by John Bloess and we are going to be talking about the effectiveness of safety programs. John, thanks for joining me today.
John Bloess:
Pleasure to be here.
Mike Jernigan:
So John, tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got started in safety.
John Bloess:
Well, I'm based on Tybee Island, Georgia. I'm a senior loss control manager for the American Equity Underwriters for the last 12 years, and I service the members in the Mid-Atlantic, the South Atlantic and the Gulf Coast. Got started in safety 1993 with a large stevedore company where I was a regional director of loss control for a very large stevedore company, and I handled all their operations between South Carolina, Georgia, and North Florida. Eventually I got an opportunity to work for American Equity Underwriters in 2001 and was able to service members throughout the country and working as a loss control manager back then. But in 2007, I decided with the birth of my third son, my third child, I needed to step back and do something more local. And I took a job with the Georgia Ports Authority where I was served as their loss control or corporate safety loss control manager. I did that for five years, came back to AEU in 2012, and I've been with AEU since, servicing members throughout the southeast.
Mike Jernigan:
So you came back to AEU after some time away. So that must speak to the culture that we have at the American Equity.
John Bloess:
This is a great company and I missed it. Now sometimes you got to do what's best for the family when it comes to traveling. So I took a step back and I had a great experience. When I was away with the Georgia Ports Authority, I was able to work with the third largest port in the country. I managed well over a thousand people, was in charge of multiple terminals. I left it in great shape when I left.
Mike Jernigan:
Well, that's something to be proud of. So not just from this side, but from actually having the experience of doing the job, what it takes to run an effective safety program. And as a loss control manager, your job is to evaluate these programs. So you get to see safety programs that are effective and safety programs that aren't. So when you walk onto these job sites and you start looking around and you see things, what are some of the red flags that might indicate to you that, hey, things might not be working out here?
John Bloess:
Some of the immediate red flags, if I pull up to a facility and I notice poor housekeeping right off the bat, that's a red flag. If I start digging into their safety program and start learning that a company is more reactive than they are proactive when it comes to safety, that's a red flag. If I start interviewing the safety manager and learn that they don't have any safety goals or their safety goal is we're not going to have any accidents, but they don't know how they're going to get there, that's a red flag. If I interview the team and they tell me and point to one person who's in charge of safety, it's not a team, it's one person — that’s a major red flag. I realize through all my years that that's not going to be a very effective safety program. Whereas companies that have all elements of an effective safety program, they're going to take a team concept towards safety and they're going to have upper management, the supervisors, the safety manager in charge of the safety process.
Mike Jernigan:
It's alignment.
John Bloess:
It's a team concept.
Mike Jernigan:
Yeah, making sure everybody is on the same page and really most importantly, working out of the same book. Right. We talk about red flags. When you walk on to these job sites, are there any green flags? Let's say you're walking up that you see, and right off the bat you can say, I can already tell that this is probably going to be an effective safety program. Do you see those?
John Bloess:
Absolutely. I come to one of our members' facilities and if I go through and do a safety assessment and I encounter no unsafe conditions or unsafe acts, watching supervisors effectively supervise and watching their people working safely, that's a green flag.
Mike Jernigan:
So speaking to those green flags and effective safety programs, can you tell me maybe what the main ingredients are to build an effective safety program?
John Bloess:
Sure. The main elements of an effective safety program are a combination of four things that we evaluate when we do our visits. The four things that we look at — number one is going to be the upper management commitment to the safety program. That's paramount. When we do safety benchmarks for our members, that's going to be weighted at 40%. We realize without upper management commitment, the safety program and the safety culture will flounder. The second thing we look at is going to be the supervisor's performance. Are the supervisors out there implementing the company's safety policies? They're the frontline of the company, ensuring that safety is being implemented and maintained. That's very crucial. That's weighted at 20%. The third thing we look at is the effectiveness of the safety program itself. As far as the manager, the safety team or the organization's safety program — that, again, is weighted at 20%. And then the last thing we evaluate is how the companies implement our previous loss control recommendations. And that's weighted at 20%. Do the companies address those and abate those and maintain any concerns that we encountered? And that's important that they share those concerns with their team, so they use it as a learning lesson.
Mike Jernigan:
So you've interacted with a lot of people in the field and you've spoken with supervisors, team members, probably upper management. I'd imagine probably these people are one and the same depending on the size of the organization. But with the effective safety programs, the ones that are really hitting on all cylinders, what are the people like? Can you talk about the attitudes and maybe the camaraderie that exists with a team that is working with an effective safety program?
John Bloess:
Well, I'm going to chalk that up more to the leader. I'm going to give you an example. I worked with an executive director who was slightly, how I should put it, like Nick Saban-esque — you can know where I'm coming from. Very detailed, process-oriented individual, set high expectations for safety and held people accountable. And this guy, he would go around, he had over a thousand employees. We had day shift, night shift, and he would come start at four o'clock in the morning, hit every department, hit safety meetings for every department, and talk about how safety is number one. He would do 12 different sessions in one day from four o'clock in the morning until 11:00 PM. That's a lot of meetings for one guy to carry. But he made it happen. He just put safety as a value for that organization.
Mike Jernigan:
You mentioned earlier how it really can't be all on one person's shoulders, but you underscore the importance of having a leader. And it's important to support that leader, to give that leader what they need to influence the team. And it really does. While we have that person you're talking about who is taking ownership and accountability of this safety, you do have to build this culture and this program so that that person has something to dip into, pull resources from — something that they have that master plan that you talk about. So talk about accountability. How important is that accountability across the board from the executive team to the safety manager to the team itself?
John Bloess:
Well, without accountability, people are going to continue taking shortcuts. They're going to do whatever's easiest to get the job done. And so you have to develop an accountability program so people know and understand that we have policies in place to prevent you from getting injured. And if you fail to abide by our safety policies, then there will be some type of consequence for your action. But it's important that they understand what the safety policies are and why.
Mike Jernigan:
And that consequence for not working safely is really just an effort to mitigate a larger consequence, which is an injury or death. And I think that whenever you maybe put it in that context, it helps people understand exactly why we need to be doing these things and why accountability matters. So can you tell me a little bit about, you mentioned earlier the importance of having that executive team buy-in — specific to that executive team, what would you say to an executive team who maybe doesn't have the best safety program right now? Maybe they don't know where to get started, maybe they don't know what they're doing. How would you approach the leader of that company and tell them, “Hey, you've got work to do”?
John Bloess:
So my advice to any CEO or an executive is that they have a safety plan in place, and that safety plan has got to be carried out by them. Everybody, that executive should know that they dictate the safety culture for their organization, that employees must realize that safety is a priority among them. If they're going to have a good safety program — again, they dictate the safety culture. So if I come to an organization and I see all kinds of unsafe acts and unsafe conditions, that tells me that safety may not be a priority, and that's something that we have to work on. There's got to be some improvement. If you want to see your people change, if you want to see behavior change, if you want to see the conditions change, if you want to see accidents drop or decrease, you got to place safety as a value and you are the one that must lead by example.
Mike Jernigan:
The buck stops with them.
John Bloess:
That's correct. Without them, the whole program will spin. They set the culture.
Mike Jernigan:
I think it's important for management teams to hear that because sometimes in this industry, we hear people discuss safety almost as a hurdle — something that is standing between them and their bottom line. And honestly, if they approach this from a different perspective, they would find out that having a great safety program can not only boost productivity, but also save them money. Have you seen that happen?
John Bloess:
I've come across a company where I wanted to go observe their operations. This was a stevedore company, had a one o'clock start. This was a general manager that had already gone down to the ship and I was going to go down there, meet with him down at the ship to observe their operations. But when I got down there, what I saw — this guy that was in charge of that specific terminal was leading a hundred or so longshoremen union workers with a stretch and flex program at the gangway, talking his gangway safety meeting topics during the stretch and flex. You don't see that very often. That tells me this guy has a good culture with that organization. Now, it wasn't the prettiest thing. I saw a bunch of large men trying to stretch and flex on the dock, but it told me that these guys take safety to another level.
Mike Jernigan:
Well, even if it's not the prettiest thing to look at, the thing that we're really looking for is effectiveness, right? It's not a beauty competition. And I'll guarantee there are no beauty pageants happening on these shipyards and marine cargo handling places. But it underscores the importance of preparing yourself for the job you're about to do, which goes back to that advice you have for the CEOs, which is — prepare a plan, right? It's all about making sure that you get things ready first before you dive in. And as long as you have a plan in place and you do your warmups and you do the things you need to do, then you can keep yourself safe and your team safe. And you don't have to slow down as much because you don't have somebody who's out of work or, God forbid, who you've lost. And you're able to really keep the morale high. Everybody's happy, everybody's excited, and they feel like you care about them. And I think that's important.
John Bloess:
It's very important. And in that example, this company realized based on their incident trends, that strains were their number one — both frequency and severity of workers' comp claims. And so what were they going to do? They were going to lead stretch and flex for their workers to try to mitigate strain claims. And so they took that down to the dock. And you know what? These employees appreciated it.
Mike Jernigan:
Well, right now, there are employees who are working under some pretty rough conditions. Their organizations have ineffective safety programs. What is it that you would tell to those people — how they can help improve the safety culture in their organization and what they can do to stay safe?
John Bloess:
You have to have a safety plan. You have to set goals. You have to set objectives. What are you trying to accomplish? You have to have someone that knows the shipyard or stevedore, the longshoring regulations as it pertains to whatever industry that they're going to be overseeing. And they need to be able to provide effective safety training. They need to have a good relationship with the management where they can have candid discussions with management about different concerns that they encounter. They need to have good resources available to them. They need to schedule meetings and come up with good agendas that are going to be part of the safety meetings. So it's a complete process to have a good safety program. There are multiple factors in having a good safety program, and goals have got to be set, and objectives have got to be set to meet the goals.
Mike Jernigan:
So let's say that I'm someone who is over an organization with an ineffective safety program, and you've just told me all the things that I need to do, and I tell you, “Well, listen, John, I am meeting all the OSHA regulations and we're doing everything that we ought to do. We're good.” What do you say to people who rely on those regulations to say, “Oh, we're compliant”?
John Bloess:
That would be something that I would look at their claims and I would determine based on their claim analytics. If they're compliant with all your OSHA, that's just regulatory compliance — that’s fine. Okay, that's good. My main goal for our members is to not have claims. Okay, we can be compliant all day long, and that's great, and I encourage that, and we're going to try to help you be compliant. But if you're still having claims, that's where I want to work with the executive management and talk to them about — here are some strategies you can use to address whatever trends are occurring at your facility. So it's more important for me to prevent a claim than it is to be OSHA compliant. They're both important, but I'm trying to avoid claims.
Mike Jernigan:
But being compliant doesn't always equal being safe, does it?
John Bloess:
No. No, not at all. It helps. It helps to be compliant. It doesn't mean you have an effective safety program. You have a good safety program, but you're compliant.
Mike Jernigan:
So that leads me to my last question. And you're a safety expert. You've been doing this for a long time. You're a loss control manager. What is one thing about safety that you wish more people understood?
John Bloess:
Don't take safety for granted. People often become way too complacent, and that's when bad things can happen and could lead to a life-altering event.
Mike Jernigan:
John, thank you for your expertise. I appreciate this conversation. If we're all doing our jobs effectively, then people are going home safe, and that's the most important thing. So thank you.
John Bloess:
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Mike Jernigan:
Thanks to our listeners for joining us on the Longshore Insider Podcast. You can watch this episode and more on the American Equity Underwriters YouTube page. Also, be sure to subscribe to the Longshore Insider Podcast on your favorite podcast platform, and check out even more Longshore Insider content on our website, amequity.com. Until next time, stay safe.