Kleenex ®, Cottonelle®, Poise®, Kotex®, Huggies®, Scott®, Viva®—chances are, you’re using at least one of these brands at home right now. They’re just a few of the big names Kimberly-Clark has built since the company was founded in Neenah, WI, in 1872. Kimberly-Clark products cover a wide range of personal care and household needs and are sold in more than 175 countries. In fact, the company estimates that, every day, about one-quarter of the global population uses a Kimberly-Clark product.
However, this global leadership would mean little to the family of an employee injured producing one of these famous brands. With 45,000 employees, the company feels an imperative to bring the concept of "personal care" to the safety performance of its mills.
"Kimberly-Clark’s values are a global force that do not shy away from action, especially when it comes to keeping our people safe," says Geri Klein-Shank, Kimberly-Clark North American director of Environmental, Health, Safety and Sustainability. To that end, Kimberly-Clark has a three-part value statement that stresses that "personal connection" of the company to its workers, and of workers to their roles:
We Care: We care for our people, our communities and everyone we serve, and we value our differences.
We Own: We are responsible for our decisions and accountable for our results.
We Act: We have a bias for action and do what’s right for our people, our business, and our world.
"We can’t expect people to perform at their best unless they feel safe," says Klein-Shank. "We encourage every employee to connect to their personal ‘why’ behind safety and then empower them to speak up and own their actions. Care is at the heart of everything we do and watching out for each other is key to our ability to deliver Kimberly-Clark’s purpose of ‘Better Care for a Better World’."
Empowering Employee Safety with a Trusted Partner
For more than a decade TAPPISAFE has maintained a shared mission with its manufacturing partners, including Kimberly-Clark: to bring every team member, contractor, and visitor home safe each day. The TAPPISAFE program offers more than 200 online safety courses to help workers step onto a job site already knowing the site-specific safety rules and ready for gate entry.
To date, more than 21,000 students have taken site specific orientations for participating Kimberly-Clark locations. One of the first Kimberly-Clark facilities to adopt TAPPISAFE is also the company’s largest: the Beech Island, SC, facility where Ernesto Barquet-Gonzalez serves as North American best practices and delivery leader. As Barquet-Gonzales notes, "TAPPISAFE has helped make us stronger by providing educational tools that ensure contractors working at our mill are well-trained, following safety standards, and are proactive about keeping themselves and others safe."
As part of its focus on contractor safety, the Beech Island facility formed a safety action team with representation from all on-site areas. They revamped their standards and have a system in place designed to help ensure contractors working on-site meet, and exceed, safety requirements.
“We have a program called ‘People Based Safety’ where we encourage every Beech Island team member to hold safety conversation with one another,” Barquet-Gonzales adds. “The value of caring is deep in our Kimberly-Clark culture; safety, and keeping each other safe, is at the core of that value.”
To learn more about Kimberly-Clark’s safety program, read the full article in Paper360° Magazine.
TAPPISAFE is committed to helping mills and plants maintain a “safety first” culture through online safety orientations and contractor qualification tools designed specifically for the forest products industry. Learn more at tappisafe.org.
TAPPI
http://www.tappi.org/