Hard Hats Color-coded for Safety
Jennifer Johnson , Warehouse Technician I-Bagdad
It ’ s not easy being green , a fact borne out by safety statistics to which the company is applying a laser focus across FM Americas .
Data shows employees with three years or less experience in a role and those who work for supervisors who are similarly green led to the majority of 2022 safety incidents across Freeport-McMoRan Americas .
At Bagdad , green employees are , well , green – or at least their hard hats are . Employees at all levels with less than a year of service now are clearly identified with green hard hats .
“ It ’ s a visible means of identifying who our people are with a heightened awareness of their newness to a task ,” said Chris Svenson , Manager-Health and Safety . “ It ’ s just another way to help ensure we are really paying attention to our people and what our data has been showing us .”
A comprehensive look at the factors leading to the company ’ s challenges with safety performance set the stage for applying lessons learned into tangible practices , Svenson said .
Carlos Fuentes , Electrician Helper-Bagdad
“ A lot of work was done to collect that data , and the whole point was to use this information that ’ s been provided to us as a way to get better , so green hard hats are just one of the ways we ’ re responding to that data with action items ,” Svenson said . “ It ’ s not about poking fun at people because they ’ re new . It ’ s about paying special attention to people and letting them know that we care about taking care of them .”
SITES HAVE FLEXIBILITY
The company ’ s plan to better identify and distinguish new employees purposely left wiggle room for sites to customize , per Josh Olmsted President and Chief Operating Officer-Americas .
“ Josh put out a call to better identify our new employees at all sites , but he wanted to leave it up to the sites as to how that is implemented ,” said Mitch Kruger , Director of Corporate Health and Safety-Smelter Rod and Refining . “ Different sites might use different colors for different periods of time . We want to make sure we can identify and look out for these people , but we want the sites to decide how to do that .”
At Safford , red helmets are worn by employees with less than two years of experience with the company or less than six months of experience at Safford . While at Morenci , new employees – frontline and management – wear red hats for their first year on the job .
The scale and scope of mining operations make everyone a newbie until they have acclimated to the gigantic complexity .
The Three to Watch
Company data on incident reports show the three more vulnerable groups of employees are :
• Employees with three years or less experience
• Employees of supervisors with three years or less experience in their current roles
• Employees working as trainees , laborers , and equipment and process operators . This group is three times more likely to be involved in a safety accident
“ You don ’ t learn a new process or a new area in a week or month . It takes time ,” said Heike Martin , Health and Safety Specialist-Bagdad . “ The green hats are a way to identify a person new to an area so other people can keep an eye out for them .”
The retinal flash of green instead of white doesn ’ t just benefit a supervisor or co-worker wanting to help ensure new employees are safe , Martin noted .
“ I think the green hard hats also help make the people wearing them more secure and more comfortable on the job because they feel like people are here to watch out for them ,” she said .
The policy has seen widespread acceptance at Bagdad since it was first rolled out in November , with supervisors and superintendents even bringing a wider demographic under the green top , as it were .
“ We have instituted the green hats not just for employees hired since we rolled the program out but retroactively as well to employees with less than a year of experience ,” Svenson said . “ We ’ ve also brought on employees who may have more than a year of experience but are new to Bagdad .”
So far , no “ newbies ” have objected to the color coding , he said .
“ I think people recognize this is something we ’ re doing not only on their behalf but on behalf of the company so we really haven ’ t had any issues with that ,” Svenson said .
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