Employees
Employee Health & Safety
Operating a Safe Workplace
Whether it's a pump factory or an office cubicle, a safe workplace is the foundation for a successful workplace. When employees feel protected on the job, they can focus on more productive and rewarding endeavors such as product innovations and improved customer service.
ITT has set the only possible goal in the area of workplace safety: zero accidents. While it's unlikely that we will ever achieve a 100 percent accident-free environment at every location, it is important to try. When it comes to employees' lives and limbs, there is no acceptable margin of error. ITT is committed to building the safest workplaces possible and providing our employees with the tools they need to leave work each day as healthy as when they arrived.
Our Commitment:
To operate safe and secure workplaces for our employees and strive for zero accidents at all our sites.
Progress to Date:
While we have realized steady reductions in injury frequency over the past four years, in 2007 our injury severity results stayed fairly static as measured by days of work missed. One clear issue is our growing presence in remote areas that sometimes results in extended evacuations for injuries that would require little or no lost time in traditional workplaces.
Goals for 2008/2009:
To continue on our path to zero accidents by once again targeting a 20 percent reduction in our injury frequency and severity rates. By the end of 2008, we will deploy our new safety accountability program at all sites.
In 2007, ITT experienced a 12 percent reduction in injury frequency. Sites where we have deployed our safety accountability program saw a more significant injury rate reduction of 48 percent. By the end of 2008, we plan to install the program at all sites.
Making Employees More Accountable
Workplace safety can't be mandated; it has to be owned by each and every employee. When employees take personal responsibility for their actions — and look out for their co-workers — our workplace environments will achieve their optimum levels of safety.
ITT is providing employees with the tools they need to work safely. The new ITT vision and values play a vital role by creating a company culture where employees feel engaged and involved, and by extension more focused on the state of their workplace and well-being of their co-workers.
Our safety accountability program, which was rolled out in 2007, provides a standardized safety regimen that all ITT employees can follow. It gives employees the forms and procedures they need to conduct daily work area inspections and equipment checks, and provides managers with instructions on how to hold effective training sessions and safety meetings. By the end of 2007, more than 50 percent of all ITT employees had taken part in safety accountability training.
We also continue to improve our Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) information system, which provides employees with instructions on how to handle chemicals and other materials safely. In 2007, most ITT sites in North America made the transition from paper MSDS systems to a centralized online system that is accessible via the Internet.
ITT workplaces have improved injury frequency rates by nearly 40 percent since 2004, which translates into 200 fewer injuries each year, including more than 110 fewer lost workday injuries.
Staying Safe in Combat Zones
As one of the world's leading defense contractors, ITT has thousands of employees operating in active conflict zones. In 2007, an ITT team supporting the U.S. military's communication network in the Middle East suffered the loss of one employee who was killed during a rocket attack while stationed at a remote communication terminal in Iraq. Two other team members were seriously injured by mortar shrapnel at the Mosul Air Base. One has already returned to duty.
Working near the front lines, these ITT support teams encounter many other dangers, including extreme weather conditions and dangerous wildlife.
In these conditions, our environment, safety and health personnel are called upon to develop extraordinarily strong workplace safety programs. In Kuwait, where we have more than 2,500 employees operating in multiple locations to support the repair of military vehicles and equipment, we reduced overall injury frequency in 2007 by 42 percent. Efforts included daily inspections and immediate corrections to worksites, work processes and personal protective equipment, as well as new safety training, enforced standardized procedures for handling hazardous materials, and a more thorough accident/incident review process.
In Qatar, ITT is responsible for the operations — and workplace safety — of a military base with 4,000-plus soldiers and contractors. In 2007, through pro-active safety programs and education, our on-site environment, safety and health team helped employees reduce lost time injury frequency by 20 percent-with zero fatalities and zero accidents resulting in permanent total or partial disability. For their efforts in "embedding risk management into the culture," the ITT team received the 2007 Commander's Safety Excellence Award and the Chief of Staff Safety Award-the highest possible recognition-from the U.S. Army.
At military installations in combat zones in Qatar and Kuwait, ITT environment, safety and health personnel reduced injury frequency by 20 and 42 percent, respectively.
Measuring Our Workplace Safety
ITT has established a "zero accident" goal. To move toward that goal, we are challenging ourselves to meet an aggressive 20 percent reduction in injury frequency and severity each year.
Injury Frequency
Initial rollout of our "Safety Accountability" program resulted in a 12 percent improvement in our injury frequency. While less than our aggressive 20 percent goal, this is real progress. With our increasing presence in potentially dangerous environments, including combat zones, adherence to our safety management system will become increasingly important.
Injury Severity
Our injury severity performance remained basically flat in 2007 despite a greater percentage of injuries occurring in remote locations, such as Middle East combat zones, where even simple treatment requires air evacuation and associated lost time.
2007 Workplace Safety Advances
- After detecting several cases of minor hearing loss among employees at our stamping plant in Shenzhen, China, we redesigned the ear protection devices to be more comfortable and increased training on personal protection equipment. In 2007, there were no new cases of hearing loss.
- Rob Mason, a service manager for our Water and Wastewater business, designed a portable fall protection device specifically for use over open manholes and access covers. Most fall protection systems are semi-permanent fixtures and designed for roof work. This lightweight portable frame has proven itself in the field, providing optimal fall protection to ITT pump service technicians.
- ITT developed defined work procedures for performing pump station maintenance around open manholes. The procedures are being used by ITT service technicians worldwide and are being shared with customers who are performing their own pump maintenance work.
- By implementing a new "early intervention" process, our Space Systems Division business in Rochester, New York, achieved its lowest injury severity rate ever in 2007. Managers now spend part of each day observing work areas and actions, and engaging employees in a dialogue about improved safety behavior.
Improving Safety Standards in China
At ITT, we require all our sites to adhere to the same high standards of safety performance. China presents a unique compliance challenge because the country's regulatory system is still evolving. In 2007, ITT made safety and environmental compliance a top priority for our locations in China, with emphasis on regular site inspections and employee training.
The result was a significant improvement in safety performance for the ITT sites in China. Our new plants in Shenyang, Nanjing and Wuxi all achieved a 34 percent improvement in injury frequency. And our existing plant in Shenzhen achieved a 67 percent reduction in the number of injuries and lost only two work days to injury for the entire year.
Employee Health Programs
ITT sites provide a wide variety of health programs to help their employees maintain a high level of physical fitness. These range from stretching exercises to help prevent ergonomic injuries to the 10,000 Steps walking program, on-site yoga classes and healthy lunch offerings. In addition, a number of ITT sites conduct annual preventive health screenings for their workers.
In October 2007, our Flow Control plant in Chihuahua, Mexico, held its second annual employee health fair. The fair resulted in 60 employees being fitted for new eyeglasses, and also provided early detection of diabetes and breast cancer for several employees.
