Hand Safety
We are now ten years into our Incident and Injury Free journey, and because of your dedication and commitment, our results continue to improve. We had 294 incidents when we started in 2007. By contrast, 2016 ended with 34 incidents—an amazing 12 percent of our original number. While that shows great progress, we still have a long way to go.
Part of the IIF improvement process involves the need to get more and more specific with our approach. When we started IIF, our target was simple: reduce incidents and injuries of all kinds. Today, continuous improvement requires us to fine tune that approach, to better define the types of injuries we are experiencing, and then building programs to help us perform even more safely.
If we look at the types of injuries our co-workers suffer the most, the statistics show one clear answer: our hands. Currently, over 40 percent of our injuries are hand related. To address this this dangerous trend, we are launching another six-month Hand Safety Awareness training campaign this November. Our goal is simple—raise awareness and eliminate all co-worker hand-related incidents, both on and off the job. Those of you who have been with us a few years may remember going through this campaign back in 2013. We saw results, but many co-workers have joined the Baker family since then and we could all use a refresher.
The success of this campaign is critical to our IIF mission. We must achieve an Incident and Injury Free workplace, and this effort will help us reach that goal. Our primary objective is to raise awareness. The more our co-workers consider their environment and their safety, the fewer injuries we will suffer. Your participation is critical. Remember, Safety is Our Way of Life. Please focus on eliminating all hand-related incidents both on and off the job.