Safety Cops Patrol the Office For High Heels
Companies Move Mandates Indoors; 'Avoid Bread'
By RACHEL FEINTZEIG and ALEXANDRA BERZON CONNECT
July 27, 2014 10:39 p.m. ET
For decades, companies have used films and videos to promote workplace safety. Now employers are taking them to the next level.
Kyle Bennett and his colleagues recently filled out cards issued by their employer describing the safety risks of a certain regular midday activity. "Walk across the street, enter restaurant, sit down, eat meal," one wrote, breaking down the task at hand.
So it goes for employees at mining giant Rio Tinto's Northern Utah operations—where all workers, including those like Mr. Bennett who works in a suburban office park outside Salt Lake City—must fill out cards analyzing the safety of their daily routines.
Safety awareness is serious business at workplaces such as construction sites, food manufacturing plants, mines and oil rigs, where equipment failures or other lapses can result in tragic accidents. For an employee in Rio Tinto's Utah copper mine, the mandate to document safety concerns might mean jotting down the least dangerous way of moving 1,700-ton electric shovels.
But now field-inspired safety protocols are migrating to the office, where hazards include dripping umbrellas, the height of high heels and hot cups of coffee.
At Chevron Corp. CVX -2.48% , any worker at the company's San Ramon, Calif., headquarters can halt an activity he or she deems dangerous by whipping out a small white "stop work" card. Workers take the authority seriously; filming for a safety training video stopped when an employee noticed props scattered on the ground and invoked that power.
At the U.S. arm of food and beverage company Nestlé SA, NESN.VX -1.10% employees begin meetings by checking for hazards, like computer cords that can cause tripping, and reviewing emergency exit protocol. Workers are also expected to spot two safety incidents each month—such as someone holding elevator doors open.
At a company event held at a hotel, an assembled crowd of Nestlé workers audibly gasped when a hotel employee jumped up onto the stage instead of using an adjacent staircase.
"Everyone went 'Whoa,' " said Joanne Crawford, a marketing director in the company's Glendale, Calif., office. The chief executive of Nestlé USA made the worker leave the stage and ascend the correct way.
Safety-minded employees of Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM -4.17% recently camped out near two stairways in the firm's Irving, Texas, headquarters to observe who held the handrails while going up and down, who carried too many items or ones too large, who was using their mobile phones and who was in a rush. The workers, members of a company safety and wellness committee, mostly just recorded the incidents, for fear they might startle someone and cause an injury.
"We will intervene if we can do so safely," said Glenn Murray, who coordinates the company's safety programs.
Corporate safety consultants and executives point out that strict rules for office safety can reduce injuries, cut down on workers' comp costs, make employees more aware of the dangers their colleagues in the field are facing and promote teamwork.
Yet worker-safety advocates say that not all office-safety programs represent the best use of resources.
"I don't really need some corporate executive to tell me to look both ways before I cross the street," said Mike Wright, who directs health and safety for the United Steelworkers, which represents workers in mines, steel plants, oil refineries and many other manufacturing plants. "I think a lot of it is just distraction."
Charles Bradford, a metals industry analyst, said that when he meets with investor-relations staff at large metals firms, they often start the meeting with a safety talk that sometimes strikes him as "a bit much."
"You have to assume that the people attending the meeting are smart enough to know where the exits are," Mr. Bradford said.
Fatalities and serious injuries occasionally occur in offices. Yet compared with other industries, the life of the office worker is deemed such a relatively safe one that government regulators don't step foot in to investigate unless called in due to a complaint or accident.
"I have never heard a vice president of finance say, 'I have to get my area together because OSHA might come in to inspect us,' " said Steve Simon, a safety consultant in California.
Skanska employees in New York do 'stretch and flex' exercises designed to prevent soft-tissue injuries. Andrew Spear for The Wall Street Journal
At the U.S. arm of Swedish builder Skanska SKA-B.SK -1.39% AB, 8,300 workers at construction sites begin every morning with about five minutes of "stretch and flex," designed to prevent soft-tissue injuries like sprains. But the 1,400 employees who work at the company's corporate offices also do lunges and stretch their triceps—some in high heels or ties.
On a recent morning in New York, at the company's Empire State Building office, about 65 workers gathered in a hallway by the elevators and launched into quad stretches.
Margaret Billy Quandt—clad in pearls, a coral-colored dress and peep-toe stilettos—said she was initially taken aback by the exercise when she joined the company.
"I was like 'What is going on?'" said Ms. Quandt, a senior human resources director. Since then, she said, the company's safety focus has inspired her to rearrange her desk and multitask less.
"Our job site rules are the same as office rules," said Skanska USA Inc. CEO Mike McNally. While he initially thought the daily stretching exercise was "corny," he said he now finds it fun. It gets office workers out of their desk chairs, he said, and shows them the company cares about them.
At Rio Tinto's Kennecott copper mining subsidiary in Utah, employees have to put a wedge under the tires of company-owned vehicles, designed to stop them from rolling, even on flat ground. That written company policy stems from federal regulations for mine areas. The company decided to apply the rules across the board, said Mr. Bennett, Rio Tinto Kennecott's spokesman.
All workers are also required to fill out the daily safety tracking cards. The idea is to ensure that safety awareness permeates the entire company from the mine to the executive suite, Mr. Bennett said. He said that as an employee, "It's really critical for me to understand the culture and how I can contribute to it."
For some office workers, though, finding a hazard to write up every day at the office can be a challenge. Some resort to rehashing procedures for unplanned emergencies, such as earthquakes. Mr. Bennett says he sometimes tracks his lunch treks, noting on his safety card how he will control for every possible threat on the way, from flights of stairs to the busy intersection outside the office.
One of his colleagues recently wrote that to mitigate "choking hazards" during a lunch, she would "take small bites; avoid bread."
—John W. Miller contributed to this article.
Write to Rachel Feintzeig at rachel.feintzeig@wsj.com and Alexandra Berzon at alexandra.berzon@wsj.com