The Guys in the Yellow Shirts

“Jaded Julie, you’d like those guys in the yellow shirts.”

“I already do, Curmudge. Most of them are young, big, good-looking, and they’re building things or otherwise doing something useful. They don’t have anything in common with you.”

“That’s not entirely true, Julie. I once helped our sons build pinewood derby race cars when they were Cub Scouts. But I must admit that the folks from The Boldt Company and the subcontractors doing construction around the hospital are vigorous. When they pass me on the stairway, they usually take the steps two at a time.”

“So why are we writing about the construction crew? They are probably courteous to you because you remind them of their grandfather.”

“To me, the unmistakable characteristic of the Boldt construction crew is that they are paragons of workplace safety. They recently received an award for that from the Wisconsin Safety Council.”

“I think what you are saying Curmudge, is that these guys are excellent examples of working safely, especially in their use of personal protective equipment (PPE). Each person wears a high-visibility (usually yellow) shirt or vest, a hard hat, work boots, and safety glasses. In addition, if he is working in a noisy environment he must wear hearing protection. If you had worn hearing protection during your early paper mill days, you might not need hearing aids now.”

“You are right as usual, Julie. And in addition to their being good examples, they are enforcers. Steve Kappell told them to enforce their safety culture on any Affinity people entering a construction area, and they do. When they were building the Heart, Lung, and Vascular Center, they even gave Betsey a pink hard hat.”

“Further, to keep us from inadvertently going into an unsafe area, there are signs and yellow barricades all over the place. They must have anticipated that you sometimes wander out of your office with your brain left behind in the computer.”

“Not only do the Boldt folks protect us from the hazards of their construction, they also minimize the impact of the construction on the hospital environment. They build wood and plastic containments around areas where they are working and put blue dust-catching mats where they walk from the work areas into the hospital. And every day a worker uses a wet mop to remove the day’s dust from the stairway.”

“Some days noise from the construction activities is unavoidable. I have occasionally felt that whatever device they were using was going to come right through the wall. Nevertheless they make every effort to lessen the disturbance. This includes adjusting their schedule so that the noise occurs during the off hours of our workday. So Curmudge, what is our take-home lesson from today’s discussion?”

“Safety doesn’t happen automatically. It must be infused from the top down throughout an organization until it becomes a culture. The Boldt Co. has obviously achieved that. They deserve our appreciation for working safely on our site, for keeping us safe around their construction, for making the extra effort to reduce their impact on our environment, and for serving as excellent examples.”

Affinity’s Kaizen Curmudgeon.