Ask any corporate health and safety leader what success looks like, and they’ll tell you that there’s always work to be done when it comes to ensuring workplace safety.
At Trident Seafoods, the journey to creating an interdependent health and safety culture is well underway, with a strong focus on continuous improvement.
Trident has a unique heritage, talented employees and a culture founded on treating each other like family. That’s why safety is about so much more than compliance. It’s deeply seated in the company’s three core values of caring for each other, continuously pursuing excellence, and doing the right thing.
For Trident leaders, the health and safety of the company’s employees are non-negotiable.
“I want every person who works for or with Trident to go home in the same state that they started work each day,” said Joe Bundrant, CEO of Trident Seafoods. “While our safety results lead the industry, we’re not done yet. We won’t rest until we get to zero incidents.”
Raising the Health and Safety Bar in the Seafood Industry
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were a total of 5,486 fatal work injuries in 2022, up from 5.7% the year prior.
In a similar study tracking workplace injury and illness cases, by the end of 2022, private industry employers reported 2.8 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses – or a 7.5% increase from the prior year.
Many occupational health and safety experts – including those within the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) – agree that most workplace deaths and injuries are predictable and preventable, assuming employers adopt a shift in how they drive change in the workplace.
At Trident, that shift is happening, and it’s already paying off.
Safety is Everyone’s Responsibility
In its most recent Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) report, Trident disclosed that its Total Case Incident Rate (TICR) of 2.15 significantly exceeded the industry average of 6.5. This represented a 25% reduction in incidents companywide compared to the prior year.
The company shared examples of safety measures taken at its facilities and vessels, including:
FACILITIES
Safety messages from various leaders during weekly Operations and Functional calls and at the start of all company town halls.
Master Lock program with standardized lockout tagout procedures for all facilities.
Company standardization and review of emergency response plans.
Tabletop safety drills and exercises.
Corporate safety audits and inspections.
Plant-wide hearing protection testing.
Weekly safety manager meetings with lessons learned and best-practice sharing.
OSHA training for safety coordinators.
Beta-testing an incident and near-miss heat map app.
VESSELS
Yearly in-water survival training for 800+ vessel personnel.
Yearly classroom training for all vessel personnel on donning a survival suit, launching a life raft, hearing protection, basic fire extinguisher use, bloodborne pathogens, and fall protection.
In-person OSHA, hazmat, first-aid, and firefighting training during transit on Trident vessels.
Biannual safety audits of all vessels.
Annual visits to all vessels to conduct U.S. Coast Guard-required safety drills.
Safety messages during weekly vessel meetings.
Implementation of an equipment tracker app.
Driving Continuous Improvement Through Leading Indicators
Leading indicators are proactive and preventive measures that can shed light on the effectiveness of safety and health activities and reveal potential problems in a safety and health program. When measured successfully and in tandem with lagging indicators, they can play a vital role in preventing worker fatalities, injuries, and illnesses.
At our core, we're a people business
More recently, Trident leadership, in collaboration with the company’s Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) function, decided to take a new approach to workplace safety. By introducing leading indicators, including root cause corrective action completion and near-miss / hazard identification, the company has already reduced the number of recordable injuries by 40% compared to this time last year.
You won’t find a bigger champion of improving workplace health and safety than in Jeff Welbourn, Trident’s Senior Vice President of Alaska Operations.
“At our core, we’re a people business,” Welbourn said. “We care for each other. It’s right there in Trident’s values. At the end of the day, that’s what health and safety at Trident is all about.”
While one workplace injury is one too many, Trident is progressing its health and safety culture in multiple meaningful ways:
Replacing, repairing and maintaining infrastructure.
Creating an internal dashboard that provides employees with visibility to injuries that have occurred in the workplace, furthering transparency.
Standardizing our EHS processes and investing in organizational support to continuously improve the safety culture at Trident.
Proactively educating, auditing and driving a culture of accountability.
Holistic Health and Wellness
In addition to physical safety, Trident promotes holistic health and wellness through enhanced support for mental well-being. This includes first aid training and a mental health training program that aims to increase understanding and awareness of mental health, which helps build an internal network of peer-to-peer support.
The company continually evaluates and modifies its wellness program to evolve with the needs of its people and the organization. Most recently, Trident launched an enhanced well-being platform and incentive program to increase access, inclusivity and employee engagement.
“What having a strong health and safety culture really boils down to is how well you educate your employees, ensuring they have the tools necessary to keep themselves, and others safe,” said Holly Armstrong, Trident’s Vice President of Environment, Health and Safety. “Education, commitment and leadership go hand in hand with prevention in the health and safety world. It’s that simple.”
Through these and other actions, Trident is committed to creating an interdependent health and safety culture where employees are individually responsible for their personal health and safety and collectively accountable for the health and safety of all Trident employees.