Managing High-Risk Work

2024 Brandon Hall Bronze Award, Excellence in Learning — Best Custom Content

Plastipak Packaging is a world leader in the design and manufacture of high-quality, rigid plastic containers for the food, beverage, and consumer products industries. Plastipak is also a leading recycler of rigid plastic packaging, producing food-grade post-consumer recycled resin for inclusion in new packaging.

Plastipak wanted to improve the safety awareness of its maintenance workers, who are generally aware of hazards in the plant but often lacked a full understanding of issues that could arise when addressing unexpected maintenance events. Workers who witnessed near misses, or worse, reported a heightened priority for safety following these events. To address this, Plastipak wanted to increase awareness of high-risk situations for both new and experienced maintenance workers well before unexpected events occurred. To achieve this goal, Plastipak worked with Innovative Learning Group (ILG) to create a custom e-learning solution.

Before ILG designed the e-learning course, a substantial effort was made to understand the specific safety issues faced by maintenance workers at Plastipak’s five plants. From the outset, ILG wanted to create a learning experience grounded in the real work and language of the workers.

ILG conducted 15 hours of focus groups, posing probing questions based on four “Ds:”

1. Dumb: What doesn’t make sense about the work we are doing?
2. Difficult: What tasks are difficult or hard to do well?
3. Different: What’s different from how things are usually done?
4. Dangerous: What feels risky to you about the work you do?

One surprising issue identified was potential complacency regarding repair work performed to address equipment breakdowns. Workers expressed that they did not perceive this type of work as high risk, viewing it instead as routine. These discussions revealed that initial terminology around “non-routine” work needed to evolve so workers recognized that even routine breakdown maintenance tasks could pose high risks. Moving away from the term “non-routine” helped workers accurately assess the risks associate with these situations.

Since communication emerged as a key topic from each of the sites visited, additional emphasis was placed on communication strategies, such as “when to huddle” with coworkers and “when to document” work before attempting something that involves high risk.

The objectives of the course are:

• Identify situations that involve elevated risk compared to normal work activities
• Identify hazards associated with high-risk work activities
• Huddle and communicate to minimize and control risk
• Document the job (hazards and risk mitigation) when needed
• Adopt a mindset that emphasizes starting only when you’re ready
• Be prepared to stop the job when all else fails

This learning program directly addresses each of the objectives and provides specific actionable information for workers. Workers are provided with a clear picture of how high-risk situations manifest in the Plastipak environment and what they can do to mitigate those risks.

The course comprises many engaging elements, including Vyond video animation to grab attention, live-action video of a senior leader to demonstrate commitment to safety improvement and real-life examples of safety incidents, interactive questions to provide learning reinforcement, and custom graphics and interactions.

More than 1,000 Plastipak associates — including all maintenance workers, supervisors, managers, and leadership — across 20 locations in the U.S. have been assigned this course. It is anticipated that preventing even one serious injury will yield a return on investment equal to or greater than the program’s cost.

The initial reactions from the target audience members have been overwhelmingly positive. Associates appreciate that the company took the time to proactively listen and understand how they perform maintenance work, as well as the obstacles they face to complete their tasks safely. This course was developed to work in conjunction with their existing processes, ensuring it is not viewed as merely an exercise or “words on paper.”

To learn more about how Innovative Learning Group can create custom learning solutions to help improve business results, contact us at info@innovativeLG.com.