Stepan Transforms Safety Culture with Safe Start Program

November 3, 2019

Stepan Company’s research and development team members recently attended the Human Factors Conference in location hosted by SafeStart, a safety training company, and returned with best practices and insights to continuously improve our safety practices.

Stepan Company’s research and development team members recently attended the Human Factors Conference in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, hosted by SafeStart, a safety training company, and returned with best practices and insights to continuously improve our safety practices. The conference provides leaders with a chance to learn about the organizational impact of human factors on safety, including roadblocks to human performance and sustaining safety performance over time.

Stepan adopted the SafeStart program in 2014 at our flagship manufacturing site in Millsdale, Illinois. Since then, Stepan has expanded the SafeStart program to include 16 Stepan manufacturing facilities. Today, there are eight SafeStart-certified, in-house trainers who train the company on safety practices that have created a significant impact on productivity and quality within the organization. Since starting the program, Stepan has reduced its rolling recordable incidents rate from 1.6 to 0.6 percent.

“The program has changed our safety culture, to the point of hearing SafeStart stories in the hallways and continually hearing the mantras “Eyes on Task...Mind on Task."  Christopher Gariepy, Research and Development Technical Director.

Stepan will be rolling out SafeStart training to all global locations, starting with our manufacturing plants.

Stepan takes great pride in its commitment to safety and hosts bi-annual safety trainings and quarterly safety events to ensure the safety of all Stepan employees. The SafeStart program goes beyond workplace safety and extends best practices and mindfulness into everyday activities, wherever our people may be.