At Northwest Hardwoods, we take safety seriously.
In an industry that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) considers to include some of the most dangerous occupations in the United States, we have to.
We are committed to providing a safe place to work for each one of our employees. It is a partnership between all of us that is emphasized in our behavior-based safety program where we all have the belief that we can work incident free. As a team we have put several measures and safeguards in place to continue to foster such an environment, including:
* Engaging Our Employees – we encourage workplace stretching and emphasize risk/hazard recognition among our teams
* Implementing Safety Initiatives – we drive work planning, risk recognition and focus on continuous improvement
* Providing Ongoing Training – we focus on improving root cause identification and implement business-wide best practices
* Ensuring Facility Compliance – we verify our facilities follow a range of policies and regulations, including OSHA, environmental, and company specific governance programs
* Reporting and Analytics – we capture safety data electronically, including near miss reporting, incidents, injuries, first aid and use that information to identify, mitigate and eliminate the root cause concerns
It’s our approach to promoting safety and belief that everyone has a role that have allowed us to report a 1.11 recordable incident rate (RIR) in 2018 – our second lowest in the past six years – and a 13 percent reduction in worker’s comp payouts year over year. Like any manufacturer, we’d like those numbers to be zero, but we are proud that our RIR is well below the average in the wood product manufacturing industry, which reported an RIR of 6.4 for 2017.
Safety isn’t just an expectation for us – it’s our way of life. That’s why we remain committed to excellence across our network of facilities.
* Implementing Safety Initiatives – we drive work planning, risk recognition and focus on continuous improvement
* Providing Ongoing Training – we focus on improving root cause identification and implement business-wide best practices
* Ensuring Facility Compliance – we verify our facilities follow a range of policies and regulations, including OSHA, environmental, and company specific governance programs
* Reporting and Analytics – we capture safety data electronically, including near miss reporting, incidents, injuries, first aid and use that information to identify, mitigate and eliminate the root cause concerns
It’s our approach to promoting safety and belief that everyone has a role that have allowed us to report a 1.11 recordable incident rate (RIR) in 2018 – our second lowest in the past six years – and a 13 percent reduction in worker’s comp payouts year over year. Like any manufacturer, we’d like those numbers to be zero, but we are proud that our RIR is well below the average in the wood product manufacturing industry, which reported an RIR of 6.4 for 2017.
Safety isn’t just an expectation for us – it’s our way of life. That’s why we remain committed to excellence across our network of facilities. 
