Health assurance Ensuring safety through lnc es

By Donald R. Rung V.p.-Corporate Field Services Lumber Insurance Companies

ll /I'ANY companies invest substanIVItial time and effort in establishing and funding "stand alone" safety incentive programs. In all too many cases, a year or more into the incentive journey, the company owners and managers are left dissatisfied with the impact-or lack of impact-that the program has had on their workers' compensation and safety experience.

Your salary and wage adjustment process should directly reflect those elements of job performance that you value the most,

While a safety incentive program can be ineffective because it is improperly structured or communicated, many times the program struggles or fails because it is working at cross purposes with the company's salary or wage adjustment system.

Your salary and wage adjustment process should directly reflect those elements of job performance that you value the most. Unfortunately, many companies which are very vocal in their professed commitment to safe operations do not clearly or consistently reflect safe job performance or unsafe job performance in the annual adjustment in wage or salary. Employees are ultimately extremely perceptive in sorting through the flow of messages which come from their employers and identifying what really "counts" and what is merely window dressing. Their most significant barometer in measuring what the employer really wants is looking at what the employer pays for and doesn't pay for.

It is critical to communicate to existing employees, management personnel, and potential and new hires what elements of their job performance are most important from your perspective. If your stated intention is to operate a facility with above average safety performance, you must make absolutely clear the impact that safe or unsafe job performance will have on continued employment, promotion and/or increase in salary or wage. You must then be willing to "walk the talk" and specifically reflect safe job performance in the performance review process for each of your employees.

Employees who have received verbal or written warninss for violations of work and safety rules or who have been injured, especially if they have been injured as a result of unsafe behavior or failure to follow work and safety rules, should be specifically reminded of this during the review process. Their salary or wage increase-or lack of same-should be explained to them as specifically linked to safe job performance as well as the other elements you had identified to them as performance critical. tumUer arctriUuUon yard that, unlike m€ury, has a wtde range of milling equipment that enables us to handle all your specialized needs. NFP can mill lengths of 8" to 38'your stock or ours. prime your stock througb our Paint-o-Matic and 9-g oven. NFP Frimed Products perform better. They are protected wfth two coats of top quality primer which minimizes moisture problems.

Employees who have worked safely, who have been supportive of the company's safetv efforts and who have performed positively relative to the other performance critical elements should receive input which is just as specificallv linked. It should be made very clear to them that one of the significant reasons for their salary or wage increase is the fact that they worked safely.

Supervision and/or management personnel should be held accountable for the overall safety performance of the personnel reporting to them. This should be made an overt part of their job description and their performance review should specifically address their performance relative to this goal. The most significant safety incentive mechanism available to you is already in place. Your salary and wage adjustment process can be a very effective safety management tool, once you realize that you get what you pay for.

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Jerome Lamber Co., Jerome, Id., has closed

Ziggyb plans a late April opening for a 51,000-sq. ft. store on 10 acres in Lewiston, Id., to replace a 3.S-acre location; like the new Post Falls, Id., store, it will also carry electrical and plumbing ...

Big C Home Center, San Pedro, Ca., has closed after 37 years;7lyear-old Joe Cracchiolo and brother Sam are negoiating with possible buyers

84 Lumberb former San Dimas, Ca., yard will become a motel site

Tualntin Va&ey Builders Supply, Lake Oswego, Or., has acquired Precision Building Systems Inc., a 17,000-sq. ft. computerized panelization facility in Northeast Portland, Or., and changed its name to TVBS Wall System.r; Lee Howe, mgr. of TVBS's Lake Oswego Truss Components Division, is now gen. mgr. of all Portland area building components divisions

Supply One purehased a vacant Kmart building and adjacent 7.7 acres in Grants Pass, Or., for its 9th unit; the facade will be renovated and 30,000-40,000 sq ft. added for a nursery to create a 100,000-sq. ft. store with drive-thru lumber yard for an April opening ...

Eagle Hardware & Garden plans a summer opening for an $18 million store on 13 acres in Boise, Id., and got the go-ahead to build a 200,000-sq. ft. superstore on the site of the former Ernst in Sparks, Nv., for a Nov. unveiling

Home Depot broke ground in Goleta Ca.; is seeking approval to build in San Marcos, Ca., and is considering a Carson, Ca., site besieged by protests from local retailers, the Honolulu, Hi., city council delayed voting on rezoning 13.75 city-owned acres in Pearl City enabling sale of the site to Depot for $17.5 million ... a paint aisle fire caused $2,500 in damage to its Fullerton, Ca., store

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Willamene Industries' two-yearold Custom Products and Laminated Veneer Lumber facility in Millersburg, Or., will add a 2nd 1.6 million cu. ft. capacity LVL production line ... Willamette agreed to buy MDF D'Aquitaine, an MDF plant in southwestem France

Sierra Pacific Industries, Camino, Ca., is converting from a dual head rig to a small log mill; restart is set for April I

L.D. McFarland Co., Tacoma, Wa., closed its Bozeman, Mt., pole treating facility; has begun leasing a Broken Bow, Ok., treating plant from Thomason Lumber & -ftmher Co., and acquired Kemper Pressure Treated Forest Products, Electric Mills, Ms., renaming it Electric Mills Pressure Treating

Fullmer Lumber Co., Donald, Or., has closed its Fontana-based So. Ca. division ..,

Louisiana-Paciftc agreed to sell its Weather-Seal windoddoor mfg. operations to American Architectural Producfs, Youngstown, Oh.; Weather-Seal has seven plants and related R&D, engineering, service, sales and trucking operations in Ohio .. Calpers included L-P in its annual list of underperformers among the 1,626 companies in its $128 billion stock portfolio ...

International Paper relocated its Tualatin, Or., building material DC to Milwaukie, Or.

Universal Forest Products has agreed to buy the assets of engineered wood component supplier Advanced Camponent Systems, Lafayette, Co., for $17.5 million, and purchased the assets of treater Great Northern Wood Preserving Co., Lodi, Oh., for $ I .3 million

Eugene F. BurriII Lumber Co., White City, Or., has closed ...

N ational Roofing Distibutors Council has merged into the Norrft American Building Material Distribution Associatian as its Roofing Distribution Alliance ...

APA-The Engineered Wood Products Association has closed its Eugene, Or., lab and consolidated testing at Tacoma, Wa., Hq.; for now, western region mgr. Mike Ludwig remains in Eugene ...

WTD Industries' South Bend/ Raymond, Wa., hardwood mill was the site of a just-abandoned, threemonth strike by a local woodworkers union that claimed it was improperly decertified by WTD

Weinig subsidiary Dimter and partner Fagus GreCon launched lumber optimization firm GreCon Dimter ... Weinig's lO-month-old plant in China already has produced more than 100 moulders ...

Pope & Talbot, Portland, Or., acquired 7.64 million shares of Harmac Pacffic, upping its stake in the Canadian kraft pulp concern to 53Vo... the board also renewed P&T's stockholder rights plan

Rainforest Action Network has persuaded Mitsubishi Motor Sales of Arnerica and Mitsubishi Electric America not to use old growth products ... Greenpeace is urging architects to boycott Doman and Interfor reportedly for clear-cutting in B.C.'s Great Bear Rainforest ...

Ace Hardware formed a buying group program far American Rental Association members ...

Village Blaclcsmith and Olympia Tool parent Olympia Industrial /nc., Industry, Ca., acquired tool organizer manufacturer Hametown Advantage; Gary Cohen is now v.p. of the Work-Gear line ...

Canadian N ational Railway Co., Canada's largest freight rai[road, agreed to buy lllinois Central for $2.4 billion to create a network reaching from the Gulf of Mexico through Canada

Anniversaries: National Hardwood Lumber Assn., IMth ... Hirt & Wood Lumber Co., Eugene, Or., 50th ... Weber Plvwood & Lumber Co., Tustin, Ca.,40th OregonCanadian Forest Products of California, Orange, Ca., l3th ...

Housing starts in Jan. (latest figs.) remained steady at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.534 million single-family construction rose 7To to 1.196 million units, multi-family (5+ units) fell?l%a permits rose4To to 1.534 million.