Corporate Trust, Branding and Corporate Social Responsibility Link Directly to the Importance of a Positive Safety and Health Culture.
In the February e-magazine ISHN.com, Dave Johnson posted a short editorial about Toyota, corporate trust, branding, and the role safety and health can play. Below is a short excerpt, followed by my comments relating this to Corporate Social Responsibility/Sustainability. I hope you enjoy and will weigh in with a comment or two.
From ISHN.com. by Dave Johnson, Editor:
“It’s a matter of trust. Safety-related problems are trust busters for businesses like Toyota. These companies rely on consumer trust in their wares as an essential to building brand loyalty, brand reputation, and of course sales, market share and profits.
Safety issues become an even more significant trust-buster when they go so far as to endanger the lives of unsuspecting customers, as in Toyota’s case when brakes might fail.
I’ve long thought that safety and health pros working for consumer products companies enjoyed unique leverage. Not that they have the perfect safety job; there is no such thing. But think about it: a food company, a healthcare products company, an automaker, all depend on relationships with the public to make a profit. The same goes for airlines, as another example. Any internal screw-up in design, manufacturing, maintenance, operations or quality control that ends up threatening the health, well-being and even the lives of consumers of those products and services is a major blow to the unspoken but taken for granted trust in the safety of what that company delivers.
This is why pharmaceutical companies can’t ignore safety. Remember the Tylenol crisis? Of course you can find flaws in their safety and health programs; you can find flaws in any safety and health program if you look hard enough. But the fact is many of the long-time standard-bearers of strong safety programs are companies that have ties that bind to consumers: Ford, GM, Proctor & Gamble, Delta Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, DuPont, Kraft Foods, Disney, FedEx, UPS, AT&T, GE, Kimberly-Clark.
One of the reasons for the explosive growth in OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program in the past ten years is the use of the VPP flag as a sort of seal of good housekeeping endorsement, a visible and promoted display of safety as a company value to help build trust with customers. Look at some of the leading participants in VPP — Delta, GE, Frito-Lay, Sherwin-Williams, L.L. Bean, Monsanto, Honeywell, Georgia-Pacific, L’Oreal, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Milliken, ExxonMobil. With few exceptions, these companies score high in terms of consumer recognition.
Companies that operate off of the public’s radar screen are less likely to be found in the ranks of VPP. Of 2,329 work sites in the VPP at the end of 2009, only 32 are in the primary metals industry; 54 in the fabricated metals industry; 45 in instrument manufacturing. I’m not saying good safety and health programs are not found in these types of industries — good safety programs can be found anywhere you have a CEO who wants good safety, where good labor-management relations exist, and good safety and health expertise is on hand.”
Now My 2 Cents Worth…….
Interesting post by DaveJohnson, ISHN Editor. On the surface it seems that the numbers support his hypothesis (assuming my interpretation is correct) that companies with an external consumer focus are more likely to put a “Public Face” to their safety program. Flying the VPP flag is a great example. Whether your are for or against VPP, one can argue that there has been a lot of good come from the initiative. The uplifting of employees and management through their accomplishment is worthy; and then add in the public and community accolates. Fly that VPP flag!
I think some of this is mirrored by the Corporate Social Responsibility – Sustainability movement. Like motherhood and apple pie, caring about your employees is good for business regardless of who knows. Promoting that “caring” to the consuming public and the surrounding community expands the underlying goodwill. I think we will see many more corporations, large and small, figure this out. Good safety, made public creates trust and positive branding.
Last summer at the ASSE PDC, Tim Sanders gave a great opening session speech to the attendees on CSR, Sustainability and Branding. His remarks focused on CSR and how it is no longer an option in Corporate America, but a requirement. In essence he said, that if you can’t prove you are a good corporate citizen and promote it you will lose customers, fail to acquire the top employee talent needed to sustain and grow, and the business community will turn elsewhere. Time will tell, but I think branding is very important and SH&E pros are in a unique position to help their organization’s CSR image and improve their brands.
What do you think?
