Safety Always: If I’m Not Safe, You’re Not Safe
There we were, on an icy, snowy highway returning from a fun afternoon of winter skiing. Me behind the wheel of our minivan, my family and I all “safely” seat-belted inside with worn out snow tires to travel on. I did not need to google “how can you tell if your winter tires are worn out?” we were slipping and sliding, slowly climbing the back hills of Western New York, stressfully making our way home.
As a result of not heeding the warning signs that it was time to replace our winter tires prior to being in the snowstorm, I was not safe, my family was not safe and our neighbors in the vehicles around us were not safe. We were close to slipping off the road or into someone else many times on that long, white knuckle, finger gripping ride home two weeks ago.
“If I’m not safe, You’re not safe.” With apologies to whoever coined this phrase, I have echoed this statement over the past 12 – 14 months many times. Safety truly is something we can personally choose and thereby benefit those around us, our stakeholders: including our teammates, customers, suppliers, neighbors, yes even our families.
Our WTS Responsible Care® Policy Statement clearly states “We will provide a safe, secure and healthy work environment for all employees, stakeholders and others working on our behalf. We will protect and safeguard the communities in which we work.” Thank you to my teammates, our suppliers, our customers, our neighbors for collaborating together as we continually strive to fulfill this statement.
This month, we highlight key aspects of our Health and Safety behaviors, practices, successes and our safety journey. Our WTS Shared Value is Safety Always. This is in our bedrock as a shared value: always! Not just first as a priority, not only a policy statement, or a pin on a lapel, not merely a banner or moment at the beginning of a meeting, ALWAYS. Please do not misunderstand me, all the ways we engage, discuss and remind each other about Safety are critical, but words alone are just not enough. Safety Always becomes my personal responsibility a mindset with those around me as the reason. If I’m not safe, you’re not safe.
Finally, at WTS, we take our role as an essential workforce as our shared responsibility. We have based our decisions on keeping safe and on mitigating potential disruptions to our services. To the best of my knowledge, to date no WTS teammate has tested positive for COVID as a result of WTS activities.
Congratulations to the WTS Team on staying safe. May we press forward, even if at times we are fatigued and wish this pandemic were behind us. Until then, we will never regret doing all we can to keep our neighbors safe – wearing masks, keeping the appropriate physical distancing, and continuing to follow CDC guidelines.
I hope you enjoy our Safety focused topics this month.
Together – Safety Always!
