CoreInsights provides helpful tips and advice to VPPPA members, Safety and Health professionals, their management and colleagues to assist our readers in creating continuous safety and health improvement.

Volume 6 Number 6 - July 2006

 We are excited to announce a new addition to the SafePath product family, SafePath VPP Readiness — a benchmarking tool to help you determine your Star Certification status.  Over 180 benchmarks provide expert guidance.  With it, you evaluate the critical success factors for Star certification, your progress toward audit-readiness along with the quality and, capability of your safety management practices.  

Step 1: Model - Understand the VPP Reference Model with SafePath VPP Foundation  — Start by understanding and getting your arms around what VPP is all about…then educate and develop buy-in from the rest of your  site …help others “get it.”  Avoid Pitfall # 1:  Wasting time and resources by spinning your wheels due to a lack of clarity of the exact VPP requirements.

Step 2: Measure - Benchmark your Certification Readiness with SafePath VPP Readiness — Benchmarking is one of the most valuable parts of the VPP process.  Identify and close readiness gaps and drive continuous improvement in a systematic and efficient manner.  Become a VPP-caliber Star site in a fraction of the time.  Avoid Pitfall # 2:  Believing that getting your documentation in order is the key to certification.

It is not uncommon to get out ahead of the comfort level of the bargaining unit.  What you need to figure out is: what is their sticking point?    Frequently it is being stuck due to a belief of “past betrayals” and that this is a “flavor of the month” that won’t last.   If the union leadership is being honest and they see the value in VPP then the sticking point may be their membership does not trust what is being done.  If that is the case, the union leadership probably doesn’t feel comfortable getting in front of the membership and pushing VPP. 

You need to give the union leadership something that they can use to sell VPP to their members.  One thing that I have seen that works well is a full time union appointed VPP coordinator.  You get an extra position to help and the union gets an additional job.  The position will create a communication channel with the union, and you get to involve the union in the creation of solutions which you stated you are struggling with.

One of the first activities that I would involve the union in is benchmarking.  Getting their perspective on where you are would be invaluable.  From there you can involve them in the prioritization and solutions in plugging any gaps identified.  

Another thing to consider is making all of your VPP activities very visible.  Publishing your results will demonstrate to all that you are serious and are “walking the talk”.    The SafePath VPP Benchmarking tool and Dashboards are the perfect tools for this.   Best of Luck!              

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