Safety First

United Cooperative Services received a 2022 platinum safety partner award from Texas Mutual Insurance Company for going above and beyond to ensure employee safety.

The award was presented through Texas Mutual’s Work Safe, Texas Award Program. The insurance company is the state’s leading workers’ compensation provider and insures 42 percent of Texas’s workers’ compensation market.

“There is no question that United’s safety culture is one of the cornerstones for United’s success,” said Mark Dixon, safety and loss control director. “For me, most importantly, it comes down to the employees and our obligation to them as leaders. We’re successful because safety isn’t just a program for us. It’s a way of life here at United. I’m proud to work for a company that values their employees as the number one asset.”

United was one of 200 businesses to receive this award out of the company’s 74,000 policyholders across Texas. Award recipients are chosen based on company size, loss history, and a demonstration to their   safety services consultant that they prioritize safety in the workplace and have an effective safety program.

This new award comes on the heels of the co-op’s recent achievement of 1 million hours without a lost-time accident. United CEO Cameron Smallwood said he was proud not only of the recognition from Texas Mutual, but also the overall commitment to safety every day at United.

“Our safety practice is a journey that never ends—to do all that’s necessary to ensure our employees come to work and leave work without injury to return home to their families,” Smallwood said. “This is a core value of our culture. Our safety culture starts with our employees’ commitment to zero contacts, accidents and incidents.”

Dixon credited the co-op’s safety success to focusing on several key areas to help reduce hazards in the workplace. United’s safety team concentrated on initiating defensive driving and maintaining electric and internet infrastructure with the proper training, equipment, and resources.

The safety focus also brings us substantial business benefits in terms of reduced costs and improved quality, production, and productivity, he said.“United’s safety department had a very good relationship with Texas Mutual’s safety representative,” he said. “During his visit and inspections of United’s many facilities and infrastructure, he mentioned he could see that safety was, in fact, the core value when it pertained to our employees. It meant a lot to know our passion for safety was so visible to him.”

Both achievements are especially significant considering the company delivers electric power to the 100,000 meters powering the lives of more than 72,000 member-owners across the co-op’s 14-county service territory.

Smallwood said United employees have shared many safety highlights in the years it has taken to amass the recent company record. The last time United hit 1 million hours was in May 2014. The company clocked 500,000 hours in July 2021.

Hitting the 1 million-hour benchmark is a major achievement for United’s 212 employees when compared with similarly sized utility employee groups across the state and nation, he said. It’s especially telling when considering how many employees are relatively newly hired to the co-op in recent years.

“United employees aren’t here very long before they realize that no other part of our daily work supersedes safety, and that our safety culture here has to be universally owned by each employee,” Smallwood said. “Our safety accomplishments haven’t happened by chance. Safety is our foremost organizational objective every minute of every day,” Smallwood said. “When one considers our previous safety observations are realized despite our employees’ considerable windshield time in their service territory travels, restoration efforts during storm events and other natural disasters and in an industry that is traditionally rife with hazard, it demonstrates our employee commitment to zero accidents.”

Assuring the reliability of United’s electric distribution system often requires employees to work in some of the harshest conditions when restoring power or simply performing day-to-day maintenance. Challenges faced by employees include winter storms, tornadoes, wildfires, high winds, lightning and heavy rain. Despite these hurdles, United employees continue on with safety at the forefront.

However, the cooperative’s safety program is built on the belief that everyone at the company has a role to play in safety, whether an employee works in the field or in one of United’s eight area offices.

“Safety practices are not just for our lineworkers,” Smallwood said. “No employee is immune to factors that can contribute to an injury or a lost-time accident, and every employee is trained to observe safety not only for themselves, but also for their fellow workers, too. That was emphasized when our employee group collectively pledged its support for adopting a more inclusive employee safety campaign we call ‘Commitment to Zero’—zero contacts, zero accidents and zero incidents.”

Earlier this year during Texas Electric Cooperatives’ Loss Control Conference in April, four United employees were recognized for decades of safe service.