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FACES OF EHS, SAFETY CULTURE




FACES OF EHS: DAWN WURST ON ENGAGEMENT AND OVERALL CULTURE

By Grace Hatfield, EHS Daily Advisor Oct 5, 2023 Faces of EHS, Safety Culture

Updated: Oct 5, 2023

Dawn Wurst spent the majority of her career working at the Flint Hills Resources
(FHR) Pine Bend Refinery. During the 20 years she was there, she worked in a
range of roles that started in environmental engineering, progressed to process
safety, and culminated in serving as safety director of the facility for five
years. She left Pine Bend for a process safety leadership role that covered all
of FHR’s operations.



In 2017, she was asked to make change industries and join Georgia-Pacific (GP),
a sister company of FHR also owned by Koch Industries. GP is a leading
manufacturer and marketer of tissue, pulp, paper, packaging, and building
products. At GP, she led process safety for two years and then was promoted to
her current role of Senior Vice President, Health & Safety in mid-2020.

For our latest Faces of EHS profile, we sat down with Dawn to discuss lessons
learned in her career, improving frontline engagement in safety, and
incorporating safety into overall culture.

Q: Who has been your biggest influence in the industry?

The biggest influence early in my career was Jeff Wilkes. He reinforced early on
that the people doing the work know the answers—I just need to get to know them,
listen, make the resources available so they can solve the problem at hand–and
then get out of the way. This is at the heart of Principle Based Management—the
philosophy that Koch companies apply every day.

Later in my career, I have been influenced by Dr. Todd Conklin, Andrea Baker,
and Bob Edwards who have made what I had observed throughout my years as a
safety leader real by giving it a name.  They are leaders in the practice of
Human and Organizational Performance and have helped me see how to apply these
principles—along with Principle Based Management—to get better results.

Q: What’s your best mistake and what did you learn from it?

I have made so many mistakes, but they have all provided valuable learnings that
inform my approach today. One mistake that most EHS professionals can relate to
occurred when I was working as the Safety Leader at FHR’s Pine Bend refinery.
Due to the size of the facility, with over 1,000 employees, I was seeking an
organized and measurable way to drive employee engagement in safety. To that
end, I identified safety topics for each month of the year and assembled
packages of safety talks, visuals, and discussion questions that I expected all
teams to use. I distributed them diligently at the start of each month, and I
received data at the end of the month, which I interpreted as affirmation that
my “engagement” plan was effective.

However, when I went to sit in on some of these safety discussions, folks were
going through the motions and reading what was sent, without the engagement or
conversation I had hoped to achieve. After about six months, supervisors became
frustrated when I failed to distribute the monthly package due to conflicts.
When I asked if one of them could identify a relevant safety topic to use that
month, they responded, “No, that’s your job.” The exchange prompted me to
reflect on how my actions and leadership were not effective. I had nice clean
metrics and safety communication packages, but I had mistakenly believed that a
top-down employee engagement program that looked good on paper would necessarily
achieve the positive impact I was seeking in employees’ hearts and minds.

To use a car analogy, I was driving the car, but everyone was asleep in the
backseat because I had not let them drive and they had given up asking. This
experience prompted me to transform my approach. I removed all the safety
packages and challenged each team to come up with topics that would be
meaningful to THEM. There was resistance and reluctance at first, but after some
coaching and discussion, great ideas started to emerge. As I continued to
observe safety meetings, I watched as employees’ pride of their ideas and
passion behind their safety concerns drove greater engagement on safety
throughout the facility.

From that point forward, I focused my leadership approach on empowering and
supporting a bottom-up program in which individual teams identified the safety
topics and prepared the communication tools. After all, they are the experts on
the reality of safety in their roles. Safety engagement increased in ways I
didn’t think were possible. It was a lesson I’ll never forget.

Q: What is your favorite and least favorite part about working in the industry?
Would you change anything?

My favorite part about working in this industry is the people, hands-down. The
great pride of our employees, some of whom are third- and even fourth-generation
at their facilities, is evident in their work and dedication to getting the job
done safely. Each employee is working to become an expert in their craft, and
those who have already developed expertise are gold mines of information for
those who are just joining the organization. Change and transformation can be
challenging in our industry—like it is for many.

At GP, we have implemented advanced process controls, central monitoring and
anomaly detection of our equipment, and other automation in plants. We still
have a lot of work to do—but it’s work that we’re excited about. We are
aggressively working to transform our operations to reduce human interaction and
increase controls and resilience—first by listening to our employees, learning
what others are doing, and then building an approach that makes sense for us. It
is inspiring to see employees learn new skills, such as running robotic systems
that take on hazardous tasks that were done by people just months ago.

Q: What are your thoughts on safety culture? How can company leaders make safety
a value within their organization?

I believe organizations have a culture, not a specific safety culture. Doing
things safely must be part of the overall culture. Our culture inside GP and
Koch Industries is founded on Principle Based Management (PBM), a framework
based on the principles of human progress that enables individuals and
organizations to succeed long term by creating superior value for others. PBM
values principles over rules and human judgment over strict protocols. We have a
safety vision within Koch that outlines what we believe, what we will do, and
what we won’t do, in accordance with our culture of PBM. Our vision sets
expectations to avoid common pitfalls like driving increased complexity when
addressing gaps, assuming the worker is the problem when events occur, and
waiting for an accident to learn how to improve.

Safety improvement requires all employees, particularly leaders, to strive to
meet these expectations in our daily work. There is an elevated responsibility
for supervisors in our PBM culture. They are expected to know their people well
enough to truly coach them—to understand what they’re good at, and what’s going
on in their lives so they can help them be the best they can be. I believe a
healthy organizational culture is one in which there are teams and coaches, and
they’re all working together on the right things to win.

Q: What safety concerns or issues do you think need more prioritization in EHS
programs?

I think frontline engagement in safety can always be improved. It is very easy
to layer on more rules, requirements, and programs (all with good intent);
however, the voice and judgment of the worker doing the job is critical since
they are closest to the work. Particularly in the current environment, where
many employees are new to manufacturing as a whole, we must create an
environment where it is okay to say, “I have no idea how that works or what I’m
supposed to do.”

It is easy to make assumptions that incoming individuals have a baseline
understanding of basic mechanical terms and processes, and unless we make a
conscious shift in fundamentals training, we are setting these employees up for
significant challenges in their new roles. Supervisors and other leaders must go
out of our way to ask both senior and newer employees what reality looks like,
what help they need, where they feel vulnerable, and what their thoughts are on
top safety priorities. Transparency of status on improvement actions is also key
for credibility, engagement, and trust.

Q: What are you most proud of?

I am extremely proud of the transformation GP has made in the last five years to
use operational learning in the wake of incidents to guide our response actions
and to build better controls. Our leaders have demonstrated great humility to
maneuver through this newer way of thinking that is reinforced by our safety
vision. There are several stories of employees who left GP and elected to come
back or were drawn to GP based on hearing about our PBM culture and what that
looks like when it comes to safety. We have learned and progressed faster in
many areas by driving frontline ownership and engagement of solutions, rather
than making assumptions about the issue we are attempting to resolve and, in
turn, wasting time and resources on ineffective solutions.

I’m also proud of the step-change improvements our organization has made to
increase controls in critical areas. Investment in technology, equipment, and
building capability in our people is changing what “normal” is and creating a
much safer working environment for our employees and contractors.

Q: Do you have any advice for people entering the profession?

I have three thoughts for people entering this profession. Appreciate the fact
that you have found a job that makes a difference every day. I love that I never
have to wonder why I am going to work—the answer is always 100% clear. In our
modern world where there are so many opportunities, this is an amazing way to
spend your career with a high level of fulfillment.

Always be curious. Your curiosity, particularly when you are new to a location
or company, can be your best asset. It doesn’t matter what level you are; your
questions could drive your company to find issues and solutions that will make a
difference.

As learned from one of my many mentors, Jim Mahoney, strive to work and lead
with no regrets. You will face a situation where others are depending on you to
make a call where you might be wrong or request something beyond what has been
done in the past. I would challenge you to go forward in a way that you’ll be
proud of what you did, even if it’s determined as not needed or wrong after the
fact.

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