A Culture of Service and Safety

One answer to the question – Who is OnBoard? – would be, it is a family of businesses that strives to operate within a culture of service and safety. An obvious follow-up question would be – so, what do these words mean?

From our point of view, we serve our clients by helping them to meet their business needs, to help them be successful. At the same time we have to serve our employees in a way that they feel valued and fulfilled. The best way that we can live-out this purpose is to assure that our employees feel safe at work and return home every day the same way they arrived so that on our watch their quality of life is not compromised. In a word – safety.

So it becomes apparent very quickly that we cannot do one without doing the other, we cannot serve without also being safe in our day-to-day execution. We expect this of ourselves and our clients expect the same.

So how do we establish this culture, this mindset, this way of behaving? At the very top of the organization we’ve established a Corporate Central Safety Committee (CSC) which meets on a regular basis. It all starts at the top of the organization. The make-up of the CSC is the Senior Leadership of the enterprise. This body is responsible for setting policy, monitoring performance, establishing vision & strategy, providing necessary resources. For example, as a vision we believe that ZERO injuries are achievable and is our aspirational goal. The CSC has funded a safety perception survey to determine our cultural landmarks in the areas of Leadership, Structure and Processes & Actions. As a result of the initial survey, strategies were created and launched to “move the needle” on our culture. At the entry-level to OnBoard, new employees are screened and oriented such that they understand the unique and special characteristics of our culture.

We’ve answered the “who” question, and a little of the “what” now how about the “why”. Why would we commit to this attitude and approach? At the highest-order level, we are a family owned & operated business and we see our employees as an extension of us. We want the same for them as for our family members. At the same time we operate a business and know that there are significant collateral benefits for operating safely. Our clients have a choice of service providers and our safety performance as measured by metrics such as Experience Modification Rate (EMR) and Total Recordable Frequency Rate (TRFR) are world class and create a competitive advantage for us. However, just as important to our clients is that our culture of service and safety make us a good cultural fit. After the contracts are signed, we have to exist with each other day-to-day and the cultural alignment makes for strong and lasting relationships.

Our culture of service and safety is the foundation of the business. When we live out this purpose we continue to earn the trust and loyalty of our workforce as well as earning the right to operate and serve our clients.