Transforming Workplace Safety: Insights from a Lean Specialist, Brian Matyjevich

Hey everybody wendy sellers here the hr lady thanks for coming back welcome back to our show and welcome jc my co-host wendy sellers it's a pleasure to be back i'm a little heartbroken today but i'm doing okay things are fine i'll pull through oh no it sounds sounds like a little bit of drama here what's going on yeah i had a uh you know i do this podcast outside of here uh interesting things with JC. And I was up for a few awards and I lost out on one of the big nominations.

Wendy, it kind of hurts a little bit, but I was picked up for a nomination on something else. I don't want to name them, but it's been quite the wild mood swing, the ups, the downs, the this or that. I really feel like I'm in HR today. Yes, HR and also safety are always the ups and downs, especially when people are having a bad day.

They tend to take it out under of their co-workers at work. So that's what we're going to be here today to talk about. We have a very special guest here today, a professional safety expert and lean specialist at the Northeastern Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Center. Welcome, Brian Matyevich.

Hello, hello, hello. I'm not depressed. I was not up for any kind of awards. I can make up my own, but I'd probably lose it anyhow.

So I feel you, JC. Thanks for having me. You know what? I highly doubt you would lose it.

You have some pretty impressive experience. Your company is a leading provider of business growth, operational excellence, and leadership development solutions. You yourself, wow, you have Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and an authorized OSHA outreach trainer. That's awesome.

Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. You know what I think about it?

I did once win the biggest loser contest. I lost a couple pounds, so it was a workplace thing. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Yeah. Well, hey, but workplace health, well, workplace HR and workplace safety go all together. So we want to just kind of get your take on a few things. But before we jump into that, can you tell us about your journey and what inspired you to focus on safety and lean manufacturing?

Absolutely. So I've spent over 30 years in manufacturing, working everything from high-tech engineering, fabrication to leadership roles, continuous improvement. And then I ended up in the safety world and I tie all those together. What's really inspired me with all that is the smallest little change anybody can make from every level of the company, from the entry line worker to management, how it can change everything in the culture of your workplace, process improvement, safety culture, et cetera.

It's dramatically improved the output and also the employee wellbeing. And I love being part of that. Just a small little idea changes so much. After that, I dove deeper into liens and safety, and eventually I earned my lien six segment master black belt.

I became an OSHA authorized instructor up here in Northeast Pennsylvania. I work closely with our local OSHA branch here, helping any companies who can improve themselves. My venture, they like to say you fall into safety. I had a workplace accident.

I had a little bit of a brush up with a lathe and a shop, and I ended up out of work for a couple of months, about 11 months. Cost my company a couple million dollars, a couple shoulder surgeries, and I got about 85% use of my left arm. So I'm always walking around telling people what not to do. Wow.

Oh, wow. Wow. Well, shoulder aside, facilities led by Lean Six Sigma black belts report 38% fewer safety incidents compared to those without certified leadership. And companies that implement Lean manufacturing with a strong safety culture.

See up to a 70% reduction in workplace injuries. It all starts with safety. Yeah, it all starts with safety from the bottom up. I love it.

I love your sense of humor where you're like, oh, I kind of fell into safety. Yeah, I know. I'm dying over here, Wendy. Yeah, yeah.

Well, hopefully not really, because workers' comp insurance is incredibly expensive from a business owner's aspect, from an HR aspect, and of course, from the CFO's aspect. We dread workers' comp insurance renewal time, especially if there's been any kind of accidents in the workplace. And most organizations and in most states, it takes about three years for your workers' comp insurance to come back down to normal if you've had injuries within those three years. Now, I don't know every single state and what their rules are, but I've worked in almost every single state in the United States.

And that is one of the biggest expenses for many companies, especially manufacturing, construction, and even healthcare too. So Brian, jumping back into, you know, talking about lean manufacturing principles, for those that have never heard of it or are new to the concept, how would you define lean manufacturing and what the heck are its fundamental principles? Well, if you look at what's topical in the news right now, the finance markets. Everyone's having problems.

You know, we got some political changes happening and everyone's trying to do more with less and that's not going to change. However, lean is not a new concept. It's something that's been around for a long time, all the way back to the Model T. How can we make more, get more out the door?

Lean manufacturing is about creating more value for your customer by using fewer resources. At its core, it's about identifying, eliminating waste in every single process, everything you do. But it involves every part of your company. Not just top management telling you what to do.

You've got to have your operators, you've got to have the guys on the floor looking through the processes and figure out where can we eliminate, where can we eliminate it? So you have value, value stream, which is your map. You map out the whole facility, the flow of the material and then perfection. But then it never gets to perfection.

I always want to make it better. I love it. You know, we have a lot of listeners that are small businesses. They're wearing the HR hat or in the actual HR function.

Is this are these things that should be vetted by hr or maybe an outsource safety expert no i think you should be aware very often i have students in my class and the you know the first thing i like to do especially if it's a class that's more than two two or four hours a lot of my classes are days long what's your name what's your position what are you doing well i'm in purchasing i don't know why i'm here i never go on the floor do you order the chemicals yes that's why you're here What's your name?

I'm in HR. I'm a supervisor. I don't, well, do you walk by the guys that are in the electrical cabins? Yes.

You need to tell them not to go to electrical cabins. Keep their hands out of there. So everybody should have some kind of safety training so they understand the importance of this. And if we go back to JC's family that's not working for me, the chemicals, you know, the chemicals, that person who's ordering the chemicals needs to understand, well, wait a second, give me this safety data sheet.

What's the PPE involved? I got to wear a respirator? That's even more training now. And JC's got to shave off his goatee and Fu Manchu, and he can't wear the respirator over there.

He's got a medical clearance, et cetera. So yes, you're right. Getting everybody involved. Once you get over 10 employees, depending on the nature of your work, unless it's very, very dangerous, then you'll be on OSHA's radar.

So everyone should have that concept, that idea of how to be safe. So there is a statistic by SCORE that I saw that said 61% of small businesses that adopted lean practices reported improved operation efficiency within the first year, which is kind of what you just said, you know. But how can small business owners begin to incorporate this without like just losing their mind and being overwhelmed? Most small business owners don't even know what HR is, never mind safety or, you know, lean principles.

So any advice? Yeah, start small. Very, very small. Very often I work with companies will make a big, big change in some prior projects I've done in my old life.

Mar, we saved $100,000. What did it cost to save $100,000 per year? Turns out it was $20 here, $50 there, a meeting here, a meeting there. It's not about buying new equipment.

It's about thinking a little bit differently, getting everybody on the same page. So start small where you are. You don't need a big budget or full team of experts. Maybe some consultants come in to look at things from the outside in.

Begin with simple practices, 5S or 6S practices, assort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain it, which is the hardest part. Sustaining it is usually better with companies that have a good quality management system, that have standard operating procedures and training and all that put in place. One important thing, organize your workplace. Literally organize.

You know how when you organize your home, how things run smoother, you know where everything's at? Imagine work being like that. And then walk your floor. literally walk your floor often i'm sitting in board rooms i go okay get up get your safety gear on let's get out of here let's go for a walk well i don't want to go out there you you go out there and look at it no we're not going to solve the issues in the board room got to go on the floor and see what actually is going on identify one pain point one thing that you cannot stand about your company one issue one pain in the butt thing get everybody involved and solve it and then copy and paste throughout the whole company, For those of us that are in HR and not safety, we may need to stop and explain what the heck 5S and 6S are.

I believe 5S is, what is it? Sort, set, shine, standardize, and sustain. Yep. And just 6S, just throw in safety.

I'll be honest with you. If a company comes to me and says, oh, we don't want 6S, we have a whole different safety department for that. I go, okay. And I just changed the 6 to a 5, but guess what?

You're still going to hear about safety. I love it. So what is, you know, that methodology, I think, began in Japan. Shocker, right?

They're usually so organized and efficient. And how long, you know, it sounds complicated. Is this easy to learn? It is very easy to learn.

You know, there's some books out there you can read. There's several versions of it called the Toyota Way, but optimizing every little thing. For example, on the Toyota production line, they say, if you have nothing to do of value, stand still, do not move. Just stand there.

And everybody else sees you standing there and they go, well, why doesn't he have anything to do? Well, he doesn't have the parts. He doesn't have the knowledge. He doesn't know what to do next.

And all of a sudden everyone focuses on it. Our way of thinking, we just wander around. We walk around and make it look like we're busy. But you want to actually be able to visualize the methods for it.

It's not that hard. It's really not that hard. You got to get everybody speaking the same exact language. which.

5S. 5S workplace organization. It can increase productivity by up to 25 percent through reduced waste and improved efficiency. Back to you.

Hey, I'll take 25 percent productivity for sure. That's awesome. Another stat that I read from OSHA, federal OSHA, is that organizations that implement comprehensive safety programs can reduce workplace injury and illness costs by 20 to 40 percent. And again, this could be some simple things.

Brian, you tell me again, I'm not a safety expert. I know enough about filling out workers' comp forms that I think most injuries at work are probably easily avoidable if we're just a little bit training, right? Well, it's training. It's cleaning up.

It's getting rid of waste. Now, you think about it. 33 percent of all accidents. I know we keep throwing around stats here, but 33 percent of all accidents are just walking.

Walking through the facility. But when you work at a facility for a long time, you know where to step, you know where to duck, you know where to go. Well, the new guy doesn't. The guy on the tour doesn't.

Most accidents happen in the first couple months of employment. You're not used to it. You're not used to the facility. Oh, I slipped, tripped, and fell.

Why? Because there's holes in the floor. There's clutter. There's material lying around.

One thing that OSHA, your insurance company, and myself would point out when you go through a facility is material leaning against walls. It's as simple as a ladder, conduit, pipes, wood, whatever, leaning against the wall. It can fall and hit you. Well, if you point that out and say, hey, everything has to be tied off, The guys are going to say, well, I'm not tying string everywhere.

So what do they naturally do? They put all the stuff in one spot and that keeps your place clean. And it keeps all those slip, trips and falls from happening. Proper lighting, get rid of the things you actually need, which ties back to 5S and 6S.

But Wendy, I want to tell you one more thing here, though. We keep talking about, you know, the HR world. We keep talking about insurance. We keep talking about percentages and all that.

I go to companies that take safety serious and the cars in the parking lot are a lot nicer. The parking lot itself is a lot nicer. The smiles on the faces are a lot nicer, which leads to less turnover. And you know there's a cost to that, right?

Cost of turnover and training and all that because you took safety seriously. It's not worth its comp costs. It's everything else that comes from safety. So you have to go beyond compliance, push farther beyond the bare minimum, which like you said, is the federal OSHA regulations.

Yeah, and I think it also relates to what you're saying and it relates to employee engagement too and the employer brand, which ironically, I just got done interviewing in a recruiter, an executive search firm for another podcast series, and we were talking a great deal about employer branding and that it's so important. If you have a not safe culture, or even if you don't even think, if it's an office environment, oh, we don't have to worry about safety. One person gets injured and they're out of work and they were buddies with other co-workers, that's going all over the internet.

And it's going, all your future candidates are going to hear about it. So it is not just about the upfront costs or the workers' comp costs. It's about the long-term costs of employer branding and employee engagement. Let me ask you this, Brian, since you're an expert at this.

What do you do or what do we do in HR land and management land when we're facing resistance from employees or from above or from anybody across the organization when you're trying to implement a new safety protocol or a lean process? How do you recommend overcoming such a challenge? Well, resistance is normal. Everyone pushes back, especially if it's not my idea.

It's someone else's idea. Even if it's somebody I like, I'm going to push back. I'm going to question it. So when you're trying to roll anything out, get everybody's advice.

Even if you know it's going to be someone who's not going to be on board, get them to listen. Look around the room and get one thing from each person to go out there and go, hey, they're actually listening to me. They're implementing my idea. It may be something small, but it's going to roll out to be even bigger.

Resistance usually comes with the fear of the unknown, or we've tried that before, that didn't work here before, which is your normal past failures. Why didn't that work? Was it because someone pushed back on it? Is that person still here?

Can we research it? Maybe there was some good stuff left on the table when that happened. Explain the why behind the change involves people early and you get show quick wins. And you got to show the progress, even in these little small things.

Celebrate the small successes, the smallest little thing. We got new lighting in this area. I don't need new lighting in my area. Next thing you know, they want it.

Oh, can I get painted floors? Can I get bright lighting? Can I get stools so I can sit? And also lead by exam.

HR management is the hardest thing to do. I know I mess up myself. I walk out on the shop floor to tell people that, hey, the guys aren't wearing safety glasses, only realize I have my reading glasses on because I'm going blind. And I realize, why didn't anybody say anything to me?

Well, you're the safety guy. We don't want to yell at you. Leading by example is very hard. When leadership is visible and actually committed, it sets the tone for the whole organization.

I love going to a company where I actually don't find many things wrong. I'm very proud of it. Brian, I've got a million-dollar question for you here. When we're thinking about the lighting, right, if we have employees within our four walls, that have these reasonable accommodations for overhead lighting and taking bulbs out in the ceiling, et cetera, and they just so happen to be near one of those lights that's, mandatorily on just in case of fire or anything bad happening.

And we can't reasonably accommodate that employee to be anywhere else due to their location on the shop floor, where the machines are, whatever the case may be, right? But this particular light that's above them, it needs to be on for regulation, but the employee can't stand it. They got to have it off. Well, what do we do?

What would you recommend in that scenario? Well, I've been there a lot. If you go to my office, I don't have any lighting on. I have lamps.

I use lamps everywhere. People come in. That's the way I like it. Yeah.

The LED lights, even the old freshening lights, I can hear them buzzing. It bothers me. I've had that a lot actually happen. You put in lighting because you need to see the quality of the product.

Well, my job is an inspector. I need to see the defects in the product. I've got to get close and actually look for it before we ship it. But the lighting is causing a danger to me.

It's giving me a headache. And guess what? Then I can't see. I'm closing my eyes.

I'm rubbing my eyes. And I'm walking. I slip, trip, and fall over something. Guess what?

That is now a known danger. And regardless, the company has to address it. Once you know it's a danger, you have to address it. It's not just somebody complaining.

Now, if you want to have to jump through hoops, I think you're going to have to talk to the HR lady. I think she's around here somewhere. I heard her voice a little bit ago about how to file a complaint for that. But you know, you got to get both people on board.

I've been down that road a lot of safety glasses. People like tinted safety glasses, yellow ones and dark ones. Well, sometimes you can't have that because guess what? It might work good in that area.

If you walk 20 feet where it's darker, now you can't see the hole in the floor. Now you can't see if someone drops something. The OSHA regulation states that you must be aware of your surroundings at all times. So think about earplugs.

All right, I'm wearing earplugs because I don't want to hear the loud noise and decibel levels over 85 decibels and I have to wear earplugs per the OSHA regulations. Okay, well then I'm going to wear AirPods. Wait a minute, you're going to listen to music? That means you're not aware of your surroundings.

That means you're distracted. You can't hear the forklift, can't hear the bells and whistles. And in my case, you can't hear the man screaming in the machine saying, save me, save me, get my hand out, get my hand out, which just happened in my area. Gentleman was stuck in the machine for 30 minutes screaming at the top of his lungs.

No one could hear him. Oh, wow. No, no, no one could hear him. So you got a little bit of both sides.

I'm not an engineer, JC. I tend to make fun of them a little bit. Engineers see things black and white. I live in the middle.

I live in that gray area. How do we find this to work for everybody? keep everybody safe, but also profitable. Awesome.

That is amazing. JC, you had one more question for? Yeah, I do. I got to throw it out of left field.

So since we're talking shops and shop floors, et cetera, picture this, and we will not say the name of the organization or any of the people involved, but this is a real story. So in the model shop, the gentleman was working with particular oils. The oils were required for machining the part, multiple parts that he had to produce over the span of his career. It was found that the chemicals that were within the oils were damaging to the employee's skin.

The organization didn't do much about it because it was part of the mandate of the contract. It turned out to be a little bit of an issue on the back end. How do you start to mitigate those issues from the safety perspective as a leader within the organization when you know we're abiding by the contract? Is the employee always wearing their sleeves the right way?

Could we use a different oil? How deep do you go? working with some of these engineers to mitigate some of these issues. So there's an entire regulations for that.

It's called HazCom Program, Hazard Communications Program. So JC, you're coming to work for my new company called, I don't know, we'll call it Acme Beer Bottles, right? And I'm using an oil on the machines. And now I'm going to teach you how to run the machine.

Before you can start running that machine, you must be legally aware of every chemical, every hazardous chemical that you're going to be working with. All right, JC, don't touch that oil. Don't get it on you. Well, how do I do that?

Then you need to wear PPE. You need to wear the gloves, long sleeves, schmock, whatever it may be to keep that off of me. Machine guarding and engineering out there at risk is the best way. Now I must give you training.

So JC, welcome to the PPE training and the SDS training, the safety data sheet. Don't eat it. Don't lick it. Don't inhale it.

Don't put it in your body. Don't put it in your soda. And also wear these gloves. Now I have two training documents that I must use with JC, employee number one.

He's my first employee. Welcome to the company. I'm going to train you on chemicals. I got training on PPE.

And they got discipline if you don't wear them. Now I got employee number two, JC's cousin, JC's mom, JC's uncle. It's a whole JC family's coming to work with me. All that repetitive training over and over and over again.

When it's smarter to engineer it out. Can we go with something else? Can you go with a citrus-based product? Can you get rid of an oil?

And all of a sudden, you're more profitable. And you don't have to worry about the training. You don't have to worry about JC going home, go, my skin's falling off. I got my teeth are loose.

And what's going on with these chemicals? Actually get rid of the risk. Love it. Hey, are there any resources, books, courses, or organizations that you recommend for our listeners and for like a deeper dive into lean manufacturing and safety and specific for the workplace?

Yeah, you know, there's lots of them out there. The main one I obviously want to point you to is myself. You can find me on LinkedIn. We have, we teach all this stuff because I'll cover a lot of it's free, free webinars.

and whatnot, a lot of training sessions by professionals like myself. But there's some main books out there we could help you get and you can learn on. The Toyota Way, Jeff Leichner, it's a classic. I've read that multiple times.

We offer lean and safety training. OSHA's website has tons of information. You know, if you can't sleep one day, you can just go through the regulations. But in all honesty, there's so much information.

A basic OSHA 10 or OSHA 30 course for general industry is eye-opening. And most in-person classes, like the ones that we do, are customized to your company. If you have no blood-borne pathogens problems, I'm not going to teach you blood-borne pathogens. But if you have a forklift problem, shoveling problems, machine guarding, and all that type of stuff, we're going to dig deeper so it's customized to you.

I would also say, folks, that, you know, OSHA, there's federal OSHA, and then about half the states have their own OSHA as well. And then every state has their own industrial resource center. It could be called something else. I personally live in the state of Florida.

It's called Florida Makes down here. Our guest today is Brian Medievich. He's from the Northeastern Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Center. But there is a manufacturing resource association in every industry, and you don't necessarily have to be a manufacturer to get that information.

So with that said, thank you, Brian, so much for coming. Our guest today was Brian Medievich, a professional safety expert and lean specialist, again, at the Northeastern Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Center. He clearly has high proficiency in credentials and process improvement, safety and auditing, and he has over 30 years of experience in the manufacturing sector. Oh, by the way, small tidbit, he is also my brother.

I hope this podcast has been beneficial and helpful to you. Take care, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Thanks again, Brian. Thank you.

See you at work, JC.