N. J. Shih | Plant Engineering Manager, NXP Kaohsiung, Taiwan
How do you make sure everyone‘s thinking about environment, health, and safety (EHS) issues and, at the same time, re-energize your workforce? For the industrial site at Kaohsiung, Taiwan, the answer is clear: make EHS a top priority, get everyone involved, and, most important, have some fun.
Every two years, the Kaohsiung site sets aside an entire week dedicated to EHS. Each morning there is a company-wide email that announces the day‘s events and gives highlights of the previous day‘s activities. It‘s a busy week, and all of the site‘s 2,300 employees are encouraged to take part in some way. There are training sessions that teach new skills and refresh old ones, internal audits and emergency evacuation drills that test employee preparedness, and entertaining competitions that tap into employee creativity.
N. J. Shih, facility manager and member of the event planning team, says his favorite activity of the week is the slogan competition, because it shows how much literary talent there is at the site. Employees are invited to submit short, poetic phrases that inspire people to focus on EHS. The winning 2007 slogan, selected from a pool of roughly 200 entries, addressed the importance of passing the upcoming OHSAS 18001 audit and was made into a colorful banner that still hangs in the company cafeteria.
N. J. is also enthusiastic about the competition that selects the best employee suggestion, since, again, it encourages people to think creatively and tests their ingenuity. The 2007 award was given to an idea for “installing a water-recycling system in one of our manufacturing processes that could save 80 tons of water per day, which is very, very valuable.”
N. J. also likes the class that teaches people how to escape from a tall building using ropes and a descender device. “That‘s a very useful skill, even outside of work,” says N. J., “since there are so many people living in tall apartment buildings here in Taiwan.”
The EHS week takes a lot of careful planning, but N. J. thinks it‘s definitely worth the extra effort. “It brings together everyone in the organization and emphasizes that EHS is a daily routine. It helps people make EHS a normal part of everyday life.”