When we established Verso Paper’s founding principles, we put being “safe from the start”
at the top of our list. Assuring healthy, safe workplaces for our nearly 3,000 employees
is our top priority. We believe that all injuries are preventable, and zero injuries is
our ultimate goal.
Verso has a strong tradition of safety excellence with mature, employee-driven safety systems
in place. These systems have their foundation in specific safety rules, policies and
procedures established at each Verso Paper mill, along with clear expectations that these will
be followed. While every aspect of safety is addressed, areas that present the greatest
potential for serious injury receive priority attention. Among these critical areas are
lockout/tag-out procedures to ensure that equipment is not energized while being serviced;
procedures for entering confined spaces or working from elevations; procedures for safely
working around moving equipment; and extensive training for safely operating industrial
trucks such as forklifts.
Our culture of continuous safety improvement is guided by a comprehensive, annual safety
assessment at each of our paper mills. This “Key Element Survey” helps our employees
identify areas for improvement and set specific safety goals that are backed by targeted
action plans. A Central Safety Committee at each mill helps manage safety programs and
track progress. These committees include a cross-section of employees from all areas and
all levels of responsibility across each mill.
How many times have you heard it said, “He just didn’t see it coming,” as someone tells the
story of a person injured in an accident? By implementing a predictive process rather than
reacting to injuries after the fact, our employees are helping to ensure no one at Verso is
ever described that way. We use OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) as the foundation
of our safety process, and three of our four mills have already achieved the program’s highest
level, Star status, with the fourth to complete the VPP application process in 2008. To be
accepted into this prestigious program, a facility must demonstrate a facility-wide commitment
to safety along with sustainable systems that support health and safety management.
Our predictive safety process is focused on continuous improvement and has five key components.
Each Verso Paper mill also has a trained Ergonomics Team that supports departmental safety
teams in resolving ergonomic issues. These teams conduct annual assessments and prioritize
ergonomic issues to help make employees aware of and correct behaviors that may lead to injury.
Leadership
Senior management support and clear lines of accountability are key to achieving our safety improvement
goals. Verso’s senior management team sets safety policy and priorities and provides the resources
necessary to implement them.
Employee involvement
While the leadership teams at our manufacturing facilities have primary responsibility for complying
with OSHA and other legal requirements, we operate on the principle that safety excellence is part of
every employee’s job and we expect every employee to be proactive in achieving it. Our employees drive
a true culture of safety at Verso and are the reason for our year-over-year safety performance improvement.
Systematic hazard analysis
Before we can determine how we’ll work more safely, we have to identify the risks our employees face. We
systematically analyze hazards for every job in our mills and then prioritize those hazards based on their
potential for injury. We address every aspect of safety, but this analysis sharpens our focus on those
that present the greatest potential for serious injury or death.
Hazard prevention and control
To reduce hazards and prevent injury, we implement safety policies and procedures that often go far beyond
OSHA requirements. For example, we carefully analyze the safety procedures for specific jobs and if a
hazard is identified, we either redesign the work or the work space to eliminate the risk to employees.
We also have a strong focus on near-miss incidents, those that did not cause an injury but could have. We
know that these incidents are excellent predictors of future injuries, so we ask our employees to report
near misses as part of their routine safety responsibilities. Our safety teams then review these incidents
to determine what conditions or behaviors caused them and how we can eliminate them. Because ergonomic
issues are a significant concern at Verso, each of our mills has its own Ergonomics Team to provide support
to departmental safety teams. Together, these teams conduct assessments to prioritize ergonomic issues and
educate employees about behaviors that may lead to injury.
Safety and health training
Our systematic hazard analysis and hazard prevention efforts help us refine our employee safety training,
allowing us to put special emphasis on hazards with the greatest potential for harm. Among these are
critical lockout/tag-out procedures to ensure that equipment is not energized while being serviced, and
procedures for safely entering confined spaces, for working around moving equipment and for using industrial
trucks such as fork lifts. Like all of our safety efforts, we consider training part of a process, not a
one-time event, so we periodically retrain employees to assure they are up to date on all policies and
procedures.
