Leading With Safety – the Importance of Safety Culture

By Anna Lockhart.  

Ro Lewis recaps the impact of Tremco’s 2023 Global Safety Week and the importance of promoting a safety-focused culture in the workplace.  

In a recent episode of the Roofing Road Trips podcast, Heidi J. Ellsworth sat down with Ro Lewis, Tremco’s executive director of HS&E, to discuss the fundamentals of implementing safety culture in the workplace and how Tremco has accomplished this through their commitment to “Lead with Safety.” In this episode, the two also discussed the impact of Global Safety Week and how it encourages safety practices by celebrating the performance of businesses and their employee’s safety efforts.  

As the executive director of health, safety and environment at Tremco, Ro has a wealth of knowledge and passion for the subject of safety. Ro shared the emphasis behind Tremco’s dedication to lead with safety, “[Lead with Safety represents] creating a culture that ultimately protects every one of our employees. But not only that, have that culture bleed over into our client base and have them to understand our culture, as well as the community at large.” 

“You hear often companies talk about safety first, and that's their slogan. And certainly, Lead with Safety incorporates an aspect of that. But we felt that we had to take it further than that, because our mindset is to create safety leaders within the organization at every level, every echelon, even from the C-suite level down to the newest tech on day one,” Ro explained. “We want to ensure that we inculcate in the minds of all that safety has to be not only top priority, but it is a part of a paradigm that makes our success.” 

He went on to share that the goal is to educate employees so that they take those practices with them and apply them to any life situation, not just in the workplace. The company has taken the initiative a step further, dedicating a week to celebrating the culture of safety and its importance. “We are an organization that feels that we're, as a part of leading with safety, going to be that industry leader that says, ‘You know what? We're going to take a dedicated period of time to focus solely on our safety culture and how it impacts our employees, how it impacts the leadership,’” Ro explained. “And from the top-down leadership, they've invested into the thought of being able to just take a step back and figure out where we're going next, how are we going to deal with the next, and let's celebrate where we've been and where we're going in one setting.” 

From June 19 through the 23, Tremco celebrated their inaugural Global Safety Week. This week was dedicated to providing an opportunity for employees and leaders to focus on safety culture and celebrate the work employees have done to implement safety practices into their everyday work and life. Ro shared that this week also included time set aside to plan activities that centered around teaching safety education, leading discussions centered around the importance of safety and recognizing the hard work of team members through awards. 

Listen to the podcast or read the transcription to learn more about Tremco’s dedication to safety and Global Safety Week!