What are you doing to create a culture of safety in your stone facility? Whether safety training is a strength or area needing improvement, we can all strive to improve and minimize complacency that sometimes becomes part of the employee mindset. This article identifies a number of resources available to enhance your training efforts.

Training resources are plentiful, but many are not specific to the stone industry. To tackle this issue, in 2010 the Marble Institute of America (MIA) assembled a safety committee made up of trained safety managers from several leading stone companies and suppliers. Truth be told, I was nervous at the first meeting about how competing companies would react to working together. My doubt was short-lived. Daltile’s Chad Vadnais stood up at the beginning of the meeting and said, “Safety isn’t a competitive issue, it is something that impacts each of us. Let’s have a positive impact on the industry. That starts with sharing all of the safety resources we can find and/or create together.” That comment set the stage for what has become great collaboration. There is no doubt you have seen the results of their ongoing work — countless training videos, literature and tool-box talks.