Photo courtesy of SBM Management LP
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America's Safest Companies 2021: SBM Management LP

Oct. 28, 2021
SBM Management has brought janitorial services to new levels of clean—and safety.

SBM Management LP
Janitorial services
McClellan, CA
7,500 employees | 600 sites | 21 EHS professionals

SBM Management is proud of its safety accomplishments, and in 2019 it was the first janitorial company ever to be awarded the OSHA VPP status.

“We have worked very hard over the past several and are excited about how far we have come as an organization in such a dynamic industry,” explains Kristen Aquino Sanchez, SBM’s director of EHS.

One of the tenets of SBM’s success, which can be found in the company’s EHS core processes, is the Interactive Audit Program. Each quarter, employees are observed by their manager as they perform their tasks. The employee also engages in a one-on-one discussion with the manager to address safety highlights, concerns and coaching opportunities.

Other parts of the core processes include:

  • Good Catch Program—The program empowers employees to take charge of their safety and the safety of those around them. Unsafe building conditions or unsafe employee actions are identified and corrected to prevent them from resulting in an incident occurring or injury to an employee.
  • Incident Reporting—The system tracks injuries and incidents, safety information and safety statistics in an effort to drive continuous safety improvements. It also allows the management team to apply corrective action plans to prevent future injuries and creates open communication between management and injured employees.

An important part of the overall safety program is using technology. In 2018, the company launched its mobile program that provides all employees, from management to frontline staff, with a mobile device that they use to take training, submit good catches, send mobile alerts and track their training transcripts. They also use these devices to check in/out each day and can access all job hazard analyses (JHAs) and other task from their mobile device. All SBM processes are online.

“SBM has created, trained and engrained these processes into our management as well as our frontline staff. And through our mobile program, our managers and employees have access to our safety processes and are able to deliver real time data to our leadership team as well as our clients,” Sanchez says.

To be considered for an America's Safest Companies award, organizations must demonstrate excellence in several areas: support from leadership and management for EHS efforts; employee involvement in the EHS process; innovative solutions to safety challenges; injury and illness rates lower than the average for their industries; comprehensive training programs; evidence that prevention of incidents is the cornerstone of the safety process; good communication about the value of safety; and a way to substantiate the benefits of the safety process. 

The 2021 ASC awards will be presented during a ceremony at EHS Today’s Safety Leadership Conference 2021, in Cleveland, Ohio. For a detailed look at this year's program and to register, go to www.safetyleadershipconference.com for all the details.

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