Engagement Makes a Difference at Sofidel Shelby

Back in 2022, you may not have noticed anything wrong, exactly, with the Shelby mill’s standard monthly safety meeting. The usual folks would have the usual chat about safety… and that was the problem.

“We did a lot of talking,” says Ryan Bumgardner, EHS manager. “We were identifying issues, but we did not have an opportunity as a committee to make an impact or make a change across our organization. There were no guidelines around what we should be doing; there were no expectations for committee members. People that cared about safety showed up, but it was a lot of conversation around what was wrong—not about how to make it right.”

A lack of sitewide engagement had led to a static safety culture at the Shelby site. There was little communication about safety outside of the meeting room. Each department sent one designated committee member, but these members were not empowered to make substantial changes to their work areas. No one took minutes, no goals were shared, and there was no committee involvement from site leadership. Shelby was stuck.

A new EHS Committee format was the “shot in the arm” that Shelby needed to get moving again. As EHS Specialist Steven Greene comments, “We made a conscious effort to better ourselves on operational safety. Now we have an actionable committee. We’re actually able to go out and not just identify problems, but make changes.”

The overhaul effort included specific changes to the EHS Committee structure:

• Committee is now comprised of both hourly and salaried members on all levels.
• The goal is to drive solutions and implement positive change.
• Communication to specific sites happens in real time on the operating floor.
• Committee members identify, brainstorm, and implement safety solutions.
• Committee members are empowered to develop their area and increase their safety knowledge.

ABOUT SHELBY

The Shelby Campus is located on 400 acres about 50 miles west of Charlotte, NC. Sofidel Tissue acquired the site in November 2024, as part of its US$1.06 billion purchase of Clearwater Paper’s tissue assets, a deal that also included three other production sites. The deal increased Sofidel’s total production capacity by 25 percent (about 340,000 metric tpy).

The Shelby site manufactures high-quality private branded bathroom tissue, paper towels, napkins, and facial tissue. Three facilities on campus house two paper machines and 11 converting lines—including a new $23 million, state-of-the-art facial tissue converting line, to be installed in 2025. In total, the campus employs more than 600 people across four crews.

Onsite leadership includes five superintendents that are department specific, with several departments—including maintenance, HR, and EHS—that support the entire site. Getting this leadership structure on board with the changes to the EHS Committee was paramount, says Bumgardner. The first step was simply reaching out.

“At first, leadership didn’t understand why the committee was not effective. They hadn’t been in the room at all before, so they didn’t know why we wanted to make this change,” he says. “Now they’re a part of the conversation. We’ve created ‘safety champions’ across our leadership team simply by opening that invitation—with our new committee structure, anyone that’s interested in safety, in making their area better, or in learning more is welcome. With that invite comes opportunity for more leadership engagement and more crew engagement. It has created a culture of employees that want to be there and care about being there.”

Converting operator Jasmine Brown agrees. “Being on the EHS Committee made it easier for me to feel like I had a voice. Being someone of short stature, I was able to vocalize how certain things would be easier for me if they were changed. It also gave me the opportunity to work with other people on different crews—I’ve gained a lot of friends (at the mill) on my crew, and other crews, because of the EHS Committee,” she says.

With leadership support and crew engagement, Shelby’s new EHS Committee was empowered to take on several action-oriented projects that began to show immediate results. Committee activities included the following:

• Participate in Pre-Job Inspection (PJI) workshops
• Complete wellness seminars with Early Intervention Specialists
• Initiate and lead safety projects
• Annual review of safety program elements
• Implement hazard identification tools
• Develop volunteer opportunities for health, safety, and wellness events

The focus on “actionable” safety shifted Shelby’s safety culture toward empowering committee members to make noticeable changes. Completed tasks included putting out sit-to-stand stools, working surface audits, replacing grip tape around platforms and stair areas, replacing “No Pedestrian” stickers in LGV areas, re-taping MCC cabinets, and air hose audits.

The cultural change led to measurable improvement in both leading and lagging safety indicators. It has also fostered better collaboration between operations, EHS leadership, and committee members.

The site’s change of ownership revealed another benefit, says Bumgardner. “The cultural change we’ve had over the last few years actually primed the pump. Having gone through this cultural shift, our employees were already on board with change, which I think made the transition a little easier.

“Every safety culture is a little bit different,” he continues. “We’ve already been able to add value to Sofidel’s safety culture, because we have had such a solid foundation through the transition.”

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

It’s been a two-year journey for Shelby since first restructuring the EHS Committee; the focus has gradually turned to serious injury and fatality potential events, or SIFs. “we’ve moved away from the mindset of lacerations, trip-and-falls, sprains, or ergonomics. Those are important. But now we can also focus on the things that can kill you or change your life. What might keep you from being able to go home? What are the things that really concern you as you’re doing your job?” says Bumgardner.

The new committee structure promotes knowledge-sharing—and that has been key, says Greene. “During our committee meetings, we have held workshops to show employees what a great PJI includes, what great Hazard Recognition is—not just recognizing hazards, but how to control them.

“Now, we’ve seen a trickle-down effect, as employees that were in these workshops can influence others that didn’t have the opportunity to be there,” Greene says. “We’re sharing knowledge through the committee, then those employees are passing it down to their coworkers, so we can see everyone growing together.”

Adds committee member Jackie Badger, “Being a part of the EHS Committee has helped me identify safety hazards and have ‘coachable moments’ with teammates as a line lead. This has made our environment a much safer place to be.”

The focus on SIF prevention has also inspired improvements in the way mill employees interact with machinery, says Bumgardner. “For example, we’ve removed all of our jogging from inside of our converting equipment and we only jog equipment from outside the machine front. We use thread up belts appropriately and use tools more efficiently to effectively do our jobs without putting people inside of equipment while it’s energized. “When people are informed on what the hazards are and encouraged to think and act freely, you create employees that are unwilling to budge on safety. That’s a great benefit of having a culture-based safety program: you’re influencing employees to make that right decision, no matter what,” he says.

This empowered approach encompasses even the most critical decision a crew member can make: to stop work altogether if they feel their own or others’ safety is at risk. “It’s not only the EHS team going out and policing the work,” Bumgardner says. “People on the floor now have the courage to stop work. It is an expectation for leaders to do that, but we’ve built it into our core culture. That’s our ‘safety champion’ mindset. We’ve given people the knowledge and the ability to make sound decisions—to say, ‘this is unsafe for these specific reasons, and here’s what we can do to resolve that.’”

Greene says the EHS Committee knew that its efforts were catching on when they noticed non-committee members not only acknowledging that power but using it. “It’s rare to have a maintenance team that’s so comfortable with the EHS team that they’ll call you to the floor. show you their work and ask ‘hey, what can I do here to make this safer?’ That was really a milestone for us.”

HOW TO GET STARTED

A lack of engagement can happen at any mill site. The best course of action is to recognize the issue and choose to change—before a serious incident forces a response. Bumgardner has advice for mills that would like to take inspiration from the Shelby site’s success with re-formatting its EHS Committee.

Step One: Set goals. Be ready to explain why change is needed, and what the EHS team hopes to accomplish. “Knowing you have a problem and having some actionable goals to go after are two different things,” says Bumgardner. “Are you trying to prevent injury or are you trying to create a culture where employees are able to safely work independently? Are you planning to empower employees to drive risk reduction? What do you actually want to see out of your workforce?”

Step Two: Get leadership buy-in. Approach a senior leader at the facility—whether it’s a mill manager, operations manager, or at a VP level—so you know what kind of support you can expect as you build your committee. Once you’ve got initial buy-in, says Bumgardner, “you’ve then got to sell it to your leadership team. Safety should be easy to sell. Once you outline your goals and vision, you can begin to lay out a framework. For us, it started with simple participation.”

Step Three: Share knowledge. As more people come through the door, start by simply outlining the function of the EHS team. “We began by engaging people in the work we do on a routine basis, with a very strong focus on employee knowledge,” he says. “We did a lot of Lunch and Learns, a lot of training sessions.”

At the beginning of Shelby’s improvement process, training sessions often revolved around answering basic, but specific, questions:

• What is a PJI?
• What does “hot work” mean?
• What does “fall protection” mean?
• What are basic requirements for control of hazardous energy?

Step Four: Expand through action. Cultural shift doesn’t happen by decree; it happens through action and engagement. “Once we had the basics down with our core group, we were able to expand into more strategical action and bigger projects,” Bumgardner reports. “We are at a point now where we can run Ergonomic Kaizen workshops. It’s because we spent the time and invested in the training to create a mindset of improvement.”

Plant Manager Chris Kelm agrees. “The EHS Committee has improved the safety culture at our site. This committee has a tremendous amount of energy and has gained a ton of momentum—I’m looking forward to what the next steps are going to be.”

When a culture of safety expands beyond the EHS Committee, it becomes a powerful way to attract new hires and retain current workers—critical for a campus as large as Shelby. “It’s about building that relationship with everyone that walks through the door. You need to be approachable; you need to be willing to talk to people. Find out what means the most to them and explain how that will be addressed,” Greene says.

Bumgardner says he’s heard new employees comment that the Shelby site is the safest place they’ve ever worked. “Once they understand the value of a safe working environment, they don’t want to go back. They’re proud of what has been accomplished. That is a huge benefit of the level of engagement that we have.”

That pride may have been what motivated Shelby’s EHS Committee to apply for the Pulp and Paper Safety Association (PPSA) “Safety Committee/Team Award” at the 2024 PPSA Conference. The award honors a pulp and paper industry safety committee or team that has made a significant contribution to safety and health at a location, company, or within the industry. To receive this award, a facility must apply, be selected as a finalist, and present their achievements in a spirited competition at the annual conference. The Shelby mill team (still a part of Clearwater at the time) handled the entire application and presentation process. The judging panel and PPSA members chose Shelby as the winner.

Another Clearwater site—the Las Vegas tissue converting facility, which is also now owned by Sofidel—applied for, and won, PPSA’s 2024 Innovator Award for presenting results from its own three-day Ergonomic Kaizen Workshop. (See sidebar for more information about PPSA Awards.)

According to Bumgardner, Sofidel is excited about what more can be accomplished. “They have been quick to reach out and wanted to know how to begin implementing some of these successes at their other sites,” he says. “They’re ready to progress with the culture, which is really cool.”

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