Selling the story of safety

Gil Madrid, vice president of global safe workplaces at Kimberly-Clark Professional tells Georgina Bisby how a change in the way the company is servicing its customers aims to empower safety managers and give them more leverage in their organisations

Kimberly-Clark Professional's vision to place the concept of 'Exceptional Workplaces' at the core of everything it does is transforming the way the company works with its customers, and covers everything from product development to how products are taken to market.

The Exceptional Workplaces program, which is currently being rolled out globally, is being implemented via a series of campaigns, such as the recently launched Healthy Workplaces Project*, and an Efficient Workplaces* campaign.

Each platform is based around the idea of partnering with individual businesses to create healthier, safer and more productive workplaces for their employees and customers, and is being delivered in cooperation with the company's distribution partner network.

The new corporate vision is underpinned by a belief that the hygiene & safety products industry is not just about products, but people too.

"As we start to reposition from offering a purely product solution, we are focusing on finding out exactly how we can help to meet a company's objectives," explains Madrid.

"In manufacturing it is essential to engage with the safety manager and ask them, not just what product they need but what their goal is? Perhaps a safety manager is looking for eye wear that doesn't fog. Ultimately this suggests that they are looking to reduce eye injuries, so we will help them to build a plan to do this and arm them with the resources they need to meet this objective." A common complaint of safety managers is that they put time and effort into selecting the most appropriate safety product but their decision is overridden by the procurement manager or CFO.

But Kimberly-Clark Professional is keen to assert that safety and efficiency can work in tandem to keep workers safe and increase output and efficiencies.

Madrid suggests taking a safety manager on a "waste walk" can help them to understand and portray how safety and efficiency are interlinked. If staff simply aren't using an item of PPE because it's uncomfortable, for example, this doesn't present an efficiency for the organisation no matter how cheap the product was.

"We believe that if a safety manager is better informed and supported they have the ammunition they need to help them sell the story of safety within their organisations, be it to the CEO, CFO or Procurement Manager.

Madrid also believes that the focus that the Exceptional Workplaces program puts on understanding customers' needs and processes puts the company in a strong position in terms of product innovation.

Comments Madrid: "It prioritises a focus on end users' real needs and we hope will result in innovations that are truly differentiated from other products and services on the marketplace."

Acquisition of Balder According to Madrid one of the key reasons for Kimberly-Clark Professional's recent acquisition of welding filter specialist, Balder, was the capacity the company had demonstrated to change a market and deliver innovation.

Explains Madrid: "This is a highly significant decision to sign this agreement and we welcome Balder's workforce to the Kimberly-Clark Professional family. Balder offers unique and highly differentiated products based on proprietary technology that set the standard throughout industry. They will complement our existing range of Jackson Safety products for the welding industry, enabling us to deliver on our customer promise to change the welding experience for the better by offering superior eye and face protection." Balder's flagship offering is the BH3 concept. This comprises BH3 welding helmets which are said to provide market-leading standards of comfort and protection, combined with art auto darkening filters. These offer a range of benefits, including improved visibility in open state and better colour recognition.

They are also said to be the world's first auto-darkening filters to be rated 1/1/1/1 and the world's first to be rated Class 1 for angular dependence.

"Joining forces offers us an immediate 'technology leap' into the best-in-class in the welding safety category, giving us greater strength in R&D and enabling us to create a product pipeline for distinctive growth globally. The global welding market is worth an estimated $1 billion a year. Balder will play a critical part in reinforcing our position of strength within this category." "It will also help us to drive forward our Exceptional Workplaces strategy which is now at the heart of our companywide corporate vision," concludes Madrid.