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.