The Initiative

Topf Initiatives leads clients through the design and implementation of the “Holistic Integrated Approach to Safety, Health, and Environmental Excellence.”

A Topf Initiative is designed to prevent accidents, injuries and incidents by eliminating human behavioral risks, an approach which raises our company’s pivotal question:

Which basic human attitudes and behaviors,

if effectively addressed and modified,

will prevent accidents, injuries, and health/environmental incidents,

both on and off the job?

We utilize a team approach to improving safety performance, involving employees at all levels of an organization. It is our goal to provide ALL employees with the awareness, attitudes, behaviors, and skills to manage and support themselves and others for continual improvement in safety performance.

During our training components, our clients’ associates develop the ability to observe themselves and manage themselves so that in the moment when they need to make a choice of how to behave, they choose safety and health and its related behaviors.

A Topf Initiative enhances and complements other safety programs, activities, and strategies—including those that a client may already have in place. We do this by teaching in a context of personal responsibility, providing a variety of skills for managing critical safety behaviors and issues.

Within the client organization, our training methods and process contribute to a culture alignment with the principles of our holistic integrated approach. Safety, health, and the environment become, as they should, core values, essential to personal safety, responsibility, and productivity, both for individuals and for teams within the company.

THE TOPF INITIATIVE

NOTE: Though each stage is distinct and implementable on its own, they are intended to be interrelated, building successively on one another. Depending on their needs, client organizations may choose to select one or more of the six stages as individual trainings, or the entire process comprised of all six.

• Topf Safety, Health and Environmental Culture Assessment
• All Employee Awareness, Attitudinal & Behavior Safety Training
• Leadership for Safety Training & Coaching
• The All Employee Training Reinforcement Program and Safety Meeting Facilitator Training
• Behavioral Observation and Review (Optional)
• Periodic Coaching & Support Consulting
• Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) Certification Assistance

Full implementation of these seven stages also includes follow up support involving periodic Coaching and Consulting by Topf safety experts.

A TOPF INITIATIVE IS EFFECTIVE IN THE LONG TERM BECAUSE:

• Our Training Programs are Engaging for Employees at All Levels of the Organization

Unlike other training programs, the Initiative is both cognitive and interactive. Employees undergo a process of self-discovery as they identify their current safety behaviors (both effective and ineffective), discuss the reasons why they exhibit these behaviors, and examine the possible consequences of these behaviors. This process usually results in a “wake up call,” whereby employees realize and understand their own actions and make a personal commitment, deciding to change their behavior(s). The resultant improvements in behavior can be easily sustained through follow up and reinforcement during the company’s regularly scheduled internal safety meetings.

• The Process Involves Everyone

The objective of the Topf process is to develop a “We” culture instead of an “Us vs. Them” culture. By involving all employees at all levels of the organization, a new culture is formed. This new culture is characterized by improved communication, increased teamwork, and greater personal responsibility—benefiting everyone. Moreover, these benefits also have a positive impact on overall productivity including production, quality, and human relations, in addition to safety, health and the environment. Involving everyone will leave no one to be stuck in the past—and less effective, even possibly dangerous—culture.

• The Process Coexists with Other Safety Programs

The Initiative’s focus is on the underlying human mechanisms, both deliberate and non-deliberate, that cause people to place themselves at risk. We work to change these risk-taking behaviors. Most companies do a good job in assuring basic compliance and enforcing safety fundamentals. Our process can enhance and complement safety programs that are already in place, substantially increasing their effectiveness by moving employees from knowing the right thing to do to actually doing the right thing.

• The Results are Rapid and Sustainable

Since the Topf program engages all levels of employees at the onset of the process, changes in employee attitudes and behaviors start immediately and are largely ingrained in less than six months.

• Clients Become Self-Sufficient on an Ongoing Basis, Leading to Continual Improvement

The core Initiative is complete within five to six months. The process then transitions to internal facilitators and coordinators within the client organization who will reinforce and sustain the learning and continuous improvement aspects of the process. On-going consultation and support is then provided by Topf Faciliators to ensure all aspects of the process are successful. Topf experts are also available at any time after a process is complete for additional consulting and follow-up services.