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The Safety Meeting Podcast

How Culture Shapes Agriculture Safety with TrueNorth’s Eric Wiechmann

Ag safety looks simple from the outside, until you're standing next to a million-bushel grain bin or watching dust pile up inside of a 50-year-old feed mill. So why do the same risks keep showing up year after year, even when everyone knows they're there? That's why I sat down with Eric Wiechmann…

Agriculture

Ag safety looks simple from the outside, until you’re standing next to a million-bushel grain bin or watching dust pile up inside of a 50-year-old feed mill. So why do the same risks keep showing up year after year, even when everyone knows they’re there?

That’s why I sat down with Eric Wiechmann, an account executive in risk services at TrueNorth, who has spent 13 years as a safety manager inside an ag operation before he joined TrueNorth to advise others on the topic.

Why is grain bin engulfment still so hard to eliminate? What makes combustible dust such a persistent threat? And how do you build a safety culture in an industry that never really gets any downtime?

Let’s jump into those questions.

Eric, thanks for being with us today.

Thank you, Kat.

So, Eric, you’ve spent time on both sides of agricultural safety, as a safety manager inside an operation, and now you’re advising ag businesses on risk. How does that experience shape the way you see safety problems in this industry?

So as being inside a company for as long as I was, for 13 years, I got to see everything from the employee standpoint and get through the compliance piece, the written programs, making sure we have everything regulation says we have to have, and move toward: how does this directly impact the business, both from the safety standpoint, legal standpoint, and insurance. Now I’m fortunate enough that with my experience I get to work with other companies, from C-suite to safety leaders to location managers, on broadening the way they think about it, and not just looking at it as strictly compliance and regulation, but really taking that as the beginning step and expanding out on that to make it work for them.

I can see how having that experience and being able to apply that into what you do now makes a huge difference for people, you know, looking for someone who’s a trusted advisor. I think a lot of times when you’re in the insurance industry, people can see you as just someone who is selling another policy. But having that background and understanding what those people that you’re talking to are living every day in their jobs makes a huge difference in them trusting that you’re giving the right advice. So when you look across ag operations that you work with, what hazards constantly show up in claims that people outside of the industry don’t really think about?

I think people look at ag as, you know, it’s something that’s been around a long, long time and it’s something that everybody does, but it’s constantly overlooked by most other industries. And one of the big things people don’t think about is the sheer scope and size of some of these ag operations. I mean, you may have companies with an 8,400-mile footprint, and they have trucking going on to all of these, both internal trucks and third party. They’ve got locations where there may be one or two people working at them, and they’re working alone quite a lot. Or you have customers coming in, and it’s an extremely customer-focused business. You know, you’re supplying a service to those ag customers and they’re farmers and things like that where time and speed is important. And the other part of that is, most people don’t realize just how big and how fast this stuff moves.

If you think about a typical co-op, a lot of people when you say “a cooperative,” they think about farmers coming in, drinking their coffee and buying seed and maybe a little bit of chemical, but they don’t look at the size of it. There’s cooperatives that are spraying half a million to a million acres in the spring. There’s millions of bushels of grain getting moved either by semi or trains, and then they’re intaking all of that feed going out to different customers and making sure that it’s meeting the quality they need and they’re not making mistakes to jeopardize that relationship or cause harm to their customers. And the same is true for us. We’re going out, helping them think about it in a bigger term. Fortunately here at TrueNorth, we get to be those advisors and those consultants more than just the typical insurance guy selling a policy. It’s bigger than that. We’re business partners, and that’s how we approach it: how can we make your business better?

So understanding that these operations are moving super quickly, that there’s a lot more heavy lifting going on than people realize when you say something like “cooperative,” I think it’s important to talk about, you know, some of those specific risks, like the grain bin engulfment that gets talked about. But it seems to keep happening. Why is it so hard to eliminate risks like this even when they’re well documented?

You know, we talked about speed a little bit earlier, and it’s not typically because there’s a lack of programs or a lack of understanding of what’s going on. Sometimes it’s speed, sometimes it’s one- or two-person location, and this has to get done. And grain quality is always something that’s in the forefront of someone’s mind when they’re doing that, but there’s still this overwhelming urge that we got to get going, we got to get it done, let’s just get in there and get it taken care of, without thinking about everything that happens.

If you think about some of the bin sizes today, you know, 10,000-bushel bins were a thing a long time ago; now we’ve got million-bushel bins. And just that size. Now, I will say that the industry and technology is making things better on how they do that. They don’t necessarily have to enter, in fact, we don’t want people entering bins if we don’t have to, and the way they’re doing that has changed to the point where you can bring skid loaders inside a bin, or they have certain sweeps that happen. But there’s always that human element, right? Of “I’m just going to get in there quick and get this done.” And that goes back to the culture piece of: you build that culture of safety and risk awareness so that these things don’t happen.

Unfortunately, in this industry, accidents still do happen, and those engulfments still happen. But it’s reduced by quite a lot, and it’s continuing to get better. Procedures are in place, but a procedure’s only as good as the words written on the page if it’s not being followed all the time, or if that culture’s not there. And as time crunches in these things, where most of the time if people would take 10 seconds to think and just take a breath on “Is this the right thing for me? Is this the right thing for the company that I work for? And what can I learn and teach the next generation of people coming in or the next round of employees?”

And we talk about that quite a lot when we go out. We ask questions: “Are you still entering bins? What’s your procedure? How do you slow them down enough to think about what could happen, and then move forward before it actually does happen?”

So it sounds like making shifts in the culture so that people understand not only the level of risk, but what to do when they’re put in that situation and give them the tools to like make the right decision about whether or not they should be entering a dangerous situation. I think that there’s a lot in this industry that people don’t necessarily understand are risks until they’re truly in it. So I know we’ve talked about combustible dust being another one that surprises people. Can you walk us through why that’s such a persistent danger in the grain and feed environments?

Sure. You think about, if you have the opportunity, it’s fantastic, and you’re out in the countryside at harvest and you’re watching combines going through the field, and you’re seeing dust getting kicked up from that combine because the stalk and all of that. Well, that dust is inherent to those commodities, whether it’s corn, wheat, beans, milo, or whatever it is. And you’re handling it. So it’s breaking down a little bit and it’s going into your elevator. And as they’re moving this stuff over and over and over again, you’re getting that dust.

And really where that comes into play is within the facilities themselves. Some of them are older facilities, and they’re used a lot, and maybe you get a hole or something’s a little worn out. And so that dust is constantly moving in the air and piling up. Same way with feed mills. You know, feed mills, you’re in the process of literally grinding or cracking the grain to make that feed product. And so inevitably, there’s going to be some dust, whether it’s from the ingredient or the grain itself.

And really it comes down to preventive maintenance. If you see something that’s broken or maybe there’s a hole in something where that dust can escape the system. Because an elevator in itself or a feed mill in itself is a manufacturing system. It’s meant to be enclosed. Well, when it’s not, that dust gets out. And so those housekeeping procedures and having those plans in place that maybe we need to sweep up more often, or have set blowdown times, or whatever it is. I was in an old wood-house feed mill, which most people would be scared of, but their process was they swept it three times a day. They just knew that they had to do that to keep that dust level to a minimum.

And then having the ability that if it’s quote-unquote “out of control,” to stop, no matter what’s going on, to get it cleaned up to eliminate that hazard. It’s just an inherent part, and really it comes down to maintenance and cleaning up the workplace and just keeping that to a level. and the level’s low on what’s allowed. You know, an eighth of an inch isn’t much. If that gets suspended in the air and then there’s a spark, that’s when we get into trouble. So you can walk into any grain elevator and you’re probably going to find a little bit, but the really good ones have that process in place and they’re constantly on top of it, whether it’s preventive maintenance or it’s housekeeping. And it’s back to that culture we talked about, and all this ties back to culture. We want a clean workplace, and the cleaner they can keep it, the better it is.

I can see how having those procedures in place and understanding that level of risk makes a difference in every day. And I know for agriculture, there are so many like different pieces kind of blended together that you don’t see in a lot of other industries, like field work, heavy equipment, confined spaces, chemical processing. Often you don’t see those all together in a single workspace. So how do safety managers even begin to prioritize when the hazard list is that long?

It’s tough. Even in my previous life, we had not all the same, but a lot of different things going on, and really it comes down to your teams and that training, and them understanding what it is they’re working with. The field work and the heavy equipment and all those things are going on at the same time. And within this, it’s seasons in ag. So spring is heavy in spraying, and anhydrous applying, and chemicals being trucked back and forth, and all these different pieces going on. So you have to really rely on your training.

And if you’re a single safety person at a large co-op, it has to be a team effort, whether that’s regional managers, location managers, having a set of eyes out there. I’m going to use myself as an example of being able to call up and say, “Hey Eric, I saw this going on. Hey, we need to talk about this.” Great. And having that level of trust. And that’s also where we can come in, you know, in the position I’m in, is kind of helping them manage that, and systems like, not for a shameless plug, but like what you have, to have a Novara system in there where you can track your preventive maintenance and what’s going on in these procedures so that they have a tool that they can use. You know, in all those things, it’s managing the risk.

So you have a big piece of equipment running out in the field: making sure the safeties are in place, or that they understand the hazards of the chemicals they’re working with. And if it’s anhydrous, do they have all the PPE and things they need to be hooking and unhooking tanks and understand if there is a leak how to get out of it, and then being able to have that person they can call when something happens, or multiple people they can call to help them work through the problem.

Ag is one of those things where there’s just a lot going on all the time. We talk about busy seasons in ag, but if you think about it, you go to spring and you’re pre-plant through planting, and then all of a sudden the crop is up, then you got post-emerge spraying and sidedressing, and then you’re getting into summer where you’re still doing that, and pretty soon, you know, it’s fall and you’re right back in it again. So downtime for a lot of these people is minimal. And it’s staying vigilant to what’s going on, relying on your team, and again, building that culture of “we’re not afraid to call and ask, and we’re not getting mad at somebody if they do.” It’s embracing that and saying, “Hey, that was a good catch. Let’s see what we can do to address it.”

And on the same point, for safety managers and even CEOs, COOs, CFOs, is if something gets brought up like that is listening. And I’m fortunate to work with a bunch of great CEOs that truly are engaged and want to take part of that. They’ve been in the business a long time, they understand it.

And then the other part is fatigue. You know, there’s no, it’s not punching the clock 8 to 5 and we go home. During these seasons, we work until the work is done. Or during harvest, they may be drying a product and it’s overnight. So it’s managing your workforce to make sure they’re not getting too fatigued, and are fresh, and the hazards stay fresh and real, so that there’s that level of “I need to be constantly watching, following procedures, and doing this,” and not getting so fatigued that it’s just kind of a “I just want to push to get done.” That is unique. So as safety managers, it’s being able to recognize all that, and training for them too, how to notice these things, where does the priority come in. Well, it’s hard to prioritize a business that’s running long hours with multiple facets going on. So it really does come down to your teams and your cultures within that business.

You know, you talked a lot about safety culture and being able to build that up, but then also pushing that up against the fact that agriculture doesn’t really have downtime like some other industries do, where they could spend that downtime, you know, making changes to the culture or redoing a safety procedure. So when it comes to that, how does that impact a grain co-op versus a feed mill? Is there a difference in seasons there, or any differences that can make a difference in the safety culture, or is it really kind of all together as one and you’ve got to find the time?

It’s all together as one. I mean, grain co-ops feed feed mills. We work with several companies that all the corn that comes in goes out in feed. You know, it comes into the location, then it gets trucked to their feed mills, and then it gets put into feed and it moves on. So really it’s training and retraining and constant training. Even long-tenured employees, you know, they get pretty comfortable in what they’re doing and that risk level for them gets higher of what they’ll take. And then pulling them back in and saying, “I know you’ve been doing this a long time, but we need to go back through this again.” And just keeping the training fresh.

You know, new employees, we really try to set up and work with our companies on a 30-60-90 day training routine to get them acclimatized in a way. You know, 30 days in, in a business like this, it’s, you’re not doing the same thing every day. So making sure each task is well understood, and at 60, keeping up with that and having almost a shadow with them, somebody who’s done it a while and does it really well, does all the things need to be as almost risk-averse as much as you can. And what I mean by that is saying, “I’m going to make sure you know the best ways to do it to keep yourself out of harm as much as possible.” And then at 90 days, continuing that and getting that level of understanding so they truly know the job.

We’ve seen information that at 6 to 9 years, maybe the incidence of issue goes down, but the cost goes up. And so it’s bringing people back in and saying, “Hey, you’ve been doing this a while, I want to go back through this stuff with you just to keep it fresh.” And everybody’s in a constant state of learning. I learn every day, I’m sure you learn something new every day. And continuing to push out that information, continuing to be on site, and gaining that respect from the team, continuing to push that culture, which at times can be like running into a brick wall. You know, old dogs really can learn new tricks, or maybe their focus can be adjusted to say, “Great, I want you to be able to go home and see your kids, or even your grandkids. Like, I want you to be able to enjoy those things outside of here, and this is why we’re doing this, to make sure your life is better, to make sure you have a place to come back to to work.”

And that narrative of “we’re all in this together, and we’re all in this as a team, and we need to be working as a team and looking out for each other,” and that training keeps happening. You know, when people think of training, I’m sure some people are going to be like, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the mandatory OSHA trainings.” It goes beyond that. It’s taking that deeper and making it specific to what they’re doing, and showing them and letting them get their hands on it and working with them, and truly just getting a grasp of everything that goes on. I know at times I gloss over things because I’ve done it so long. But somebody else will say something and it’ll spark, “Hey, I need to go back and re-look at that.” And it’s the same way for other people too: “Yeah, you know, I learned about that 5 years ago and we haven’t gone through that again because I’ve been here a while.” Well, go through it again and keep pushing the training on. It can’t just stop. It’s constant.

And you mentioned maybe a claims number went down, but a cost went up, and that’s a reason to go back and look at training and make sure that your team understands even if they’re not new. So can we talk a little bit about the role that claims data plays in helping operations actually change behavior and what that looks like in practice?

So if you have a claim, something’s already happened, right? And you’re trying to not have claims. But when you do, it’s good analytics to go back and say, “Where did the system fail?” or “Where did we fail? What didn’t we catch that maybe we should have, but it slid through?” So you can take that information in, whether it’s frequency, “Hey, we’re having a lot of this happen”, or the severity unfortunately does happen in any business, and ag isn’t outside of that by any means. We talked earlier about big machines and fast equipment, and so severity accidents when they happen can be really, really bad.

And so when you dig down into that, it’s taking something bad and trying to make something good happen out of it. Even with frequency of smaller things, there’s obviously something that’s getting missed. And so as you look through claims data, after you get a set of it, you can really see patterns. And as different as each company is, especially in the co-op industry, on some level they’re all doing a piece of or all the same thing. And so being able to pull what you have and look at that and go, “Hey, we really need to work on this.” And that’s what claims data can really be. How you manage those claims and what you do with that’s a whole another topic, but that information on where you’re seeing stuff happen can really lead to some pretty good things.

Absolutely. I think you’ve talked a lot about how culture can change things, how training can change things, understanding claims data and how that can inform what your next move is. So if a safety manager at an ag operation is listening to this thinking, “We’re probably underestimating something,” where should they start?

I would say just get out in the field, truly. Get out there and learn the jobs that your employees are doing. Get your hands in it. Understand it. Get out there and see how they go through their daily tasks, because by seeing it and getting your hands in it, you get a better understanding of what’s going on. And it may not be underestimating it, you’re not going to underestimate the danger level, you may just not understand it fully because you haven’t done it. And if you have done it, get out there, and while you’re training other people, you’re essentially retraining yourself.

If you’re a safety person, you’re a risk manager, however your title is, get out there and build that relationship with your teams and that trust level, because if they know you understand what they’re doing and you’re doing it with them side-by-side, those trainings and what you’re talking about is going to be more well received because they know who you are and they know you’re there.

And then the other aspect of that is: it doesn’t all have to be bad. If you see something good happening, take a picture of it, record it, jot down a note, and spread that good throughout your companies. All that will help build that culture. We don’t want an “I got you” culture because that leads to people hiding things. We want a “we’re here with you” culture, and we understand the struggles and things you’re going through with the trainings and what you do on a day-to-day. So get out there and be part of it.

And that’s something we talk about a lot on this podcast, is being a leader that can instill trust and not fear.

Yes. You know, if you’re out there and you don’t understand or you don’t have that, it just comes across as “I got you” versus “I’m here to help.”

Absolutely. You shared a ton of insight today on the ag industry, the unique challenges that they face in terms of the dangers of the job. So thank you so much for sharing your expertise. It’s been illuminating. I’m sure everyone listening really appreciated this episode.

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