MSCI Announces Annual Safety Innovation and Culture Improvement Award Winners

Contact MSCI: Kerrie Rushton, 202-365-6338 or 847-485-3000

Rolling Meadows, Ill., November 16, 2023 —MSCI has awarded its annual Safety Innovation and Culture Improvement awards to five companies. These awards recognize metals organizations that develop innovative approaches to drive safety improvement towards a zero-harm environment.

“Safety impacts a company’s bottom line, but that’s not why it’s important. Safety matters because it affects employees and their families and their security and livelihoods,” said MSCI President and CEO M. Robert Weidner, III. “Ensuring safety is difficult, though. It starts by building the right culture, processes, and systems. It continues by committing to constant innovation and communication. In other words, it takes persistence and ingenuity. These five companies exemplify these traits and their leaders, managers, and employees demonstrated creativity and a commitment to one another as caring colleagues.”

The Safety Innovation Award recognizes a single company that has implemented new tools or processes that keep workers out of harm’s way. Winners must demonstrate dramatically reduced occupational risk or exposure. The Culture Improvement Award recognizes companies that implemented a company-wide initiative to increase employee interest and engagement in worker safety or educate teams about the importance of safety. This year’s recipients are:

• Safety Innovation Award: Hydro Extrusion North America for its innovative new employee safety onboarding program, NEXiS (New Employee Excellence in Safety). With NEXiS, Hydro uses virtual reality to create a virtual work environment where, in real time, trainees can identify risks in a controlled environment and develop the muscle memory they need to ensure an immediate safe response to difficult situations. The number of incidents affecting new hires fell by half within a year of implementing the program.
• Safety Culture Improvement Award (less than 150 full-time employees): Olympic Steel’s Minneapolis, Minn. site, which established operational learning teams to help change the safety conversation with employees. Instead of focusing on blame, these teams aim to tell the story of the conditions leading up to an event so teams can brainstorm and gather employee feedback about how to prevent similar conditions in the future.
• Safety Culture Improvement Award (150-1,000 employees): Nucor Steel Berkeley for its Target Three concept, which empowers teammates to be personally responsible for their own safety, their own work areas, and the safety of their colleagues. By investing in each person at the nearly 1,000-person site in the safety of their colleagues, Nucor Steel Berkeley is well on its way to achieving its goal to be the safest steel company in the world.
• Safety Culture Improvement Award (150-1,000 employees): SSAB Americas whose “Courageous Safety Culture” helps employees overcome the temptation to be silent about potential hazards and invest in the safety of their colleagues. The program included “Courageous Culture” workshops, safety business plans, and Safety-by-Design simulations. SSAB’s efforts utilizing this program have yielded a positive shift in their recordable injury rate from 1.66 in 2018 to 0.29 in 2022.

• Safety Culture Improvement Award (more than 1,000 employees): Russel Metals for its Mission Zero Initiative, which aims to improve workplace culture through safety meetings, open discussions, job observations, inspections, and e-learning opportunities. Involving all levels of the organization, from the CEO to temporary workers, Russel’s level of lost time incident frequency is near zero across all facilities.

Judges considered several factors during the application process, including uniqueness of approach; whether the innovation was employee- or management-driven; evidence of employee training in sustaining benefits; and the degree to which the innovation was integrated into the whole organization through a “culture based” approach.

Awardees also each met the following minimum qualifications:

• Has had no recent citations from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Canada’s Ministry of Labour, or their equivalents.
• Specifically, over the last 12 months (July 21, 2022 to July 31, 2023) companies cannot have the equivalent of an OSHA Willful Violation.
• Has had no workplace fatalities within the last 18 months (January 1, 2022 to the present).

Quotations from the 2022 Safety Innovation and Culture Improvement Award Winners:

• Charles Straface, Business Unit President, Hydro Extrusion North America: “Receiving this award is a testament to our unwavering commitment to the well-being of our employees. Safety is not just our top priority; it’s a core value that drives our every action. We are honored to be recognized for our dedication to creating a workplace where our team can thrive without compromise.”
• Rick Marabito, Chief Executive Officer, Olympic Steel: “As one of Olympic Steel’s core values, safety is paramount, and our focus is relentless. We work hard to continuously strengthen our safety culture of learning and continuous improvement, and we are proud to see our Minneapolis team recognized as a role model in our industry. The Safety Culture Improvement Award is a testament to the Olympic Steel mindset: ‘Safety first. Always. And, it starts with me.’”
• Leon Topalian, Chair, President & Chief Executive Officer, Nucor Steel: “Congratulations to my Nucor Steel Berkeley teammates for receiving the Safety Culture Improvement Award and for your focus on taking care of each other when it comes to safety. Through your efforts, you are creating the safety culture that we need to achieve our goal of becoming the World’s Safest Steel Company.”

• Charles W. Schmitt, President, SSAB Americas: “I’m exceptionally proud of our SSAB team members and their focus and innovation in keeping themselves and their co-workers safe. Safety remains SSAB’s number one priority, and recognition for our efforts by MSCI is an exceptional honor that provides us additional motivation to keep focused on improving our safety in the workplace.”

• John G. Reid, Director, President and Chief Executive Officer, Russel Metals: “Russel is honored to receive this award. It is a reflection of the tireless and selfless commitment of each member of the Russel family and our commitment to send all of our employees home safely. Safety is an essential component of our culture as we strive to improve our safety every day. We sincerely appreciate the unique safety platform that the MSCI provides, which allows us the opportunity to continuously learn from other member companies in order to improve all of our safety practices. “

About MSCI

Founded in 1909, the Metals Service Center Institute is a nonprofit association based in Rolling Meadows, Ill., serving the industrial metals supply chain. It represents more than 250 businesses with almost 2,300 locations in North America and around the globe. Visit www.MSCI.org for more information and follow us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and connect with us on LinkedIn.