Team Member Feedback Drives New Safety Courses

Safely improve every day. It’s one of Watco’s Foundation Principles, and it’s something Watco team members take seriously. The safety and training team are putting this into action by improving existing courses and developing new classes to address needs that came to their attention.

“It’s all in constant development,” said Vice President of Safety Brad Walker, who helped gather the team member feedback that reshaped the courses. “You see issues, problems, things that the team asks about. And we try to meet those needs.”

So far, three programs have been improved. The first is a derailment prevention and mitigation class. Derailment prevention is a constant priority for railroads. Incorrectly lined switches, debris, and a host of other variables can cause a train to derail.

Previously, Watco mainly worked with an outside group for this type of training. To tailor the class to our teams’ needs, Watco safety and training decided to bring the training in-house. After gathering feedback from field teams, the rail safety team presented the enhanced course last month at the Safe Performance Center in Birmingham, Alabama. Future classes will be held at Watco locations across the country.

“Some teams might need this information in the next 60 days. Hopefully, they won’t ever need it,” Walker said. “But based on our experiences, this is information they need. Ideally, we can prevent these incidents, but in case one happens, we want our teams in the field to know who to contact and how to manage it.”

Another new course focuses on railcar inspection and maintenance. This training came about as another collaboration between field teams and safety. The pilot courses were held at the Texas Coastal Bend Railroad. After fine-tuning the class, it’s ready to present to teams across our network.

Walker also led an effort to improve new leader training. This course previously focused on rules and regulations, but didn’t necessarily provide new managers, trainmasters, and others in supervisory positions with the resources to reach their highest levels of success.

Now, these new leaders gather in one place to learn about all the support Watco offers.

“Brad is still providing them with the same rules and reporting requirements, but is now giving the new leaders exposure to our Overland Park (Kansas) office,” said SVP of Operations Steve Coomes. “There, we put leaders from legal, finance, real estate, IT, purchasing, sales, and more in front of them to show them a little bit about what Watco is all about, and what resources they have to draw from. This has proven to be extremely helpful with our new leaders.”

Developing and refining these courses furthers Watco’s efforts to safely improve every day.

“This is really about our team seeing a need or identifying a shortcoming, and then rallying to address that by training. It confirms our core values to invest in our team,” Coomes said.

Walker states it very simply: “Don’t feel like you have to do this alone. You have a support group behind you that wants to help you. If you think we’re lacking somewhere, let us know. Your suggestion might be the next addition to our training.”