Herndon, VA — Do you want to bring safety to a higher level at your company? Are you concerned about being in compliance with OSHA regulations? Do you need assistance in documenting and measuring employee injuries/incidents in order to lower your workers' compensation rates?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, the STARS Safe Company Program can help you. STARS stands for: Safety Training Achieves Remarkable Success.

Sponsored by the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET), this free program, open to all professional landcare companies (including landscape construction, maintenance, and design/build firms, as well as professional lawn care companies), will give you specialized assistance in developing a safety "culture" at your company.

The assistance STARS members receive includes monthly e-mail/fax STARS Updates with practical safety and OSHA compliance-related checklists, sample policies, and sample forms. All STARS members also receive a comprehensive safety manual when they join.

Here is an excerpt from the recent STARS Safe Company Program Checklist for Employee Participation:

• Understand your workers' cultures. It's important to understand any potential cultural barriers that might inhibit effective employee participation. (Example: In many Hispanic/Latino cultures, it is considered disrespectful to have direct eye contact with or to ask questions of persons in "authority.")
• Personalize your safety messages. Relay examples from your own experience of incidents or "near misses" that have occurred. Ask employees to do the same. Stress that the reason these training sessions are being held is so they will go home to their families uninjured at the end of each day.
• Use more than one training method. Know that learning styles will differ among workers, and the better their understanding, the more chance they will participate.
• Don't make any assumptions. For example, don't assume that all of your workers can read, even in their own native language.
• Never criticize a worker for asking a question, even if you think the answer is something he or she should know. Doing so could cut off others from asking questions at any of your training sessions.

For more information on joining STARS and a copy of the STARS pledge form, call Ilene Manster in the Professional Landcare Network office, 800/395-2522.