A culture of interdependence is paramount in safety excellence processes and should be communicated in the vision, values, and interacting and guiding roles of an organization. In the words of Stephen Covey, renowned author and leadership theorist, "interdependence opens up worlds of possibilities for deep, rich, meaningful associations, for geometrically increased productivity, for serving, for contributing, for learning, for growing" (Covey 1989, p. 187). Other characteristics associated with interdependent cultures include "the ability to work effectively across organizational boundaries, openness and candor, multi-faceted standards of success and synergies being sought across the whole enterprise" (Palus 2014, p. 6). It is with this culture mind that the Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability teams of L'Oréal Operations Americas focuses on five very key safety management systems elements to reduce risk.

In the L'Oréal Americas Operations Group, five key programs are at the core of the continuous improvement approach and value proposition of zero harm and zero incidents. These programs, referred to at L'Oréal as "The Big Five" are the cornerstones of our leadership program. They are:

  1. The Managing Effective Safety Using Recognition and Refocusing (MESUR) Program;

  2. The Safety Improvement Opportunity (SIO) program;

  3. The Safety Hazard Assessment Program (SHAP);

  4. The Validation Program; and

  5. The Powered Industrial Truck (PIT) program.

MESUR: Managing Effective Safety Using Recognition and Refocusing

L'Oréal's main leading indicator is a version of a behavior based safety program that was created internally and is called MESUR (Measuring Effective Safety Using Recognition and Refocusing). MESUR is a cultural program that is based on structured and systematic meetings between managers and colleagues to develop the ability of the colleague to identify risks in their daily activities and act upon what they see to mitigate these risks. The MESUR program aims at making each colleague aware of their good practices and unsafe practices. Therefore this program allows them to act at their level to better control risks related to their activity.

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