Zero Harm Workplace
Mohawk prioritizes a safety-oriented culture that upholds employee well-being and health. For us, safety means the absence of harm, both physical and mental, and encompasses comprehensive support for health needs.
Grounded in prevention, our commitment to ongoing safety involves training programs, employee engagement and supportive technologies. This commitment is reinforced by the Mohawk Health and Safety Policy, as well as foundational principles and “cardinal rules” that outline crucial safety expectations. Each of our business segments uses corporate resources to enhance safety measures within their respective facilities, with a heightened focus on equipment maintenance, machine guards and peer-to-peer feedback. By consolidating safety data from all business segments, we calculate our Company recordable incident rate (RIR), which serves as a key indicator of our overall safety performance.
Safety Training
Mohawk's business safety team has developed 41 safety training programs that cover health and safety issues across our work environments and operations, from those highlighted by our principles and cardinal rules to less defined, but equally important, areas such as ergonomics, CPR, battery safety and emergency preparedness. We also offer safety training for our highest-risk job tasks, emphasizing life-safety-critical aspects of our work and measuring employee comprehension through post-course knowledge assessments.
Our business safety team creates and maintains training content for each of these programs. Content is stored in a central portal that all sites can access to see updates in real time. When facility safety managers deliver a safety training at their site, they can add to, but cannot delete from, the basic training.
Safety Management Systems
The Company's U.S. businesses are expanding their commitment to safety by implementing robust safety management systems (SMS) in 2023. The SMS tracks the progress each location has made toward Mohawk’s ambition to become a world-class benchmark for industry safety. The SMS will identify gaps in localized training resources and assign corrective measures to ensure we train all employees to perform their jobs safely and effectively. Individual facilities or functional areas within facilities will use the SMS to demonstrate the maturity of their safety programs from level 1 to level 4 and identify steps to improve safety by advancing to the next level. The goal is to standardize our businesses’ approach to safety culture development, consistently and effectively share best practices and improve our safety performance.
Dal-Tile uses a similar SMS that consists of four progressive levels: Compliance, Operational Integration, Employee Involvement and Continuous Improvement. These levels validate the implementation of structured safety programs and procedures by manufacturing plant teams. The SMS not only establishes safety as an integral part of operations but also cultivates a mindset where safety is considered crucial to delivering high-quality products.
Logistics Safety
Due to our vertically integrated business, Mohawk runs a vast distribution network in the U.S. that moves our products between manufacturing facilities, distribution hubs and customer sites. More than 1,000 drivers transport our products, posing different safety challenges to those faced by our manufacturing, administrative and sales employees. The mobile nature of the job makes it difficult to communicate with drivers. We install technology in our trucks, including an electronic logging device, to stay in touch with drivers and to monitor their driving behaviors. This enables us to also give feedback to individual drivers on their performance and identify training opportunities for the fleet. The vehicles are also equipped with advanced safety features, including collision avoidance technology. In addition, we use on-board fleet telemetry (automated data transmission) systems to collect real-time data from over-the-road drivers. This data expands our understanding of safety risks facing our fleet division and allows us to better manage and enforce safe operating procedures.
Health and Well-Being
Mohawk is dedicated to cultivating a performance driven workforce and is committed to helping employees maintain their well-being. Although it ultimately falls to employees to take responsibility for their own well-being, Mohawk offers a comprehensive list of benefits, resources and training—at no cost or low cost—to help them make good decisions about their health.
The Mohawk employee benefits website details benefits available to U.S. employees and features health and wellness training and resources. In the U.S., our Healthy Life Centers (HLCs) offer employees and their family members covered under the Company health care plan:
- Acute care
- Chronic disease management
- Preventive exams
- Pediatric care
- Medication maintenance programs
- Pre-placement examinations
- Wellness coaching
- Integrated care coordination with primary care physicians
On-site HLCs are located at Company facilities with high employee concentrations and are available to health care plan participants as well as their covered spouses and dependents over the age of two. Near‑site HLCs are offered at smaller locations, and virtual HLCs have been added to supplement the offering for the Company’s field sales and logistics employees.
Several of our global businesses have introduced initiatives to enhance overall employee health and well-being as well. Some examples include the initiatives below that demonstrate our commitment to fostering a safe work environment that prioritizes employee well-being.