Making safety part of everyday culture
Sims-Lohman is a major US manufacturer and distributor of granite and quartz countertops and cabinets, specialising in kitchen projects.
Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, the business operates across multiple states, with sales showrooms, regional distribution centres, and state-of-the-art manufacturing plants – supporting teams from fabrication through to installation.
Each year, Sims-Lohman runs its own company-wide Safety Week, a focused event designed to bring teams together, reinforce key safety messages, and remind everyone that safety is more than a compliance activity; it’s a core value.
In 2026, the theme was ‘Safety’s no joke’, with a clear goal – to educate teams, reduce risk, recognise positive behaviours, and keep safety front of mind long after the week ended.
The challenge
Turning safety awareness into everyday action
For Sims-Lohman, Safety Week is not just about posters or one-off reminders. It is about creating practical ways for team members to engage with safety, and encourage them to:
- Be aware of workplace risks.
- Recognise safe behaviours happening around them.
- Report hazards, near misses, and positive observations quickly.
- Take ownership of safety across different teams, locations, and divisions.
- Keep momentum going beyond Safety Week itself.
To make that possible, reporting needed to be simple and accessible, especially for busy frontline teams working across fabrication, warehousing, distribution, showrooms, and installation environments.
The approach
A week of focused safety conversations, powered by frontline reporting
Throughout the week, Sims-Lohman focused on a different safety theme each day, helping teams connect key messages to real workplace risks and everyday behaviours.
Focus areas included:
- DO IT Monday, encouraging individuals to put safety culture into action.
- Silica Tuesday, reinforcing the importance of silica mitigation.
- PPE Wednesday, highlighting correct PPE use as a vital line of defence.
- Driving Thursday, promoting safe driving behaviours across teams.
- LOTO Friday, focusing on lock-out/tag-out procedures and energy control.
Each daily theme gave team members a clear prompt for what to look for, talk about, and report.
How Notify supported the campaign
Making it easy to report what people saw
To remove friction from reporting, Sims-Lohman placed posters around their sites encouraging individuals to use Notify to report safety risks and positive behaviours.
Each poster included a QR code, giving team members quick access to report what they had seen.
This helped turn safety awareness into action. Instead of asking people to remember to report later, Sims-Lohman gave teams a simple route to capture hazards, near misses, and positive observations there and then.
A friendly competition that rewarded proactive reporting
To keep engagement high, Sims-Lohman introduced a points-based ‘Hazard Hunt’ contest across participating facilities and teams.
Points were earned for submitting valid reports through Notify, with extra recognition for high-quality submissions and reports linked to the daily focus topic.
How points were awarded:
- 1 point for each valid ‘Hazard Hunt’ submission.
- 1 point for each near miss or safety observation.
- 5 bonus points for the top three submissions each day.
- 1 bonus point for submissions linked to the daily focus issue.
Scores were cumulative by team and shared daily, creating visibility, momentum, and a sense of shared ownership.
At the end of the week, the facility or team with the most points won the Safety Week Champion Cup – and official bragging rights!
Gift cards were also awarded to individuals who reported the top submissions of the week, recognising high-impact safety observations, as well as those with the most submissions of the week, recognising consistent participation.
Safety Week results: participation and real risk reduction
By the end of Safety Week, Sims-Lohman had created more than a campaign. They had created a visible, team-led moment around proactive safety.
Over the five days, Sims-Lohman received more than 400 submissions related to the Safety Week Hazard Hunt, showing strong engagement from team members across the business.
Team members took part in conversations, friendly competition, shout-outs, and – most importantly – practical safety reporting.
The ‘Hazard Hunt’ also surfaced meaningful examples of spotting and responding to real risks.
One team member identified a strong propane odour in a warehouse, traced it to a leaking forklift tank, and helped ensure the issue was addressed before it escalated. Another noticed a piece of material at risk of falling and took action to remove it safely.
These examples show the value of encouraging frontline teams to speak up early. When reporting is easy and people are engaged, organisations can spot weak signals, intervene sooner, and learn from what is happening on the ground.
From Safety Week to everyday safety culture
Safety Week may only last five days, but the aim is much bigger – to build habits that continue every day.
By combining clear daily themes, visible leadership support, recognition, QR-code reporting, and easy access to Notify, Sims-Lohman created a practical model for proactive safety engagement.
It helped reinforce that safety is not only about reacting when something goes wrong. It is about noticing what is happening, learning from frontline insight, recognising positive behaviours, and taking action before people get hurt.
How does Notify help organisations build proactive safety cultures?
Notify makes it easier for frontline teams to report hazards, near misses, incidents, and positive observations in real time – from any location.
For safety leaders, that means richer data, faster visibility, and more opportunities to act before small issues become serious incidents.
With Notify, organisations can:
- Make reporting simple with mobile-first tools and QR-code access.
- Capture hazards, near misses, incidents, and positive observations in one place.
- Encourage participation by reducing admin and removing barriers to speaking up.
- Assign and track corrective actions through to completion.
- Use dashboards and safety intelligence to spot trends, hotspots, and repeat risks.
- Close the loop with employees so reporting builds trust and momentum.
When safety reporting is quick, accessible, and valued, it becomes part of the everyday culture in an organisation.
Want to make safety reporting easier for your frontline teams?
Whether you are running a safety campaign, looking to improve incident and near miss reporting, or build a more proactive safety culture, Notify gives your teams a simple way to speak up – and gives safety leaders the insight to take action.
To learn more, book a demo today.