Thousands of Union Pacific Employees Weigh in on Safety Culture Assessment

Union Pacific is making progress on its goal to be the safest railroad in North America. As of November 2024, the railroad's year-to-date derailment and personal injury rates improved 25% compared to one year ago.

But there is more work to be done.

As part of its ongoing effort to enhance safety, Union Pacific conducted a Safety Culture Assessment in 2024, soliciting feedback from thousands of systemwide field employees on ways to improve its culture, some of which are already being done.

With help from a neutral third-party company, the railroad surveyed more than 27,000 employees, conducted 15 employee focus groups and held 15 listening sessions with more than 65 labor representatives to gain a better understanding of employees' perspectives and identify ways to enhance safety.

Throughout the entire process, Union Pacific put controls in place to ensure the integrity and neutrality of the process, sharing findings with labor union representatives to gain early feedback and utilizing Artificial Intelligence to conduct quantitative data analysis.

In the end, the assessment yielded invaluable feedback and resulted in numerous improvement opportunities, including enhanced training protocols implemented last month for new hires.

"Union Pacific is committed to continuously finding new ways to enhance safety, and we strongly believe that requires us to engage and listen to our employees in the field," said Rod Doerr, Chief Safety Officer and vice president. "It's no secret some of our best ideas come from the men and women who are doing the hands-on work."

The assessment underscored several actions Union Pacific can or has already taken to enhance safety, with four themes emerging from employee feedback.

Training and Development: Training is a fundamental component of Union Pacific's safety commitment that includes engaging both new and experienced employees in the process. Here are a few actions being taken as a result of employee feedback:

• Reinforcing the Critical Safety Rules by incorporating a start-of-shift rules presentation led by students and adding critical-thinking scenarios to classroom curriculum. This includes leveraging technology to equip new hires with essential skills before they work in an active rail environment.
• Creating formal training for peer trainers to improve their interactions with students.
• Designing one-on-one field activities for peer trainers and students, including demonstrations reinforcing the critical rules.

Resource Optimization and Allocation: Union Pacific identified several plans to improve resource availability and allocation, such as labor, heavy equipment and capital, to maintain high safety and service standards. This includes:

• Evaluating Union Pacific's vehicle renewal and purchasing strategy, creating greater availability of new vehicles.
• Conducting annual checks of first aid kits, fire extinguishers, AED machines and systemwide bulletin boards that share important information.
• Creating an easier ordering process for teams to procure equipment and material.

Communication Effectiveness: Union Pacific is committed to improving communication among all levels and crafts of its workforce, a critical component to fostering a positive work environment. Actions being taken to improve trust and communication because of the information collected in the assessment include:

• Building shared perspectives and relationships between train dispatchers and train crews through town hall-style meetings.
• Enhancing the company's safety communications strategy with manager toolkits.
• Recognizing annual safety achievements and launching a campaign to spotlight real railroaders who exemplify safety.
• Leveraging Union Pacific's popular "How We Win Together" training to connect company strategy to action while sharing the status of safety initiatives. The next iteration of this training will roll out in 2025 and is required for every employee.

Safety Culture and Practices: Union Pacific places a strong emphasis on fostering a robust safety culture. The assessment provided several steps to help deeply ingrain safety in employees' behaviors and attitudes:

• Developing guidelines for safety meetings that can be implemented and tailored locally. Guidelines will address effective employee participation and leadership, along with the cadence of planned safety activities.
• Designing a "Badge of Honor" recognition program that awards employees with vest badges acknowledging their safety achievements.
• Collaborating with labor leaders, soliciting feedback and providing updates to leaders who can help spread the message to membership.

"Union Pacific takes seriously our goal of being the best in safety, and we want every employee to go home safe every day," Doerr said. "Together, we can continue to promote awareness through effective communication and teamwork."