Why Outside Eyes Matter
It was so fun to welcome Lauren Jones and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development to Wash Cycle Laundry to talk about SafetyWorks.
We’re a repeat “customer” of SafetyWorks, the commonwealth’s free consultative program for workplace safety. Every year for five years now, we’ve welcomed safety advisors who assess our current state and have helped us develop a number of policies and programs as we’ve grown.
Running a commercial laundry plant means working around industrial equipment — tunnel washers, dryers, ironers, conveyors, compressed air systems — all day, every day. The machinery doesn’t care what kind of day you’re having. So we have to.
No One Person Sees All the Risks
What I’ve learned is that no one person is going to “see” all the risks we’re exposed to. That’s not a failure of leadership — it’s just the nature of a complex operation. You need lots of eyes on it to catch potential hazards ahead of time. Our team catches things. Our maintenance crew catches things. And having outside advisors walk through the plant with fresh eyes catches things that all of us have gotten used to seeing.
SafetyWorks is one layer of prevention. We pair it with our own internal safety practices, our equipment maintenance protocols, and a culture where people on the floor feel comfortable raising concerns. No one layer is sufficient on its own. But stacked together, they add up to something real.
A Free Resource Worth Using
The best part? The program is free. There’s no penalty, no enforcement — it’s purely consultative. They come in, they observe, they advise, and you decide what to do with their recommendations. We’ve always found their input valuable, and it’s helped us grow our safety practices alongside the business.
If you’re a Massachusetts business, give them a call. You have nothing to lose.
Learn more about Wash Cycle Laundry or contact us to discuss our operations.