Hattiesburg Hi-Vis Has New Favorite Color

July 16, 2024

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Orange is the new yellow at Georgia-Pacific’s consumer products facility in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Employees walking through the facility see yellow everywhere, from guardrails to stairways to walkway lines painted on the floor. They also used to wear a lot of yellow, since that was the color of the high-visibility (hi-vis) gear the facility required for employees.

Site leaders said conversations with lift truck drivers and warehouse employees revealed that their hi-vis actually created a visibility concern.

“Sometimes it was hard for drivers to see pedestrians, because all of our hi-vis was yellow,” said Gary Gretzinger, operations manager at Hattiesburg. “It was easy for them to blend into their surroundings.”

Those lift trucks move raw materials, supplies, waste and finished products through alleys that are only about 10 feet wide. If an employee entered the mobile equipment space without realizing a truck was approaching, and the driver didn’t see them, someone could get seriously hurt.

One aspect of the Principle Based Management™ framework at Georgia-Pacific is taking a bottom-up approach to solving problems, using the expertise of people with relevant experience rather than mandating solutions from the top down. Another key principle is stewardship and compliance, which includes prioritizing the safety of employees. Hattiesburg leaders put those principles into practice by listening to employee feedback about the potential safety risks associated with their hi-vis equipment. In fall 2023, in response to those conversations, the facility began to switch to orange hi-vis to help people stand out more against all that yellow.

Supervisors started by distributing bright orange tees, sweatshirts and caps to employees. Meanwhile, the facility formed a hi-vis safety team that worked to source brand new bright orange equipment for the facility, including hard hats and safety vests, as well as fire-retardant clothing for the electrical team.

The new equipment started rolling out in March, and the facility adopted an official policy in April requiring all employees to wear orange hi-vis. Asking employees to make changes can sometimes be difficult, but Hattiesburg team members have adopted this change with excitement because it demonstrates that their leaders are truly listening to them.

“When people ask where this change is coming from,” Gary said, “and they find out that it came from their coworkers, and they see we are actually listening and following through with their suggestions, it gives them motivation to speak up more often.”