Iron Mountain Uses Wearables to Fortify a Top-Level Safety Culture

The challenge

At leading storage and information management company Iron Mountain, the employees - endearingly called Mountaineers - live and breathe safety and security. In fact, one of the company’s compelling values is to “protect ourselves and each other from harm, and secure our customers’ assets as if they were our own.”

This commitment dates back to when the company launched as a means of protecting vital information from wars or other disasters. Their original storage facility was housed within a depleted ore mine, aptly named Iron Mountain. Today, organizations in every major industry and of all sizes trust the company with records and document management, data backup and recovery, secure shredding, and data center operations.

Although Iron Mountain’s foundational safety culture was strong, opportunities had emerged to galvanize their workplace safety program.

"We’re proud of our safety culture at Iron Mountain, but if we wanted to take it to the next level, we knew we had to try something different, something new."

Don Keim

DIRECTOR OF HEALTH AND SAFETY, NORTH AMERICA AT IRON MOUNTAIN

The company was looking to:

• reduce workplace injuries, 65% of which were musculoskeletal;
• increase the relevance of their training program outside of the classroom;
• increase positive coaching opportunities between supervisors and associates.

With over 24,000 Mountaineers, including drivers and material handling associates in their warehouses, leadership recognized the need for some powerful tools to help the team complete their journey to top-level safety.

The solution

Iron Mountain turned to technology to augment their workforce with products designed to help workers perform their jobs more safely. To combat unhealthy postures - one of the greatest contributors to musculoskeletal injuries - the company outfitted over 400 Mountaineers in their Chicago market with Kinetic REFLEX wearable devices.

The REFLEX smart wearable:

• determines when workers are moving with incorrect posture using biomechanical analysis;
• alerts workers of excessive bending, twisting, or reaching with real-time feedback;
• provides management a workforce risk profile and actionable insights to reduce injuries through web dashboard analytics.

The result

By combining first-class wearable technology with their existing safety training, Iron Mountain realized:

• a 64% reduction in OSHA recordable injury rates for both drivers and warehouse associates year over year;
• a 58% reduction in their cost of worker’s compensation claims;
• a 5:1 ratio of dollars saved to dollars invested in Kinetic.

Supervisors also garnered benefits from the tech, using data to create meaningful coaching moments with associates.

After testing the Kinetic REFLEX device in five locations over 12 months, Iron Mountain expanded the use of the wearable to over 60 sites around North America, and is making it an integral part of its safety program and culture in the region.

“Safety doesn’t stop at the workplace, and we believe a culture of safety, where safety is top of mind, becomes part of the entire life of our Mountaineers. Kinetic better enables our safety 24/7 approach,” said Richard Ziegelhofer, Sr. Director of Operations Support, North America.

"When I went to sleep at night, I would have back pain. After moving right, I don't have that pain anymore."

A mountaineer