By Jake Dobrzynski, Industrial Safety, Environment, Safety and Quality Assurance
Sharon Behnke, administrative assistant in Facilities Management and Services, received a Gold Spot Award in June 2016 for catching and rectifying a potentially serious security violation.
While working at the Argonne Information Center, Sharon noticed that a foreign national employee had requested more than a dozen gate passes for his/her spouse, also a foreign national, within the last year. Foreign national employees are not authorized to host their own family members on site. Gate pass requests for foreign national family members must go through appropriate division channels.
Sharon spoke with the foreign national employee and spouse and learned that the spouse had been dropping the employee off at work and was then staying on site, unsupervised or escorted, throughout the day while the employee worked — a violation of Argonne’s policies and procedures for site access.
Sharon’s attention to detail, courage to ask questions, and her understanding of lab policies and procedures for site access, enabled her to catch this potentially serious violation.
Employees hosting visitors on site must follow LMS-PROC-320: Hosting Visitors to Argonne and LMS-POL-67: Visitor Site Access Approval. Per Argonne policy, hosts are responsible for the actions and whereabouts of their visitors at all times. Additional information about obtaining Gate Passes and hosting Foreign Visitors is available on Inside Argonne.
Spot Awards give employees “on-the-spot” recognition for positive safety or quality assurance initiative. The Spot Award program offers three award levels: gold ($100), silver ($50) and bronze ($25).
If you see an employee exhibiting behavior that warrants positive recognition (e.g., safe behavior or process improvements), you can nominate that individual for a Spot Award by submitting a Spot Award (ANL-758).
The form will be routed to the individual’s supervisor and division for approval. Observers may award employees from their own division or from other divisions. The cost of the award is charged to the recipient’s division.
Additional information about the Spot Award program is available on Inside Argonne.