Some of the most telling construction data comes not from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), but rather the experiences of individual contracting firms. For instance:
- Diamond D General Engineering, Inc ., Woodland Calif., has never logged a lost-time accident since incorporating 16 years ago.
- Hendrick Construction , Charlotte, N.C., has gone six years without an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordable injury.
- In four years, Canyon Concrete, Inc ., Farmington, Mo., lowered its experience modification rate (EMR) from 1.15 to 0.84.
- By lowering its EMR to 0.65, Kelley Construction , Louisville, Ky., saved approximately $81,000 on its workers’ compensation premium.
What’s the secret to their success? Creating a culture of safety.
Where the Movement Begins Effective contractors don’t just say safety is a priority, they show it. The key is to be as upfront and transparent as possible, often starting with the interview process.
“When someone walks in the door at Kelley Construction, the first person they meet is the safety director,” says Tim Prakop, who leads all safety efforts for the commercial and industrial general contractor. “It immediately puts safety into their head.”
In determining whether a candidate will turn out to be a safe, productive employee, Spencer Defty, president of Diamond D, looks for a strong work ethic, reliability, honesty and integrity.
“We also look for selflessness. If I get a guy in the interview process who wants all the money and days off and wants to run the newest piece of equipment, I know he’s not a team player,” he says. “Those who don’t ask end up getting it because they’re team players whose attitude and selflessness help keep us safe.”
Creating an immediate connection between new employees and safety managers can help foster a positive relationship down the road.
“At a lot of companies, guys in the field don’t have a good relationship with the safety director and maybe think of them as not being on the same team,” Prakop says. “At Kelley, because I’m involved with field hiring, our guys do not hesitate to call me and say: ‘This is the situation I’m in. What do you advise me to do?’”
Developing this trust is crucial so employees don’t work from a point of fear, Defty says. If an employee fears he’ll be fired for unsafe behavior, he’s less likely to ask questions or report incidents. As a result, a sincere, personalized approach proves more effective than a mandate from above.
This is particularly relevant for small business owners, who often know all of their employees and families by name.
“I always tell our people that everyone has an obligation to return each other to their loved ones in the exact same condition as when they left home,” says Defty, who employs about 25 people. “It starts with myself, down to laborers, operators and office staff. There’s an emphasis and obligation on everyone to work as a team."
Putting the Movement in Motion When Roger Hendrick decided to open his Charlotte-based general contracting firm six years ago, he turned to Mel Rosa, a former Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) compliance officer with whom he’d worked in the past, for help implementing a quality safety program.
Recalls Rosa: “Roger said, ‘I want to start it right and I want everyone 30-hour OSHA trained. You tell me what else I need to do.’ We started off with safety classes and training, and I reinforced that things would come to a screeching halt if a safety incident happens. Roger gave his full support and has always been very proactive.”
Rosa, who now owns a consulting firm called
RSS Safety , visits Hendrick Construction a few times a month to help train employees on everything from first-aid to fall protection and fire prevention. He also helps with job hazard analyses and performs mock inspections as a way to demonstrate the penalties or liability exposures the firm would face if OSHA made an unannounced visit.
Last year, the company hired a full-time safety director, Bryan McGucken, to supplement Rosa’s expertise.
“I convinced Roger it would be best to find someone from inside the company and train him to be in charge of safety,” Rosa says. “Most superintendents already know about safety. They just need to be taught the laws and regulations.”
Rosa, a master trainer through the
National Center for Construction Education and Research , is now taking McGucken, a superintendent, through a certified safety technician course as well as OSHA training.
Having at least one staff member dedicated to safety is a significant investment for a small contractor, but it can make a big difference, says Von Marler, safety and training manager for Canyon Concrete. When Marler joined the 25-year-old concrete specialist about four years ago, his mission was to revitalize the small firm’s “canned” safety policy. The first thing he did was initiate weekly safety talks that cover issues related to upcoming jobs or recently released industry data.
Prakop uses weekly jobsite meetings and monthly training sessions to present material that will open Kelley Construction employees’ eyes about the importance of jobsite safety, including staggering statistics on alcoholism in the workplace and the number of fatalities that result from contact with electricity.
Rather than lecturing, having employees respond to questions or share their personal experiences are effective ways to explore safety topics—whether it’s reviewing the warning signs of a stroke or examining what caused the death of a grade checker on a nearby job.
“Let’s learn from other people’s mistakes,” Defty says, recalling a local subcontractor that experienced its first lost-time accident when a seasoned employee attempted to complete a five-minute job without protective gear and ended up with third-degree burns. “Safety problems don’t discriminate against anything—age, race or work experience. You have to be vigilant because it can all go bad in a split second.”
Cultural Roadblocks Documentation is one area that requires constant attention—and incurs some of the most resistance from supervisors who are reluctant to take the time to provide detailed paperwork on jobsite safety inspections or incident reports.
“One thing I’m struggling with right now is getting accurate reporting with first-aid injuries,” Marler says. “Some guys have the ‘manly man’ attitude of not admitting they’re hurt, but by emphasizing the importance we’re starting to move in the right direction, and I’m seeing more reports of things like scrapes.”
In safety-conscious companies, these inspections and reports spur ideas for future talks and training.
Finding time to train is another challenge, particularly for companies like Kelley Construction, which performs 80 percent of its work 100 miles or more from its Louisville base. Prakop addresses this problem by training local workers in the office and providing onsite training for crews on out-of-state jobs. He picks a topic each month and makes it his mission to get the message to everyone in the company.
“You can never train enough because it creates awareness, and safety truly is about awareness,” Prakop says.
At Canyon Concrete, staff undergoes more than 30 hours of safety training (OSHA and Mine Safety and Health Administration) within the first six months of employment. Marler, a former teacher, administers much of the training in-house, and last year the company invested in a new conference area with a TV, computer interface and media center to aid his efforts.
According to Rosa, a more problematic barrier embedded in many contractors’ corporate makeup is basing their bonus system for superintendents on coming in under budget and ahead of schedule. If safety costs aren’t separated from project costs, then safety programs are likely to be the first thing cut to help meet deadlines and financial benchmarks. This philosophy encourages employees to push safety aside when making on-the-spot decisions (e.g., they might skip renting a trench box—saving time and money—and try to finish the task quickly so nobody notices).
The key, Rosa says, is for contractors to change their routine to include safety personnel in the early stages of projects so they know exactly what safety hurdles may arise and can plan for all the necessary equipment to be ordered.
Subcontractors must be on board with the safety program from the beginning as well. In addition to creating a subcontractor handbook, Prakop requires subcontractors to submit their safety program to the superintendent when they first arrive onsite; if it doesn’t measure up, they are required to follow Kelley’s program.
Hendrick Construction even posts its entire safety program on its website and requires subcontractors to sign a document saying they’ll follow the general contractor’s policies. “Many companies will brag about being safe, but they aren’t open about the specifics of their safety requirements,” Rosa says. “By putting it online, there’s no excuse for a subcontractor to say, ‘I didn’t know you required that,’ because we tell them upfront.”
Rewarding safe behavior with T-shirts and gift cards can be another effective way to motivate employees. However, this cannot be the driving force of a safety program because these incentives don’t flow down to subcontractors. A subcontractor’s incentive to be safe, Rosa says, is the increased likelihood of receiving a preferential contract due to its quality reputation.
The Value of Change As owners increasingly require bidders to supply evidence of their safety records, a quality safety reputation can put general contractors at the forefront of the prequalification process and translate into more work.
“When workers know they’re safe, they concentrate on quality of work,” Rosa says. And when customers get higher quality work, there’s no need for re-work, which leaves both parties satisfied and more willing to collaborate again in the future.
Prakop has found a respectable safety record to be especially valuable in the petroleum industry, where last summer a 10-person Kelley crew outfitted in flame-resistant clothing completed an oil refinery project in Garyville, La., without logging a heat-related incident. “If a customer wants to ask us to work for them again, our safety means a lot in terms of reputation,” he says.
Plus, accumulating impressive records allows contractors to qualify for state and national safety programs such as OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program or
Associated Builders and Contractors’ Safety Training and Evaluation Process (STEP) .
STEP—which offers bronze, silver, gold and platinum levels of achievement—provides contractors large and small with an organized approach to developing and analyzing long-term safety and loss-prevention programs, as well as measuring their year-over-year progress.
Last year’s STEP participants, two-thirds of which have fewer than 100 employees, boast:
- fatality rates 58 percent below the national construction average (per 2007 BLS data);
- DART rates 29 percent below the national average;
- OSHA incidence rates 31 percent below the national average;
- 90 percent fewer OSHA citations than the industry average;
- mod factors well below 1.00; and
- significant insurance savings.
“STEP gave me a good outline and starting point when I came on board,” Marler says. “Even as I filled out the application again this year, I saw some areas where I know we need to do more work.”
For example, next on Marler’s to-do list is to formalize Canyon Concrete’s job safety analysis program. In 2008, he instituted a seat belt policy for drivers and passengers. Though a few fines were incurred at first, he hasn’t noticed any infractions in the past few monhs—a simple example of cultural change.
Certainly a quality safety program eliminates some of the egregious expenses associated with running a construction company, but contractors should shy away from focusing only on the financial side of the equation, Defty says. “The best thing business owners can do is personalize safety in a sincere way so employees truly understand they are concerned about them and their loved ones.”