Keeping employees safe on the job requires extensive training programs and a culture of safety that applies to everyone in the company—from the CEO to field workers. Brea, Calif.-based
NCM Demolition and Remediation found this out as it sought to create a top-notch safety program based on the tenets of three companies merging together.
Nuprecon, CST Environmental and MARCOR Environmental began the merger in 2006 and officially became NCM Demolition and Remediation in July, boasting more than 2,000 employees, 23 offices and $220 million in annual sales.
With so many employees and office locations, the firm had to create cohesive policies that stemmed from the previous companies’ safety programs. To do this, NCM created a safety task force led by the senior safety manager from each company. Together, they picked the best parts of each company’s manuals and programs to create a master plan, as well as hired a safety executive with 35 years of experience.
“Everybody has programs, but ours is more creative and interactive,” says Sage Khara, president and CEO of NCM. All training is job specific, uses real-life examples and is conducted in house instead of being outsourced.
“Our safety approach will be a hands-on, interactive approach from the project management level to the field level, because they are the ones exposed to the dangers,” Khara says. “The senior level management will exude best safety practices and it will filter down.”
NCM believes it must be the best when it comes to safety because its employees are the first on the jobsite. On a current power plant decommissioning project, the firm has logged 150,000 hours with no accidents, thanks to its safety culture.
“We have gotten to this point because we are the very first ones onsite and we turn the project over to the client, so we set the standard benchmark,” Khara says.
Before merging, the three individual companies had exceptional Experience Modification Ratings. Now that they are combined, NCM touts a safety record that is 30 percent to 40 percent below the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (
OSHA) standards, Khara says.
NCM receives such high marks because its employees receive asbestos and job-specific training in addition to standard OSHA training. NCM offers 40 programs, such as training on handling hazardous materials and lifting techniques, as well as forklift and crane and rigging training. One of the firm’s goals is to make employees well rounded so they can see a job through from start to finish.
“On a typical project, an employee may be tearing down a wall and see a pipe with asbestos, but he is cross-trained so we have no need to bring in subcontractors and shut down the job,” Khara says.
This kind of commitment to safety helps NCM educate employees, lower insurance premiums and grab the attention of potential clients to win bids.
“Large Fortune 500 companies like how the managers are engaged and how OSHA never has to get involved,” Khara says. “They like working with us because they see safety coming from the top down.”
One ‘STEP’ at a Time
Southern Company, Birmingham, Ala., also recognizes the need for enhanced safety monitoring and a culture that puts employees’ safety first. That’s why the electric utility company created Engineering and Construction Services (ECS), an in-house organization that manages 12 million to 15 million work hours per year. ECS goes to each Southern Company jobsite and creates a safety contract that holds contractors accountable for their actions and manages workers’ safety practices.
What makes ECS even more effective is Safety Through Everyone’s Participation (STEP), a behavior-based initiative ECS created in 2009 that aims to decrease at-risk behaviors by training employees to recognize and determine the cause of dangerous activities. The goal of STEP is “target zero,” which means zero at-risk behaviors.
Currently, 200 employees go through a six-hour training program that teaches them to observe safety practices onsite, fix unsafe actions and thank those working safely. The program is so effective that in the first year of implementation, the OSHA injury rate dropped 51 percent, according to Bob Fitzgerald, Southern Company’s construction safety and health manager.
As one of 20 managers who created STEP, Fitzgerald says it is important to train workers to watch out for each other in the same way they would loved ones.
“We insert the face of our own family members on those we are observing,” Fitzger
ald says. “How would you go about interacting with family if you caught them working unsafely? You would be concerned.”
STEP staff approaches an unsafe worker with concern instead of criticism. They ask the worker why they are not taking the proper precautions and determine if the worker has a solution to the problem. Staff uses a checklist to rate a worker’s attire, body position, equipment, cleanliness, visual focus, communication and mobile equipment as safe, at risk or severe.
In addition, staff assigns “activators,” which are reasons for working unsafely, to each reported behavior. Common activators include:
- culture, meaning workers are unsafe because their peers are unsafe;
- disagreements on safety practices;
- problems with facilities, tools or equipment;
- inability to meet production demand;
- a personal choice not to be safe;
- lack of sufficient training;
- lack of staff; and
- a bad environment.
Once observed, STEP staff record the employee’s recommendation or suggested solution to prevent the unsafe action in the future.
Fitzgerald was inspired to start this kind of program because he thinks the way safety is measured in the construction industry is flawed.
“Safety is measured in OSHA recordable rates, and that is the only system that measures performance based on what you don’t want to see happen,” Fitzgerald says. “We should measure safety in getting folks home safely every day.”
Fitzgerald currently is working to educate other contractors about STEP with the hope they will instill a culture of genuine concern for employees’ safety, and not just to improve OSHA records.
“I’m as proud as I can be to have this program,” Fitzgerald says. “Even our executives frequently talk about STEP and its benefits because they see the results. We are all very happy.”
Excellence in Safety
Wagman Construction Inc., York, Pa., is one of the few construction companies with an 11-year record without a lost-time injury. President and COO David Cross says the accomplishment is due to a shift in priorities made years ago.
“We really decided safety was the most important part of the organization,” Cross says. “Safety superseded profits and superseded schedule.”
The firm began calculating milestones by safety records instead of profit, mandated employees report near-miss incidents and instituted a culture of watching out for coworkers.
“The employees don’t believe an unsafe act is the responsibility of their superiors to deal with; it’s their responsibility,” Cross says. “They aren’t just responsible for their own safety, but also for the safety of those around them.”
Although financial benefits result from the company’s focus on safety, the motivation comes from making sure all workers get home safely, especially because the industry has such a high potential for injury.
“There are others in our organization who will tell you what it’s like to go to someone’s funeral,” Cross says. “I get to go home at the end of the day knowing the programs and culture we put in place result in our people being uninjured.”
The safety programs are geared toward eliminating the root cause of injuries on a jobsite, Cross says. In addition to programs mandated by OSHA, employees go through 15 to 20 hours of safety training throughout the year. Additionally, on each jobsite, every morning begins with a huddle focusing on safety. The project team discusses what each person will be doing that day, how employees could get hurt and how to prevent injuries.
After 15 years of a strong emphasis on safety, the injuries Wagman Construction spends the most time trying to prevent are minor. Cross says more than 50 percent of injuries are hand lacerations, and he also commonly sees back strains. Wagman rarely concentrates on preventing the larger incidents, such as electrocution or falls, because such a heightened awareness is already in place.
“Those aren’t big issues for us because our programs are so effective that we have really wiped them out as concerns,” Cross says. “What really are most likely to impact our people are the small issues.”
The program has resulted in only about two recordable incidents in the past year, which the firm tracked and determined a way to prevent in the future.
The no lost-time injury record has become so significant that it is driving employees to maintain the standard of safety excellence.
“Every person in the company is aware of the record, and no one wants to be that guy who ruins it,” Cross says.
- The Safety Training Evaluation Process (STEP) helps contractors develop a safety program encompassing the latest in safety practices. ABC also offers the STEP awards, which recognize the safety performance of member firms.
- The National Safety Excellence Awards recognize ABC contractors whose long-term safety performance and use of incident-prevention techniques exceed industry standards.
- The ABC safety message boards (http://safety.abc.org)—open to all ABC members, chapters and staff—provide a forum to ask questions, find answers and learn about developing resources in construction safety.
- Safety management courses through ABC chapters and ABC’s annual EdCon & Expo provide safety professionals with the knowledge to develop and enhance their careers.
- Other resources that help contractors comply with Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations, as well as provide safety statistics and an incident calculator.
For more information, visit
www.abc.org/safety.