The construction industry recognizes the critical need to protect employees’ health and well-being. In the past, jobsite culture revolved around following the rules, and companies accepted a certain risk. But that thinking has evolved, and a project completed with zero recordable safety incidents is viewed not only as well-managed, but also as a direct reflection of a company’s commitment and relentless drive toward safe work practices.
Today, the industry invests heavily in putting safety at the heart of every jobsite, but as construction continues to evolve, there is opportunity to elevate safety to an even loftier level. In this future state, safety is about more than protective gear and completing mandatory trainings—it’s about building a culture of respect, paired with accountability and empowerment.
The industry can strengthen its promise to safeguard health and safety even further by building safety into the company culture and ingraining it into the organizational mindset. But that begs the obvious question: How does a company go about that?
Crafting a Culture of Safety
Seeding a culture of safety begins at the top, and leaders must embrace this shift. This is a necessary part of any organizational culture change; if organizations don’t take up the effort at the top, it simply won’t stick. Employees can see through the noise and spot when companies are going through the motions, without real investment. And when people don’t feel safe, they leave.
To combat this, organizations must be as invested in their professionals’ well-being as they are and foster a culture of respect for one another. Does the company offer an inclusive environment where everyone looks out for each other physically, mentally and socially? This is the first step towards building a culture where everyone’s wellbeing is the highest priority.
Embrace Safety by Design, New Technology
In construction, the safest hour is the one not worked. To help reduce labor hours—thereby reducing risk—the industry is increasingly embracing “safety by design,” which encourages companies to take a hard look at how they can make safety a priority, from the very minute a project comes through the door.
Constructability is critical to this effort. Engineering or fabricating designs that are safer and more user-friendly create less exposure to risk. For example, design materials so that a field weld can be performed at waist level, which reduces the risk of performing the work overhead or laying on the ground. Or in the case of heights, design safety measures such as platforms and connection points into the tower or module to reduce risk and give people a safe place to work.
Technology will help evolve safety by design even further, as new advances such as automation and modularization help reduce labor hours and decrease incidents. For example, Black & Veatch’s telecommunications business periodically has to perform inspections on towers that rise hundreds of feet into the air. To reduce the risk of sending someone up to such heights, the business has invested in using drone technology to collect and report out inspection data. The result is the same—data is collected for further review—but with fewer manhours, and far less risk.
Safety by design continues to gain traction throughout the industry. By encouraging leaders to proactively think about how they can take labor hours out of the field, or at least make labor hours safer, safety by design is having a real impact and making jobsites safer than even before. Construction leaders should ask: Are there opportunities to implement a safety by design approach? Are there new technologies that could be investigated and put to use?
Encouraging Open Dialogue, Empowering Employees
A critical component of safety culture is creating an environment that fosters open dialogue and where employees are encouraged—and empowered—to look out for one another. This engagement begins the minute the first craftsman comes through the gate in the morning; this is the first chance the company has to reassure their employees that they will take care of their health and well-being, and ensure that they go home the same way they came in.
Part of this responsibility lies in encouraging employees to report safety incidents. In reality, not everybody wants to report that they dropped a hammer five feet. But reporting and collecting information on these incidents—even when no one got hurt, or when there was no property damage or personal injury—provides an opportunity to acknowledge these incidents, analyze them from a trending perspective, and perhaps even identify ways to remove the hazard from the workplace.
Leaders must take the opportunity to educate employees on the importance of sharing information. If something didn’t go as planned, report it so the company can learn from it.
To do this effectively, organizations must encourage and facilitate trust. If people are pounded every day about bad safety records, then the person who cuts his finger is not going to file an incident report. But a week later, when it becomes infected, then this cut finger becomes a recordable safety incident. Leadership needs to encourage open communication and then reward that communication.
Lastly, organizations must empower their employees with the authority to stop when they feel something is not right. This is critical because if something doesn’t feel right on the jobsite, usually it isn’t—even if all the boxes have been checked, all the permitting is in place and everything is correct document-wise. Trust employees and arm them with the responsibility to look out for the people around them. Every organization should empower their people to stop, reassess and even re-plan as necessary. This is a critical component to building a culture of safety.
Building Safety into the JobSite
On the field side, the focus has shifted to how to perform tasks more safely, and a great deal of time is spent discussing how to mitigate risk. At the beginning of every Black & Veatch project, before anyone even crosses through the gate, all site leadership—including construction managers and project managers—must attend a day-long project orientation that sets expectations while reiterating the importance of health and safety and the need to look after other workers.
At the jobsite, safety is put into action through daily safety meetings that bring everybody together to discuss project status, weather conditions and equipment, while outlining the associated risks and potential hazards. The group then breaks into smaller groups to perform a job hazard analysis to identify specific tasks and their risks, and to discuss how to remove or mitigate any potential issues.
Safety is discussed again whenever something changes. If someone’s work detail changes, then he or she must attend another safety briefing and JHA before beginning work. This process is repeated throughout the day because site conditions may change. For example, the project may have advanced to a new stage, or new equipment may have come onsite. Not only do these processes and procedures help enforce a system of checks and balances, but they also reiterate the importance of onsite safety action.
Training is a key part of onsite safety to keep everyone abreast of the latest safety processes and procedures. Requiring field leadership to maintain, at minimum, a 40-hour OSHA that is refreshed yearly, along with the 80-hour NCCER curriculum for safety, will help arm employees with the knowledge they need to stay up to date and current.
Setting expectations, encouraging employees to collect additional safety certifications, and giving them company support is a big way to ensure that employees value these trainings and certifications as much as the company does.
Walking the Walk
It’s no secret that culture changes are difficult, and it’s hard to walk the walk. But safety and employee health and well-being are paramount to any project success. Plus, a project’s safety record is a direct reflection of its performance, including its management and finances. If a project is struggling to keep its people safe, chances are high that it is struggling in other areas as well.
Safety planning should begin early, and leaders should embrace the safety by design approach by looking to constructability, engineering and technology to mitigate or remove potential hazards.
Leaders must work to foster a culture of respect by encouraging and facilitating trust and open communication, as well as empowering employees to look out for one another and report safety incidents. Giving them the authority to stop work is critical. Supporting employees onsite through frequent safety meetings, trainings and certifications will help elevate safety in the construction industry to new heights.
