Examining Safety at Top Contractors

The Engineering News Record recently published a list of the Top 400 Contractors.  At companies with $10-$30 billion in revenue, the number and size of contracts justifies a dedication to worker safety that small to mid sized businesses can emulate to help shorten the learning curve. Safety is deeply integrated into each of the Top 3 contractors’ day to day business policies and organizational culture.  Contracting firms that strive to achieve success may observe this theme as motivation to implement safety at the highest level to increase revenue and support growth.

Bechtel

At Bechtel, the safety goal is Zero Accidents.  Safety is integrated into each project via technical field procedures and extensive training.  Each employee has ‘stop-work authority’ if they feel a job responsibility is potentially unsafe.  To incenitivize safety and communicate its importance to employees, Bechtel provides multiple awards for exceptional safety performance and innovation.

Fluor

Fluor’s commitment to safety includes a “ZERO incidents” policy. Fluor has received recognition as one of America’s top safety companies by demonstrating excellence in “support from management and employee involvement, innovative solutions to safety challenges and effective training programs.” One such program is the Field Audit system, a proactive approach to identify and mitigate work hazards.

Kiewit

Kiewit has instituted and follows a ‘Nobody Gets Hurt’ policy.  Kiewit is focused on preventing even the most minor injuries through  employee engagement throughout the organization coupled with a supporting management commitment.  “Safety training, observation programs and job hazard analyses” help to support this vision.

Innovative Access Solutions

Innovative Access Solutions provides safety equipment to each of the Top 3 contractors listed above.  In addition to the Trucker series of trailer access products, IAS provides custom access solutions for remote locations, unique jobsite requirements and more, in support of construction work safety policies.  To request information about safety equipment from Innovative Access Solutions, click here.

Thank a Worker this Labor Day

Workers have long been the backbone of American society.  While worker safety was often overlooked during the Industrial Revolution, over the past 100 years, advancements in work conditions and OSHA regulations have maintained the importance of the American worker while recognizing and supporting the importance of their health and safety to families and loved ones.  In the 21st century, these two initiatives go hand in hand moreso than ever before.  Today businesses are actually increasing productivity by focusing on trending safety practices.

From the Department of Labor website:

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

With this in mind, Safety & Numbers invites you to take the opportunity to not only honor the national Labor Day holiday, but also take it one step further by recognizing the importance of workers to your company’s productivity and safety culture.

Here are a few ideas to help you accomplish that mission.

  • Thank a Worker e-cards
  • Company Celebration at a Local Establishment
  • YouEarnedIt Employee Rewards Management Software

There are certainly many more ways to recognize the importance of your workers on Labor Day.  We invite you to share your ideas in the comment section, and have a safe, relaxing Labor Day Weekend!

Creating Safety Incentives

Incentivizing safety is a controversial topic for management professionals. While the results of incentive programs are generally effective, it is important to create safety incentives that provide the proper focus.  The method, motivational factors, and objectives must be properly structured to avoid undermining the desired effect. In fact, businesses that create safety incentives which discourage employees from reporting injuries are at risk of OSHA violations.  Fear not, safety professionals, by following a few guidelines you can create incentives that build safety culture across the organization.

Safety Incentive Guidelines

  • Make sure you have a safety program in place before creating incentives. Use incentives to enhance the organizational buy-in of a safety program.
  • Plan incentives around the objectives you set for the program.  Reiterate focus and goals at every opportunity.  Reward and promote performance.
  • Avoid incentives that may lead employees to fear the consequences of reporting incidents.  Remember that incentives are to promote safety, not just meet goals.
  • Capitalize on data management technology trends to track and reward long term safety program metrics as well as short term or more focused objectives.

Safety Incentive Program Ideas

  • Safety Slogans: Many incentive programs center around the creation of slogans submitted by members of the organization.  The advantage of slogan incentives lies in culture building and organizational involvement.
  • Safety Quiz: These programs help to ensure employees understand shifting safety initiatives and can also test employee response to real world applications.
  • Housekeeping: The cleanliness and organization of work areas often has a direct effect on safety and can be easily incentivized.

Safety incentives can be a means of establishing a sustainable safety culture while reducing the burden on employees.  Programs such as number of days without injury or lost time can be effective, but should be structured carefully to ensure employees report injuries.  The most effective programs are part of a larger injury risk management safety program, providing support in a way that employees want to participate in.

Making the Case for Work Injury Prevention [INFOGRAPHIC]

The costs of workers’ compensation and other work injury expenses are significant and difficult to predict.  To manage this risk, businesses should build safety culture by implementing  work injury prevention programs and providing incentives to employees that promote safety across the organization.  For an overview on how to make the case for work safety policy, review our Work Injury Prevention Infographic.

Creating Safety Culture as a Brand

Safety culture compared to safety policy is similar to the difference between creating a brand and pitching a service.  Putting in place a safety and health program can and will be effective, but motivational factors can seem like a burden to managers and employees.

Creating safety culture will align executive initiatives with employee investment and organizational commitment to create value across operational activities.  As a result, effective safety culture not only reduces hazards, injuries, and related costs, it can also provide reputation advantages that improve employee recruiting, generate sales opportunities, and build morale-based quality and efficiency.

 Core Elements of Safety Culture

Culture is a small word with a large connotation.  Just how to implement culture is a concept that is a challenge to grasp when managing business objectives.  The first step in implementing safety culture is to understand and build upon cultural principles.

Commit to Safety as a Value

Management staff as a rule is subject to shifting priorities and objectives.  To build culture, safety should be considered as a value throughout the decision making process: considering new initiatives, managing day to day activities, reviewing performance, and everywhere in between.  As employees hear safety consistently discussed as a value, they will understand it is not a shifting objective and more actively support initiatives.

Employee Involvement in Decision Making

Culture is the driving force for decision making in business, from leadership to management, operational employees, sales and support staff.  Well known cultural values include quality, service, and efficiency.  As values effect each member of an organization on a continual basis, each employee should be involved in planning cultural systems that affect them.  By providing employees with objectives and focus areas, management will understand key factors and produce safety systems that employees support.

Cross-Departmental Investment

Values such as quality, service, and efficiency are often driven by incentives across the organization, from  executives to managers and staff.  Safety as a value can be rewarded in the same way.  Safety culture should encourage communication across departments, reward performance at all levels, and include cross departmental activities.

To Support Culture, Create Systems

Once you begin to embrace safety as a culture, you will soon identify the need to create systems for consistency, management, and performance review.  Effective systems will build trust and focus on correcting unsafe practices, generally improving the environment for safety discussions.  Systems will also provide management with a process for hazard identification, injury prevention training, incident reporting, and continuing improvement.

The importance of safety to businesses of all sizes is proven to reduce work injuries and related costs, but implementing safety initiatives at optimal benefit is not always easy.  Integrating safety as a cultural value will build motivation across the organization and encourage cooperative discussion.  For more on safety culture, visit OSHA.gov.

Work Injury Prevention Programs

Injury prevention programs have led to a significant reduction in workplace injuries while contributing to improved productivity, reduced turnover, improved OSHA compliance, reduced worker’s compensation claims and premium rates, and higher employee satisfaction.  The costs of a worker injury can be devastating to individuals families and affect businesses on multiple fronts.  In 2009, worker’s compensation benefits paid totaled $58 billion, and indirect costs have been estimated at 1.1 to 4.5 times the direct cost.

Indirect Costs of Worker Injury

  • Wages paid to absent, injured workers
  • Time lost due to work stoppage following injury
  • Administrative time processing injury-related tasks
  • Employee training and replacement following an injury
  • Productivity loss due to new employee training
  • Replacement cost for damaged material and equipment

Source: OSHA Injury and Illness Prevention Programs

Injury Prevention Programs: Effective and Scalable

As of 2012, 34 states, and countries around the world, have instituted required or incentivized injury prevention programs.  The results of state programs are remarkable; work injury rates have been reduced by as much as 60 percent.  Participating businesses have reported additional benefits and some have even encountered more sales opportunities due to their commitment to safety.

 Despite the evidence, many businesses are slow to adopt injury prevention programs.  The perception that implementation will be costly and burdensome, particularly for small businesses, can be difficult to overcome.  The reality has been quite the opposite.  Injury prevention programs are scalable when business owners focus on basic tenets: leadership, participation, hazard identification and prevention, training, and continuing improvement.  The effect on the bottom line is also a positive, due not only to reduced workers compensation premiums and payouts, but also indirect morale, productivity, company image, and process improvements.

Mandatory Policy or Incentivized Benefit?

In a 2012 OSHA white paper, the effect of state programs was reviewed and the results are of interest to businesses considering an injury prevention program.  Incentivized programs in Colorado, Massachusetts and North Dakota resulted in noticeably higher effectiveness compared to mandatory programs in other states.  By providing a worker’s compensation premium reduction incentive,  states reduced work injury by at least 20%, compared to mandatory programs with  10-20% reductions.

In addition to the basic principals of injury prevention and company-wide safety commitment, these results may be a factor to consider for businesses seeking to maximize the effect of injury prevention programs.  Employees who believe their management team cares about safety risks are more motivated, aware, and productive, leading to advantages above and beyond cost benefit.  Anyone who has held a management position knows that while blunt force may get the job done, it often comes with costs ranging from employee resentment to undermining the system.

Incentivize to Promote Safety Culture Investment

Incentivized programs may help to avoid unintended indirect costs while still reaping the benefits.  By incentivizing safety initiatives, employees are more likely to perceive safety as a culture as opposed to a business owner’s cost saving agenda.  Further, incentives will help to communicate safety as a company value with a higher purpose than simply complying to policy. Providing incentives for safety could be based on Key Performance Indicators constructed from hazard assessment initiatives and include cost savings sharing.  Employees that are motivated by incentives will perceive safety not as a management priority but as a mutually beneficial investment.