How safe is your construction site? According to the Associated Builders and Contractors, if you practice five specific safety procedures, your company should be near the top in safety.
The five areas of safety were laid out by Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) president, Greg Sizemore. Those areas include:
- A robust substance abuse policy with provisions for drug and alcohol testing where permitted.
- Intensive onboarding and new hire orientation programs that clearly outline policies and expectations.
- Frequent and regular toolbox talks, at the beginning of every shift and in some cases even when crews return from a lunch break to bring everybody on the job back to focal point to perform their work safely.
- Leadership that practices safety from the top down, so that executives and supervisors on site follow the same safety initiatives and protocols as the front-line workers doing the day-to-day work.
- Protocols to measure and use safety data from the job to consistently raise the bar and a focus on safety on the jobsite.
The findings of ABC's 2021 Safety Performance Report was convincing. On average, the recordable incident rate for all companies tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was 2.7 of 1000 hours worked in 2020. Compare that to the best-performing members that incorporate the five specific workforce programs. The rate of workplace accidents per 1000 hours was actually under half a percent at 0.41.
"If you just focus on these five things initially, you will start to improve your safety performance throughout your organization," Sizemore said.
One contributing factor to the better safety numbers can be attributed to the pandemic which requires work sites to slow down in an effort to be sure everyone was adhering to distancing policies and screening procedures.
The pandemic has also led ABC and its contractor members to focus on the well being of workers, including mental health. It's all part of wellness programs for employees.
"We have adopted a total human health approach, which is the next frontier in worker safety in our industry," Sizemore said.
Keeping your machines up to standard is also an important part of safety. If you need parts for your machine, be sure to give ConEquip Parts a call.
