Articles
Construction Safety: A Simple Guide
to Establishing an Injury Prevention Process
One of the most frequent questions I get about construction safety is: how do I start a construction safety program? Companies with a current process ask a different version of it: how do I improve what we already have?
Because each organization and project are different, the strategies below focus on the big picture items that will help weave health and safety into each aspect of the organization.
Develop a Simple Injury Prevention Strategy
Most organizations and sites have a safety program or plan, comprising OSHA requirements, which is often hundreds of pages long. Many of us operate under the false belief that longer is better. While these plans are necessary, my question to you is this: do you know what is on page 45, page 55, or page 105? That is a rhetorical question, designed to make you think about simplifying your process.
I am not suggesting you get rid of the plan, but there should be an outline of how the plan will work on your job site. If there is not one, not many people are going to go into the book to find out what to do.
Below is my formula for developing a simplified strategy.
- What are the major risks, and pick three or four of them, that are dominant on your site and that you want the team to focus on?
- How will you indoctrinate your subcontractors, or their subcontractors at the second and third tier, on your major risks?
- What activities should your superintendents or team leaders, meaning foremen, be partaking in daily?
- How frequently do you perform observations for safety hazards on the job site? A good rule of thumb is that visual observations should be made of the workplace every day by the foreman or superintendent. If that is not feasible, consider weekly. At a minimum, a monthly formal audit or assessment should be performed, and more frequently if the risks and project size warrant it. This should be based on the major risks on the site.
Start by writing down your daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly action items, including OSHA requirements, and develop a one to two page outline of the key activities that need to take place. Once your list is developed, involve some field staff for thoughts and insight.
What Is Your Educational Strategy?
Most organizations perform training, but the question is: do you educate? Education also speaks to the why we are doing items, versus the how to. Most people want to know why we are doing what we are doing.
Also, be careful not to fall into the trap of just doing OSHA 10 or 30 hour training every so often, typically every three or five years. While OSHA training is excellent, it is infrequent and often not focused on the major risks associated with your projects. Risks and hazards change often in this industry.
Suggestions
- Perform proactive foreman or superintendent meetings to update them on key risks and topics. Consider bringing in a guest speaker, or have someone from the group speak for a couple of minutes on a topic. This builds camaraderie and the body of knowledge internally. I like to see these occur at least quarterly.
- Tighten up the weekly toolbox talks and make them risk specific, rather than the next one in the book. Keep them short and to the point, and please try to stay away from having the foremen or leaders read them word for word, because workers will tune them out. Ongoing and regular education is a winner and, in my estimation, is one of the key ways to prevent incidents and injuries.
- Educate your foreman or lead persons. My experience has shown that most foremen or lead persons are thrown into the job because they are a good producer, or because someone left who needed to be replaced. No disrespect to the foremen or leaders, I am just stating what I have seen.
Some valuable basic education that they need includes:
- Communication basics
- How to educate so people listen
- Problem solving
- How to get the most out of your crew
What Is the Injury Prevention Mindset?
I put this strategy last, as it is one of the toughest things to do. Often, if this is undertaken first, you may run into roadblocks that halt progress before anything begins.
If you are thinking that this should be first, you are correct. But what is logical is not always practical, so you have to come at this from another angle, taking what feels like it should be the first item and handling it last. The last thing you want to do first is tick off management before you get started.
Suggestions
Observe or survey management and foremen to see how they handle safety and injury prevention items. Some key questions are as follows.
- Do they push safety items to the bottom of the agenda during talks or meetings? Is there little or inadequate safety budget for projects? Is injury prevention an afterthought?
- Are foremen allowed to cut corners when it comes to safety? Are there consequences for these actions?
- What are the belief systems of the foremen and superintendents? In other words, are injuries simply the cost of doing business, or are they preventable?
Your answers to these questions will guide you toward the next step, which is undoubtedly educating the team on why injury prevention is not only the right thing to do, but is often now a requirement to bid for and participate in projects.
Be strategic about your implementation. One large mistake I see quite often is that after assessments like these, we try to change or implement too many things at once. If I had to choose a starting point, it would be to educate first.
Where SSCI Can Help
- Construction Safety Consulting, including on-site oversight, pre-task planning support, and OSHA compliance across CT, MA, and NH.
- MiltSafe® Safety Talks, risk-specific toolbox talks that replace the next one in the book.
- Remote Workshops, field-leadership training in communication, problem solving, and getting the most out of a crew.