Job Site Safety: Do You Feel Lucky Today?

By Blake Johnson

While jobsites are dangerous, the hazards are identifiable. The challenge for employers is to control these hazards and instill their employees with a strong safety culture.

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Anyone involved in construction understands that a construction site is an inherently dangerous place. There are safety standards that have been established to help ensure the safety of workers and we have come a long way in terms of personal protective equipment.

Unfortunately, if these standards are not followed or this protective equipment not utilized, injuries will occur.

While each jobsite is unique, in most cases the hazards that exist or that could be created are identifiable. The challenge lies in either controlling these hazards or eliminating them altogether.

One very positive thing that has occurred over the past ten years is that safety has become a much greater priority to most contractors. Clearly most contractors understand the economic impact to their projects or their work should an injury occur. Then there is the human side to any injury, especially if it could have been prevented.

Having dealt with hundreds of contractors over the years, I have found that the most challenging firms to work with in terms of changing their attitude towards safety are those that have just been lucky and not experienced a serious jobsite injury. Luck is a funny thing; it eventually runs out.  There are many workers whose luck ran out the day they decided they didn’t need to wear the provided and required fall protection or climbed into a trench without the proper shoring or training. In many cases, this is at the same time the project superintendent’s luck ran out when he or she decided to ignore an extremely dangerous situation instead of addressing it.

For those who have had to deal with a fatality or serious injury at their jobsite, no doubt it is something they will never forget.

Understandably, making safety the number one priority on each and every job has its challenges. With the opportunity contractors sometimes have to increase their profit by completing the project ahead of schedule; safety can take a back seat. Unrealistic construction schedules are often a culprit when it comes to making decisions that can affect the safety of workers.

Then there is the jobsite superintendent who believes that safety is the sole responsibility of each subcontractor, not theirs. That opinion or belief quickly changes and reality sets in when their company is sued by an injured subcontractor’s employee. It is now common place for an injured employee of a subcontractor to sue the general contractor if they are injured on the jobsite. The basis of these suits is, in most cases, the general contractor’s duty to maintain a “safe place to work”, and more specifically, their alleged failure to do so. The time and cost of seeing one of these claims through will take its toll on both the general contractor and subcontractor and in the end, neither actually wins.

The construction firms that understand how luck works do not gamble with the welfare of their employees as well as others at their jobsite by relying on it. Instead, they develop a strong safety culture within their organizations. The owners embrace safety and through their actions, their employees carry the message to their jobsites.

In these firms all decisions are made based on safety and every action taken or not taken has some basis grounded in established safety policies and procedures.  Performance reviews have a safety component tied to them and incentives for working safely are used routinely as a motivational tool. These firms enjoy low EMR’s under their Worker’s Compensation due to a below average number of work-related injuries. While they rely on whatever contractual risk techniques are available in transferring risk to others, they do not view this as a substitute for sound safety practices.

The reality is that these firms also consistently attain a higher profit margin on their work.

Blake Johnson is vice president with Minard-Ames Insurance Group, located in Phoenix. He can be reached at bjohnson@minardames.com.

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