A.R.E. Utility Construction
We all know that safety is an important part of every job for multiple reasons including protecting the welfare of employees, providing a safe work environment, reducing potential liability and controlling costs. The hidden costs of an accident can be up to 10 times the actual costs of any injury or claim.
The process of preventing employee injuries and illnesses itself makes a contractor more efficient and cost effective. The pressure to cut corners, skimp on materials, reduce quality, or rush to get the project completed is significantly reduced through compliance with a comprehensive jobsite safety program.
When choosing a contractor owners should look for and hire safety conscious contractors, not just ones who talk a good game but ones with a dedicated safety effort.
So what should owners look for when selecting a safe contractor? Well, a safety committed contractor is easy to spot because they:
1. Have Top Support for Safety – It’s easy for anyone to say “we make safety our number one priority.” However, it takes management support plus money and resources to make a safety program effective. Does your contractor have top management’s active support for safety and do they back that support up with their checkbook?
At ARE the owners are involved in the safety program on a daily basis. All safety incidents must be reported directly to them.
2. Provide Safety Leadership – Every worker, foreman, and supervisor has a role to play in the safety effort – but like any other work, activity safety needs leadership. If safety is just one of the job responsibilities, then everyone one more job task to complete. Someone needs to be dedicated full time exclusively to the safety effort.
ARE has had a full time safety Manager dedicated to company, employee, and client welfare since 2000.
3. Mandate Safety Accountability – In order to develop a safety culture, the contractor must first hold employees responsible and accountable for safety. This means that all employees, not just a select group, are measured and indexed for how the meet the company’s safety goals.
ARE has a progressive disciplinary action process and includes safety performance in employee reviews.
4. Provides Authority for Safety – Are employees given the authority to shut down an operation if there are known safety hazards that have not been addressed and does the company will back-up and address the safety issues these employees have identified.
At ARE our number one safety rule is that anytime any employee feels what he is doing is unsafe he must immediately stop work and notify the Safety Manager. ARE has an Employee Management Safety Committee to review safety issues and make recommendations.
5. Set and Monitor Safety Goals – What gets measured gets counted. Does your contractor keep track of their OSHA accident and illness data? Do they collect and trend their safety information to see where their problems lie and their resources are best spent.
ARE continuously tracks OSHA data, safety inspection reports, Daily Job Safety Briefings for trend analysis and provides a weekly report of trends to employees.
6. Have Written Safety Programs and Procedures – Safety rules and procedures need to be effectively communicated to all employees. Does your contractor have written safety programs. A good safety program requires written procedures, specifications and engineering that documents safety requirements and details how employees will work to a specific standard of safety. This program should also be behavior-based since it has been shown that approximately 96 percent of all hazards are related to the unsafe acts of people while only 4 percent are due to unsafe conditions.
ARE has a written employee safety manual as well as mandatory new hire safety orientation.
7. Makes Safety A Condition of Employment – A contractor with a good safety culture not only requires safety but demands that all employees “Live it, Breath it.” Just saying that they have a safety program isn’t good enough without all the employees actively working to make safety an integral part of the job process.
At ARE our employees are the persons most responsible for their safety, each job, each task, always. As we tell our employee on their first day of work, “Break a Safety Rule and you Risk Your Job”.
8. Conducts Safety Training Programs – Safety training is often a good measure of a contractor’s ability to establish and maintain a safety program. The willingness of management to spend the time and money it takes to do the training reflects the importance that safety is given in their work operations. How much safety training does your contractor actually do? Training is how management expectations for safety can be effectively conveyed to their employees. Employees will receive the positive messages through leadership participation in the training. Although training must include the OSHA required safety information, there are many other things that should also be included in the program to have positive effects. Pre-task planning goes into the actual work task risks and the corrective actions that will prevent the risks from manifesting on the jobsite.
ARE has a mandatory employee safety meeting every Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. We also conduct annual safety training programs and safety refresher training as required. All our training is documented to ensure accountability.
9. Has Established Claims Management Programs – Does your contractor have a comprehensive claims management process to respond to, investigate, and adjust claims? A good claims management program will also include Accident, Incident and Near Miss Incident to proactively prevent future incidents by looking at their root causes.
ARE investigates all accident, injuries, near missies and property damages. We handle every claim in house and in cooperation with or insurance carriers.