If anyone reading this speaks Russian, please post what the text on the posters says.
A little more hard hitting than the “carol forgot to wear her safety glasses, and now she doesn’t need them” posters.
Speaking of safety posters, don’t forget to post those OSHA 300A logs in your office and at any worksites from Feb 1 to April 1. If you need guidance on how or why you need to do this, the Construction Risk Blog has the answers.
Assuming you implement some sort of safety measures on your job site daily, why don’t you post some videos on your website, twitter, facebook fan page, and blog? I uploaded my first video to youtube last week directly from my point and shoot handheld. It takes less than 10 minutes to do, and it will allow prospects, clients, and most importantly, Insurance Underwriters to see just how serious your construction company is about safety. If you want to save $$ on your next renewal, instead of changing your auto deductible from $500 to $1000, post some videos that showcase your firm’s commitment to being safe. The positive results you’ll get will make you scratch your head and wonder why you waited so long. If you don’t have a website, I will be more than happy to dedicate a page of this site to user submitted safety videos and toolbox talks. Here are some ideas of what to do. If you decide to start posting videos, don’t get bogged down with the head trash that another contractor has made a video with a similar topic. As long as someone in your marketplace hasn’t already made the same one, there is still plenty of room on the internet for you to add your own touch and philosophy on safety.
Couple things to keep in mind. If you are a construction firm, don’t make “funny” safety videos like the one below. OSHA can, and will fine you for videos and pictures of YOUR workers and job sites. But don’t let that dissuade you. If you are following the correct protocols and working safely, they will commend you on showing other not so smart contractors, the correct way to approach a safety issue.
At one point or another, no matter what line of work you are in, you will be examined/monitored/tested by some sort of ruling body, government entity, or oversight committee. Prior to joining the insurance and risk management industry, I held a variety of jobs that all had various types of checks and balances in place to make sure the job was done safely and/or hygienically. When I was the foreman for a team of chairlift operators for two winters in Colorado, someone from the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board would come to the mountain once or twice a season and inspect each lift for its structural and mechanical integrity as well as quiz the lift operator on duty about various emergency and operational procedures. It was a given that the least capable member of the team that was on duty that day would conveniently go on lunch break about 10 minutes prior to when the Inspector was scheduled to arrive at the lift. The inspectors travel the mountain on skis, so other lift ops are able to inform their coworkers of what type of questions are going to be asked as well as having real time knowledge of when the inspector will show up at a given lift station. The lousy employee that was sent on break has the same amount of responsiblity on a day to day basis as his or her coworkers, but because of their ineptitude they were swept under the run when the inspector arrived. The goal was to get a spotless inspection, so the senior members of the staff that had a better knowledge of procedures and the machinery would handle the face to face interactions with the inspectors. Needless to say, the on/off ramps would be at a perfect angle with no icy areas, the lift shacks would be swept and the garbage emptied, and everyone would be dressed correctly in their uniforms. Does this sound familiar? Is this what happens before your job site or factory is inspected? At least in the realm of ski mountain operations, we work safely most of the time. However, there were times when we would climb on top of a spinning lift to clear snow instead of having it drip on to the guests, we would allow cold guests into our shacks to warm up if they were really cold, and we would smoke cigarettes behind the shack when no one was around. All of these things were against the rules in the rulebook, but it was done when no one was looking. What happens on your job site when no one is looking? Are your guys working unsafely because it’s faster and they can go home earlier? Do they show up hungover or still drunk because they know supervision will be light or non-existent that day? The job of a construction company owner as well as the owner of a ski hill need to make safety part of the culture. The mountain I worked at didn’t have that culture because clearing snow and getting people in their early 20s to show up for work at 5am on Saturday mornings to stand out in the cold for 8 hours were the priorities, and there wasn’t much time left for safety. Some of my coworkers were extremely competent and just working for the free ski pass, others were incompetent, lazy, and had extreme substance abuse problems and were working there because they couldn’t find a job elsewhere. Make safety part of your culture, don’t have a few people being the face of your company just for when OSHA comes by.
Below is the only safety video I saw for the two years I was the foreman on a ski lift crew. (I was in my early 20′s and didn’t know about the importance of safety. Does this sound like any of your laborers?) This is what happens if a safety brake fails, and the lift operator doesn’t engage the E-Brake in time. This test was done at Winter Park Resort in Colorado when they decided to run some tests prior to retiring the lift. If you’re ever on a chair lift that starts to spin backwards, jump off. Seriously.
‘Big Apple’ building fatalities fall by 80% in twelve months
It has been reported that construction site deaths fell 84% during 2009 according to statistics released by the New York City Building Department.
The number of reported deaths fell from 19 in 2008 to 3 in 2009. Nine of the deaths in 2008 were the result of two crane accidents on the East Side of Manhattan.
New York construction accident lawyers believe the number of deaths fell because: (a) overall building slowdown due to the recession and (b) stringent review of safety standards and regulations following the crane incidents and (c) stepped-up enforcement and increased oversight.
However, the number of other reported injuries rose from 178 to 246. The regulator explains the rise as due to increased reporting by contractors.
Even though the # of reported injuries has risen in the past year, I think it is a positive indicator of the direction in which the contracting industry is heading. More reported injuries is never a good thing, but I think that the fact that they are being reported more and more is. For most construction firms, Workers Compensation insurance is a very expensive line item year in and year out, and the old school mindset of “less claims=less premiums” led to a large amount of under recording and/or sweeping under the rug of workplace injuries. My intention is not that the Insurance Industry should get a pat on the back for this, but it is a trend that I hope is indicative of the results that the top insurance brokers are providing for their clients. Results that all construction firms should look for when they choose a broker.
Customized Safety Training from a 3rd Party provided by their broker
Proper training by insurance Brokers on reporting practices
Efficient claims management so that when a claim happens, it is minimized and closed with the least negative effect on the insured
A broker that spends the majority of their time working with the construction industry, and understanding what their construction clients need in terms of service as well as helping them to implement bulletproof contracts and coverages
Contractors: You are moving in the right direction, and proper safety training will prevent more and more injuries every year. Claims will happen in an industry with the amount of heavy equipment and physical labor that construction has, but proper reporting will lead to workers coming back faster from injury, less effect on experience mods, and by utilizing best practices in safety and loss control, the insurance underwriters will be begin to look more favorably on your risk.
Quitting smoking and getting more healthy is inconvenient as well as an uncomfortable pain in the ass. As long as you aren’t having any major health issues, there is little to be concerned about. Much like quitting smoking and getting in shape, to become a safer contractor you need to step out of your comfort zone and make safety your #1 priority. If you had been a lifelong smoker or an afficionado of Burger King, it isn’t comfortable to switch to being a non-smoker or someone who eats five helpings of fruits and vegetables daily. And it sure as hell isn’t a process that you can successfully undertake without time and assistance. Maybe the moment you decided to quit smoking was when your child was born. Or maybe you went to the doctor for a checkup and they told you that you needed to stop eating fried crap at every meal if you wanted to live past 60. These events are life altering and depending on which course of action you choose, can lead to a very positive(quitting your habit) or an extremely negative outcome(dying because of it). Your safety program, while not being perceived as important or foundation shaking, as child birth or a premature death can be just that. Especially if you and your family rely on YOUR construction company to put food on the table and a roof over your heads. A safety culture helps to make sure these things are a given as well as a constant. Right now, you do a pretty good job at safety. Either because of your leadership, or because of the competence of your work force. Due to economic constraints, you’ve probably had to lay off some of that workforce because of a lack of available projects for them to help with. When the economy rebounds, and it will, you will likely have to bring back a lot of foremen, laborers, and office staff. What is your safety policy going to look like for them? Is it going to fall by the wayside in lieu of getting “shovels in the ground”? Are you going to be in such a hurry to get jobs done, that you will sacrifice the safety of these workers for more speed and a bigger pay day? It might work for a while, but eventually, if you are running this type of offense, you WILL have a big claim. Much like if you keep smoking, it will eventually lead to a health problem. And when that claim happens, what is going to happen to your mod? Is it going to go over 1.0? Are you going to be able to bid work for the class-leading project owners and GCs with a mod over 1.o? Are the talented but currently out of work laborers going to want to work for a company with a perceived lack of a safety program? How much revenue will you lose because of a mod over 1.0? Not putting the resources into safety, can be just as harmful in the long run as burning money. Next time you are debating whether to put funds into other resources, take a long look at kind of funds it will take to keep your doors open when you aren’t able to bid work anymore.
or we’ve all become a lot less tough than our forefathers! Received these pictures in an email today and they reminded me how “tough” American’s used to be, as well as the fact that it took 1 Year and 45 Days to construct the Empire State Building.
A little more hard hitting than the “carol forgot to wear her safety glasses, and now she doesn’t need them” posters.
‘Big Apple’ building fatalities fall by 80% in twelve months
