Executing a commitment to world-class safety takes fortitude and effort, as it is fraught with leadership challenges. During this journey, construction leaders eventually ask themselves and their employees:
- Do we truly believe that all incidents are preventable?
- Are we unwilling to compromise someone’s safety for profit, productivity and schedule?
Not surprisingly, leadership commitment to these tenets is the most crucial aspect of the roadmap to world-class safety. Once that is established, companies can move on to transforming their culture, deploying a world-class safety management system, and finally delivering results through the use of leading and trailing indicators.
ABC provides three tools to help contractors advance their journey to world-class safety in the areas of leadership, culture, process and results.
1. STEP SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
STEP is much more than a recognition program; it is an industry-leading safety management system that any contractor can utilize to take its firm from beginner (bronze) to advanced (platinum). Participants score their level of achievement in various areas and document their incident rates to get an idea of where they can improve.
The ABC National Safety Committee enhances STEP each year. The committee is comprised of safety leaders from large and small companies located all over the country, and their collective knowledge and experience is reflected in STEP for the entire industry to benefit from.
Getting started with STEP is free for ABC member contractors and suppliers, and it can help lower workers’ compensation insurance rates. Check out the application at abcstep.org.
2. SAFETY PERFORMANCE REPORT
ABC’s annual Safety Performance Report analyzes the cause and effect relationship between world-class processes and incident prevention. For example, companies with a new hire safety orientation lasting more than 200 minutes reduced their TRIR by 85% compared to the BLS industry average, and STEP participants with a robust substance abuse program in place reduced their TRIR by 63%.
The Safety Performance Report is a great resource if you know some changes need to be made but aren’t sure where to start. (Hint: Check out the eight core leading indicators that have the most dramatic impact on performance.) View the full report at abc.org/spr, and be sure to share it with colleagues and clients.
3. SAFETY ACADEMY
ABC’s Safety Academy is a two-day leadership course that helps construction companies lay out a multi-year plan for achieving world-class safety results. STEP data and the Safety Performance Report are used as benchmarks to help participants—ideally CEOs, CFOs, and safety and operations directors—understand what they need to work on.
The goal is to take the best cultural transformation tips from leadership gurus and apply them to a practical safety challenge, all geared toward the 98% of construction companies that employ less than 100 people.
