Continuous improvement for safety success
I’m preaching to the choir when I say this, safety is a value. It’s something that is done every single day, all day long, and without change. It’s the little things I believe that build a world-class safety program. The bigger things always seem to happen on their own but do enough of the little things, and you’ll have the recipe for safety success.
The little things at jobsites tend to lag for one reason or another. No, not just that the coffee machine is empty, or someone brought the wrong brand of coffee. At the start of the year, many of my peers were laser-focused on world-changing ideas to supercharge their safety culture into the new year.
By the middle of the year, their jobs were back to following old habits without ever getting closer to having a world-class culture. I’ve found training, first-aid management, and excavation safety have a lot of smaller to-dos that, if given proper attention, can positively impact your job’s culture.
When I was getting my feet wet in the safety industry, two problem areas were excavation safety and addressing OSHA enforcement actions. I had good mentors along the way, but many of them weren’t experienced with the technical side of safety when I got into the business.
They had experience as tradespeople and could talk about the work in detail. Still, we were gaining experience on technical safety issues together. Years later, these safety topics still remain hot issues in the industry. I’ve put together some of my own pro tips and included some other newsworthy tidbits that will be helpful for your jobsite.
I think most companies hoped the recent pandemic would be over by now. Many jobs continue to be affected by the cycle of rising and falling cases. I’ve included refresher information about shutdown planning and reopening guidance that can be used to train your workers.