The Five Essentials of Safety
12/1/2002
 By Nancy Kalaora
Throughout my 20-year involvement with the insurance industry, I have determined that companies that routinely emphasize the importance of workplace safety are the ones with greater chance to survive and prosper. Getting cited by OSHA for non-compliance can have a negative impact on both the bottom line and your company's reputation.
What many construction companies fail to understand is that having an established safety program not only makes the job site a safer and more productive place, it also makes your company more attractive to insurance companies. Insurance companies don't want to cover a business that has frequent workplace accidents and a history of OSHA violations. If coverage is offered, it will lack the competitive pricing the contractor seeks. In addition, many potential clients are now requiring evidence of a written safety program from their general contractors, including information on how they will monitor subcontractor safety. Project developers know this translates into a safer workplace and increased return on investment (ROI) for the client.
A more long-term consequence of increased workplace injuries is a higher workers' compensation experience modification that can add significant dollars to the company's premiums over the course of several years. On a basic level, initiating a company-wide safety program is essential to increasing employee safety awareness, reducing work-related injuries, and complying with all applicable regulatory standards. To ensure that your company adheres to OSHA regulations and is attractive to both insurance companies and potential clients, this program needs to include what I like to call the five essentials of safety. These essentials include an established new-hire safety orientation program, a pre-job hazard assessment process, job site safety orientation/training, field safety inspections, and toolbox talks.
These five essentials should by no means be viewed as the only steps needed to provide a safe working environment, but rather as a positive and quite frankly, crucial first step to making your company an attractive choice to all parties involved.
NEW-HIRE SAFETY ORIENTATION
As labor shortages and turnover rates continue to plague the construction industry, providing a safe working environment for both new and experienced employees can seem like a daunting task. To safeguard your construction site, every new employee should be required to attend a new-hire safety orientation session on his or her first day of employment. Experienced employees should conduct these training sessions, which normally are held at the company's office. The program should minimally cover emergency response, hazard communication, and company safety policies and procedures on such topics as personal protective equipment (PPE), fall protection, and safe lifting techniques.
' Audio-visual presentations. Unfortunately, not everyone enjoys being handed a safety manual and being told to study it on his or her own. In addition, as has been discovered in many academic settings, a certain percentage of students learn more effectively by being presented materials in a medium that incorporates both audio and visual elements.
Presenting a short video to your new employees covering safety essentials is an effective training tool. Another benefit to supplementing written safety materials with a video presentation is that some learners may not have the language skills necessary (e.g., low literacy rate, lack of motivation to read the manual, English-as-a-second-language status, etc.) to understand the written information presented. Visual examples enable them to grasp important safety concepts and procedures more easily.
' Reviewing the emergency response plan. A review of your company's emergency response plan at both the office and job site is required and crucial to me safety of all employees--from office clerks to crane operators. An emergency response plan presentation should include information on:
1) The alarm system to be used by the company to alert employees to an emergency;
2) The location of fire extinguishers and emergency exit routes;
3) The location of an outside meeting place in me event an evacuation of me building or job site is necessary;
4) How to summon emergency help (i.e., calling 911);
5) The location of first aid kits and me nearest emergency medical facility;
6) How weather-related emergency information will be provided to employees;
7) How, when, and to whom a work-related injury should be reported; and
8) How and when emergency information will be conveyed to employees.
' Hazardous materials disclosure and training. As part of OSHA's Hazard Communication standard, employees must be trained on how to work with and around hazardous materials prior to their initial assignment and whenever a new hazard is introduced into me work area. A review of me hazard communication program needs to include information on:
1) The location of me inventory list of on-site hazardous substances;
2) What a material safety data sheet (MSDS) is and where it can be found at me main office and/or job site;
3) How to read a label on a hazardous substance container;
4) How employees will be informed of any new hazardous substances they may come into contact with; and
5) How general contractors, subcontractors, and oilier parties will be notified of any hazardous substances they may be exposed to in me course of their business on me job site.
' General safety policy review. This is also me time to review additional safety policies and procedures oil subjects such as lockout! tagout, personal protective equipment, fall protection, electrical safety, welding safety, ladder safety, excavation and trenching, and confined spaces, depending on me specific operations conducted by your company.
' Keeping documentation. To showcase your safety efforts to governing authorities and insurance companies, your company's trainers should complete a written construction safety orientation checklist as proof mat all necessary topics have been covered. Many construction companies also provide an employee safety handbook that requires d1e employee's signature on a document acknowledging he has been trained on company safety policies and procedures and is aware of d1e importance of workplace safety. This document should be returned to d1e human resources department within a predetermined amount of time. To ensure training documentation is accessible to all interested parties, d1e construction safety orientation checklist and d1e signed safety document should be kept in d1e employee's human resource file at the company's office.
PRE-JOB HAZARD ASSESSMENT
Prior to the start of any new job, it is important for the project manager (or foreman on a smaller job) to evaluate, based on tasks to be performed, the potential workplace hazards to employees at the construction site. This includes the potential hazards resulting from the operations of other subcontractors working at the site. Using his/her experience in the field, the project manager or foreman should determine the necessary PPE to be used and safety policies to be followed in order to reduce these hazards.
JOB SITE SAFETY ORIENTATION AND TRAINING
Before beginning any work on the job, the site foreman and supervisors of other affected parties should receive a copy of the pre- job hazard assessment form. It is the foreman's responsibility to review potential workplace hazards for that particular construction site with all of the employees.
This includes advising employees on what types of PPE are required for their work and whether any specific company safety policies are applicable, such as the use of fall protection or confined space procedures. Some companies use a PPE assessment and certification of training checklist form for each employee, which is returned to the human resources department at the end of each job.
The foreman also should keep a copy of information regarding emergency response procedures and important telephone numbers in the trailer or gang box at the construction site. Subcontractors should obtain this information from the general con- tractor before the start of their work and then relay that information to employees as part of the job site orientation.
FIEL SAFETY INSPECTION CHECKLIST
On longer jobs, a field safety inspection checklist is a useful tool to be completed by the foreman at least weekly to ensure new hazards on the job site are dealt with. This visual inspection also provides a means to determine whether employees are following required safety policies and procedures.
The foreman should be held responsible for providing retraining to any employee observed not following required policies and procedures. If an employee refuses to follow company safety policies and procedures, disciplinary action should be taken.
As part of the weekly field safety inspection process, the foreman should restock the first aid kit at the jobsite as needed. A weekly signoff sheet can serve as a reminder for this task and ensure compliance with OSHA regulation 29 CFR 1926.50. The completed form should then be sent to the main office and filed at the conclusion of each job.
TOOLBOX TALKS
As many in the construction industry know, the construction site foreman serves as the conduit of information for employees in the field. In addition, due to his/her close relationship with the construction crew, the foreman is often looked at with admiration and respect. With this in mind, many companies make the site foreman responsible for conducting "toolbox talks" on a weekly basis.
Toolbox topics should incorporate information on relevant safety issues. Employee attendance and signoff should be mandatory. A copy of the talk and the completed signoff sheet should be retained at the job site in an easily accessible location, in the event of an OSHA inspection.
CONCLUSION
The men and women on your crews depend on you and your supervisors to provide them with a safe working environment. In addition, governing authorities, insurance companies, and clients depend on you to enforce the policies and procedures that will keep your employees safe.
Remember, enforcing safety procedures not only helps you adhere to OSHA regulations and makes you more attractive to potential clients, it also can save you a significant amount of money on your insurance costs. .
Nancy Kalaora is a loss control coordinator for the Protector Group Insurance Agency Inc., of Worcester, Mass. A fully licensed Massachusetts insurance broker with more than 20 years of experience in the insurance industry on both the agency and company side, Kalaora received a B.A. in government from Boston University and an M. Ed in education from Boston State College, and she earned a certificate in occupational health & safety from Northeastern University.
Reprinted from Occupational Health and Safety Magazine, October 2002 issue.
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