You can achieve a robust safety program – and the benefits that come with it – by promoting an overall safety-driven culture through your people. In a biannual survey of contractors, the SmartMarket Report Safety Management in the Construction Industry 2021 from the Dodge Construction Network, in partnership with CPWR and Newmetrix, make this very clear when it states that “[c]ontractors of all sizes consistently regard safety efforts as people-driven rather than program-driven.”
Safety programs neither fall from the sky nor exist solely on paper. They are built up, executed, and managed by an array of key stakeholders in your company. In addition, safety programs are not exclusively to protect the health of frontline workers; they also promote the collective well-being of a company as a whole. According to the report, robust safety programs allow companies to negotiate better insurance terms, improve their industry standings, and aid during the bidding process, all of which are pivotal to organizational resilience and success.
So, while having to “do safety” is often framed as a necessary, resource-costly evil, building a people-driven culture of safety has never been easier thanks to today’s digital tools and wealth of available data.
The human side of safety
In the survey, contractors report what they believe are the most essential elements of successful safety programs, including regular safety meetings, supervisors who practice safety skills, direct worker involvement, and an open-door policy for workers to report hazards without reprisals. Notice that all of these factors are people-centric and involve the continual engagement of and relationship between workers and supervisors.
This speaks to just how much value workers contribute to safety programs, and that their success depends on the actions of frontline people coming together. And OSHA agrees: “To be effective, any safety and health program needs the meaningful participation of workers and their representatives.”
Participation is critical because workers have both the most valuable knowledge about potential hazards and the most to gain from successful programs. Failing to tap into their knowledge base shortchanges the overall efficacy of any program and places those same workers at higher risk of injury. Without consistent input from staff, there would be no safety program and very little safety.
The array of digital tools at your disposal means developing and sustaining a people-driven safety culture is well within your grasp. Cloud-connected, user-friendly, and right in their pockets, Fulcrum’s Field Inspection Management platform unites your entire construction workforce, regardless of their tasks or position, around a larger, common good: a company-wide people-driven culture of safety.