Page 40 - Occupational Health & Safety, January 2018

CONSTRUCTION SAFETY
Create a Culture of Safety and Good Business Will Follow
Ultimately, construction safety must become a habit and practiced by everyone every minute.
BY ANGELO PERRYMAN
Perryman Construction built the Family Care and Literacy Center for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
In the recent business bestseller, “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg, there is a chapter about Paul O’Neill becoming the new CEO of the global Fortune 500 company Alcoa. Duhigg observed
that, unlike most new CEOs who give their inaugural speech about their plans to lower costs and raise rev- enue and stockholder value, O’Neill’s message on his first day outlined a single goal, that of improving safe- ty and of making it an institutional habit. Although the investment community was initially shocked by his speech and his priority, O’Neill knew that his focus on safety would first lead to studying why employees got hurt, which ultimately would lead to making the entire operation more efficient and more profitable.
With one simple rule, he dramatically improved the communication process in his massive organi- zation, as well as making it safer. That rule was that O’Neill, as CEO, needed to know about every acci- dent, within 24 hours of its happening, together with a plan for solving that safety issue. Suddenly, top man- agers had to become keenly aware of activities all the way down the line because they were directly respon- sible for safety and results.
When companies focus on safety, at least four
valuable things happen:
■ Employees are safer and morale improves be-
cause they are glad you care.
A culture of safety becomes a valuable com- pany benefit, such that better employees will want to work for you.
■ Both managers and employees take greater re- sponsibility for operations, and results improve.
■ Profits increase due to streamlined operations and efficiencies.
We call this safety environment: a culture of safety.
The key to successful construction safety is to in- stitutionalize policy and to build it into corporate cul- ture and operations. Ultimately, construction safety must become a habit and practiced by everyone every minute.
Here are six tips for starting and maintaining a successful construction safety culture:
1) Make construction safety
the CEO’s priority.
A successful construction safety culture must start at the top. He or she must support it and become pas- sionate about safety. The CEO must demand, as did
34 Occupational Health & Safety | JANUARY 2018
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