AGC of Indiana Safety Spotlight

The AGC of Indiana Safety Spotlight is delivered to AGCI members once a month highlighting important safety information to share with your team.

AGC of America Wraps Up

National Safety and Health Conference in Indianapolis

What a great week! AGC of America will wrap up their national Safety and Health Conference in Indianapolis today. It has been a week full of networking, education and innovation for an attendance-record crowd of safety professionals from around the country. AGC of Indiana was thrilled to host the opening reception at Victory Field on Wednesday night. Thanks to all who joined the crowd who attended. Keep an eye on your AGC of Indiana Member Chat for a complete breakdown of the conference very soon!

Rose Recognition of Safety Excellence: Pepper Construction

Congratulations to Pepper Construction, our AGCI July 2018 Safety ROSE Recognition recipient. Learn more below about their implementation of a multi-prong safety partnership on the Community East Project. They have provided an inside account of how the partnership unfolded below:

Value of Partnerships

Pepper Construction has found that partnering with the Indiana Department of Labor on our projects has been beneficial to us, but most importantly, it has paid off for our tradesmen. Shortly after we teamed with the department to sign an Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Partnership for the Community Hospital East Campus Redevelopment, there was a noticeable mood shift on the project.

It was apparent at an early meeting when the chairman of the safety team took the lead. As we listened, the attention was not on Pepper or the safety manager. The focus was all about the tradesmen and how the dynamic team could apply that concentration on the job site.

The Impact of Partnership

The change in thinking stems from the IOSHA partnership, which emphasizes strategic workforce safety while embracing collaboration among employers, workers, labor representatives and government. The agreement began months earlier in December 2016 for Community East, a four-year master plan consolidating the existing health campus from 727,000 square feet to an efficient 535,000 square feet. The size of the project and the multi-year duration provided the opportunity to impact lives, making it an attractive project for the partnership.

Tracking Metrics

The agreement focuses on leading metrics which proactively identify and ensure potential workforce safety and health hazards are corrected before an injury or illness occurs. The overarching goal is to prevent Significant Injuries and Fatalities (SIF.) The thinking is that any potential SIF exposures are identifiable, manageable and measurable. We have combined the partnership with our project Life Saving Commitment initiatives to improve communications, processes, training and the execution work. A by-product is the elimination of potential incidents through partnering with the project contractors and tradespeople.

The way we've done that is by focusing on leading metrics. Traditional lagging indicators or trailing metrics alone are insufficient measures for development, implementation and management of the safety program. The Total Recordable Case and Days Away, Restricted and Transferred rates limit looking at only past negative outcomes that can not be changed, rather than looking at current indictors to predict future performance.

Tracking, analyzing, acting upon each leading indicator is a best practice associated with safety excellence and it will result in superior safety performance. Results are distributed to the team in the monthly comprehensive occupational safety progress report.

Results

The partnership benefits everyone, including the hospital, its employees and patients, construction workers and surrounding neighborhoods. For example, the group identified the parking garage represented a hazard to construction workers, patients and staff due to distracted driving. So, a poster program was implemented for all parking garage users.

Through the partnership, a Safety Discovery Team has been assembled with tradesperson representatives from each contractor. They meet monthly with the project management team and a Department of Labor representative to review monthly summary reports and project metrics.

This group implemented a tradesperson recognition program to promote personal ownership of safety. The tradespeople quickly became engaged with IOSHA representatives and the safety team and they understand a safe space was created.

It's about having a safe work site, not a culture of fear and blame.

What is the AGCI Rose Recognition Program?

The AGCI ROSE (Recognition of Safety Excellence) Program recognizes the critical impact individual safety decisions make on a team. AGCI Members are encouraged to nominate a safety moment, initiative or program focused on strong safety principles. Outstanding applicants will receive recognition throughout AGCI communications, as well as at events throughout the year. Learn more about the program.

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