Construction companies must have a valid safety plan not only on paper or in theory, but in the everyday work that is performed on every individual jobsite. This safety plan needs to be one that is just as simple for management to oversee as it is for the crew to carry out during their daily work.
Not only are safety plans necessary, but they are a requirement for OSHA standards and guidelines that are mandatory for the construction industry.
Accidents happen and there are times when they may not be preventable at all, but most often, with good safety standards set in place, many worksite accidents can be greatly reduced. Some of the most common construction accidents include:
Falls
Burns
Amputations of Arms/Legs
Head Injuries
Electrocution
Cuts
Finger/Toe Loss
Death
There are more safety regulations introduced each year to help combat job site accidents and reduce the risk of fatal injury. It would seem, with the number more safety regulations introduced annually, that accidents would decline, but just in 2015, there were nearly 5000 injuries or deaths reported in the construction industry. Falls are the leading type of construction accident found to happen on sites nationwide, and they are one of the most preventable. When you have preventable accidents, it is past time to implement new safety standards within the company structure.
Best Safety Practices
All companies have been concerned with instilling good safety standards with workers, but it takes time to carefully plan a program that will be easy to follow and enforce on the job site.
You can train a crew member for weeks in an office on how they need to respond to a job, the tools they need to possess and how a job needs to be performed, but you must be able to show them on the job site how to continue the safety lessons they have been shown or told about outside of their typical work environment.
All employees, from the carpenter assistant to the site supervisor, will need to be fully trained and focused on safety always.
Companies must adhere to the following set of standards to achieve the proper safety standards for their company:
Ensure proper training from the ground up. This means that every individual worker from the crew to management needs to be fully trained.
Make sure the right equipment and tools are available for the work at hand. Never send a worker to a job site without the proper tools and expect them to complete a job. This is not only unsafe, but can cause the job to be performed with poor workmanship and with substandard ethics which can in turn, cause issues to arise from shoddy work.
Walk through the safety plan with all crew members before the work begins. This helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page and knows the proper way to complete the job, the tools to use and the steps to take to ensure a safe work zone.
These are also the basic steps that OSHA recommends to construction companies and when someone is involved in an accident, the substandard work or unsafe habits can be directly blamed on site and company management.
Does Your Construction Company Have Set Safety Standards?
While safety is mandatory, many companies fail to realize they can greatly reduce the risk of accidents on their job sites by implementing core safety standards and making sure all crew members follow those standards.
Companies that adhere to stringent safety standards and company policies pertaining to safe practices on the job tend to be the ones who customers will call when they need quality services for remodels, new builds or other construction related work. Do your contractors work in safe conditions and follow safety rules set by the company?
If so, what was your plan of action to ensure your crew has accident free time when working on any given job site now and in the future? We would love to hear your thoughts on safety in your own construction business and how it helps ensure a more profitable business while also maintaining practices that provide the highest quality workmanship for customers.
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