Ensuring Safety and Compliance in Construction

Safety in construction is of paramount importance as it has one of the highest fatality rates of any industry. Construction safety involves implementing rules and regulations to ensure that there are no hazards during the construction and to the occupants once the building is passed over to the client.

Contrary to common belief, construction safety begins at the planning and design phase of the project. Risk reduction at the design phase minimizes the risk of accidents during and after the project is built. In a construction project, accentuating safety in the design and planning phase is as crucial as it is in the construction stage. Incidents tend to occur when the design is poor, and contingency plans are not developed in advance to eliminate the potential risks.

Even with all the safety measures taken during the design and planning phase, accidents occur during construction when there is inadequate communication between stakeholders. To minimize hazards, contractors must ensure that employees understand and diligently follow their company’s safety programs. Spending the right resources to ensure that all the safety standards are met will be beneficial in the long run.

At Haskell, we like to walk the talk when it comes to safety. My two decades of experience working on projects and the recent five with Haskell have been an eye-opener in terms of Safety and Compliance. Working in different geographics with fragmented cultures and societies where English is not always the first language of communication trying to implement a safety culture that we follow at Haskell has been a continuous challenge.

Who are we?

Haskell is a Design-Build company started by Preston H Haskell in 1965. The vision of Mr. Preston Haskell was to be the single point of contact providing solutions to the client from conception to completion of the project. Since its inception, Haskell has grown as an industry leader with its innovative project delivery approach and excellent client care. By adopting the design-build delivery process, Haskell can assure the client of a definite outcome in schedule, budget, and performance on any given project.

Safety in Haskell

At Haskell, our top priority is to provide a safe and healthy environment for our workers. We develop safety policies and procedures to protect our employees, contract partners, client personnel, and the public. At Haskell, we never compromise on project safety in the interest of time and profit. We evaluate the project’s success by its safety performance. We work closely with our contract partners to continuously improve our safety policy through training and accident prevention programs that are unrivaled in the construction industry.

At Haskell, we implement the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations company-wide and follow safety programs other than the basic OSHA regulations to have a better workplace environment.

The result of our safety program can be verified through the Recordable Incident Rate (RIR) for the past few years. In 2021, Haskell completed a record of 3.57 million man hours with only 0.17 Recordable Incident Rate (RIR) while the Industry Average Recordable Incident Rate (RIR) stands at 2.3. When compared to the Industry Average RIRs, Haskell’s performance stands out.

Haskell’s phenomenal performance in 2021 landed us the National Safety Pinnacle Award, the highest safety honor given by the Associated Builders and Contractor’s (ABC) National Safety Excellence Awards.

At Haskell, we value each individual and strive to provide them with a safe workplace. 

All our employees, contract partners, and new hires must participate in our Safety Orientation Program from the first day of their association with our company. The orientation program consists of the overview of the project, identification of the key personnel, the line of authority to be followed, facility structures, and site security and procedures. We insist on specialized training for workers before the start of work when required.

We incorporate safety in design because we believe that our building will be safe during and after the construction when safety guidelines are followed from start to finish. All the team members involved in a project are responsible for preventing injuries and creating a safe environment and workplace. All our A/E staff undergoes training on designing safe buildings using Safety Design checklists. Periodic inspections are carried out by the A/E staff to verify if risks are present during the construction of the project.

We are committed to a zero-injury, zero-incident work environment for everyone working at our job sites. All Haskell projects have site safety guidelines to ensure the safety of all the personnel involved in the project. Risk assessment is done before and during the construction phase and necessary steps are taken to prevent incidents. The project Superintendent conducts daily inspections and reports his/her findings to the project management team and the contract partner. Weekly project safety meetings are held company-wide to communicate safety-related information.

Our safety policies are reviewed annually, and appropriate changes are made. Safety drills are held regularly at the construction site to ensure that each worker returns home safely every day.

The recent Covid-19 experience of the past two years has added unsurmountable pressure on our delivery and operations team trying their level best to always build safe design.

We learned through continuous intervention how simple steps like using sign language help in educating the teams on site and our culture of sharing various experiences both good and bad inculcates a habit of behaving safely amongst our team members.

We recently implemented a mannequin “Bob the Builder” on one of our projects and made videos showcasing human behavior and how can they be unsafe. We were surprised by the response.

Bob would sometimes perform unsafe acts like poor housekeeping at the end of the day only to find out the next day what an unsafe place was left overnight causing potential hazards followed by another video of how Bob leaves behind a clean place at the end of the day to return to a safe workplace. This had a lasting impression on our site team.

In another experience, we made safety videos of wall painting works in an active manufacturing site, explaining the proper use of tools which helped in getting past the language bias.

Conclusion

Safety plays an essential role in the building and construction industry. Clients do not want to deal with a company known for its constant accidents during construction. When safety protocols are followed correctly, the company creates a brand for itself in the industry. Clients will be confident that the contractor will follow safety by design while also meeting the required safety standards during the construction phase. A company’s credibility acquired in the industry will enable them to have repeated business with the clients and bring more business to the company.