Is your Company Proactive or Reactive?
Michael Sicking, Safety International
When it’s time to project next year’s costs and revenues are you including safety as a budget line item? Quite simply, is your view on safety spending proactive or reactive? Many contractors always seem to find the money if the General Contractor has a last minute requirement after the job starts or an accident happens that forces you to take additional safety precautions and buy equipment.
I have been doing safety long enough to know that the companies who operate a proactive approach to safety are often the most profitable and most sought after contractors in the area.
They almost without exception enjoy greatly reduced worker’s comp insurance from a lower than average EMR and have an OSHA incident rate that is well below the NAICS code average for their trade.
This translates in to real dollars saved and earned. In today’s work environment a company’s EMR and OSHA incident rate is like a credit score. If your score is poor you are not even allowed to bid on projects, thus giving up valuable revenue for you and your employees.
Another great benefit of being proactive is that your employees will develop a sense of increased safety culture emphasis on the job. They may not thank you every time you go out to the job, but I have personally heard many comments from workers that they actually appreciate the visits from the “safety guy”. They say that they work around a lot of other contractors who never have a safety professional come out to the job. They know you care about their wellbeing and it translates into increased productivity, time saved, increased profits, and advertising for your company that you are a strict safety culture company.
One last thing to consider. Have a periodic safety/company meeting with your employees at your shop and directly ask the employees how they feel about safety and what ideas do they have to make the job task safer? You would be amazed at the great ideas your employees have to help your company grow!
The Tom Owen’s Memorial Scholarship was created to honor long time employee of Charles E. Jarrell Contracting. Tom Owens(10-9-55 to 4-29-08) worked for Jarrell for 20 plus years. While at Jarrell, Tom served as Jarrell’s CFO, Controller, Safety Director and Office Manager. He was also responsible for managing public relations, and he was the corporate liaison for area unions. He was truly one of a kind, so on his passing C.E. Jarrell and ASA Midwest Council worked together to establish the memorial scholarship in his name, to honor his memory, and assist well deserving young adults with their pursuit of higher education degrees.