Safety can not only save costs and lives on the current project, but also lead to opportunities down the road! Having an injury on a project will increase your Experience Modification Rate (EMR) rating for the next several years. This can result in not being qualified to bid on a project and a loss of potential profit. Also, increased insurance premiums increases the company’s overhead and reduces the profits on each and every project.
How do you ensure the workers in the field are acting in a safe manner? The answer is quite simple, lead by example! When management shows that safety is important the actions will “rub off” on the workers. You can talk until you are blue in the face about safety but until you take an active role in promoting safety it will do little good.
This means when visiting the job site, acting in a safe manner and ensuring the employees are also working in a safe manner and reprimanding unsafe employees. It also means making sure the equipment being sent to the jobsite is also conducive to a safe work environment. When an unsafe issue does arise such as a broken tool, quick response has to be taken to fix the situation.
Management needs to really care about keeping the employees safe and not just having a safety program to please the client. Not only will safety help keep insurance premiums lower (and minimize the chance of OSHA fines), it will also increase productivity. As with any employee there is a direct relationship between productivity and job satisfaction.
