How to Promote Safety Within Your General Contractor Business
Jun 29, 2022
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One of the most important aspects of any job site is safety. As a general contractor, all of your projects should be planned with safety in mind for employees, clients, and the general public. In the United States alone, there are approximately 15 deaths a day on construction sites. The last thing you want is to have it happen to one of you.
The problem with safety is that everyone needs to be on board for your efforts to be fully realized. That means that as a general contractor, you are the one who needs to get buy-in from employees. That can be hard since many people don’t realize the potential danger they might be in until it’s too late. All it takes is one accident to cause a serious injury or worse. To ensure that your job sites are as safe as possible, here’s how to promote safety without your general contractor business.
Make it a Priority
Just like any other business, a contractor wants to make money, and rightfully so. However, bringing in revenue and increasing profit should not be the only priorities. Safety should be right up there with your other top concerns. If it’s not a priority to you, then it won’t be to your workers. Your best asset is not your equipment or any property you own. It’s your staff. Your employees make everything a reality, and you need to make sure they are protected.
There can be a selfish reason for prioritizing safety as well. While it’s true that taking shortcuts might be able to save you some dollars and time, in the long run, it’s not worth it financially. If there’s an accident, you could lose progress on your project, and you will lose productivity while the worker is hurt. Plus, you may have to deal with lawsuits, medical bills, and other costs from the injured parties. Safety should be your top priority, and you must make it so for your workers as well.
Training, Training, and More Training
Safety training should never stop. You should have regular sessions and refreshers to make sure that everyone is on the same page and understands their responsibilities. Your new hires must all take a general safety training course and then take training on their specific jobs. No one should be able to use equipment and machinery without the requisite certificate or confirmation that they have taken the related safety training course. Ensure that if OSHA standards change, or if there is a new best practice, your staff are educated as soon as possible.
It is your responsibility as a business owner to make sure that your employees meet their safety responsibilities. Have yourself or other management conduct regular inspections to make sure that everything is in order. Do not let things slide if there is an issue. Make sure that your employees know that they are expected to adhere to safety requirements as a part of their jobs.
Be Better Than Best Practices
When developing your safety standards, the best thing to do is to take what the OSHA is recommending and then go beyond that. Take a look at your processes and see where you can improve, even marginally. Any improvement will help prevent potentially catastrophic injuries. You don’t need to “be better” than the OSHA on everything, but you can continuously look for opportunities.
Insurance
While the focus of safety in the workplace is on preventing accidents and incidents, you still need to make sure that you are covered should anything happen. You need to have insurance specifically customized for general contractors to appropriately cover the specific risks your sector faces.
For example, you can get covered for your equipment and for property damage that your business might cause. When it comes to safety-related coverage, you need to have workers’ compensation so that your employees are protected if they are seriously injured and must miss work. General liability and commercial automobile coverage will also protect a member of the general public if they are hurt on a job site or by one of your vehicles. Finally, insurance will help injured parties and protect your business from the financial fallout of an accident that causes an injury or worse.
Involve Your Employees
It’s one thing to dictate from the top what must be done. It’s quite another to have your staff help you with it. Ask for volunteers to join safety committees. Before every project, they should get together to go over any potential hazards and safety gaps that you might have. They will make recommendations on safety procedures for the project and decide what investments the company must make, such as new equipment. They can also regularly inspect safety equipment and supplies to make sure that everything is in appropriate condition and that you have enough. Involving employees will take some of the work off your hands and help you get more buy-in from your workers.
Provide Incentives
Positive reinforcement is a powerful tool to promote safety measures on your job sites. Whenever your team reaches a safety milestone, provide a reward. It can be financial, or it could be a special event, such as a free dinner or tickets to a sporting event. Make sure that while you want to reward behavior, you also don’t want to encourage hiding something for the sake of getting the reward. You can also provide rewards for attendance at safety meetings or during surprise inspections if everyone is wearing their safety glasses properly. These are just a couple of examples, and you can use your imagination.
Safety is the most important priority that a general contracting business should have. Without proper safety measures, not only will people get hurt, but it will also damage your business. If you have a reputation for injuries, then you will have difficulty finding talent, you will lose time and productivity on jobs, and you will develop a bad reputation amongst consumers. Promote safety at all times on your job sites, and you will reap the rewards of a safe working environment and rising profits.