Recently, the Occupations Safety and Health Administration (more commonly known as OSHA) posted its top 10 most frequently cited standards for 2023. Looking it over, I was unsurprised to see fall protection in the top spot as it has been leading this list for over a decade. I also was not surprised to see ladders come in at number three and scaffolding next in the fourth spot. All of these issues are common throughout the course of construction. In my many years of experience in the construction industry, I’ve witnessed a trend of subcontractors constantly pushing the envelope when it comes to safety while giving very little thought to possible ramifications. However, at The Douglas Company, safety is incredibly important to us. As such, we use three very important methods to promote safety on the construction jobsite
SUBCONTRACTOR PREQUALIFICATION PROCESS
Promoting safety on the jobsite starts before we even step foot on site for the first time. Before a subcontractor is awarded a contract with The Douglas Company, we require them to fill out a prequalification packet. This packet is comprised of various items, such as how long a company has been in business, types of projects they have worked on, safety programs, references, etc. Of the twenty-one questions that we have on our form, five of them are related to safety. We aim to understand whether or not they have documented safety programs, any citations in the past three years, their experience modification rate (EMR), etc., in an effort to properly gauge whether the subcontractor takes safety seriously. Hiring team members whom take safety seriously reduces the potential of an event from occurring and they generally produce a better product and require less supervision than someone who doesn’t take it seriously.
PRE-PLANNING
For any trades that are performing any task that inherently has more risk to workers onsite (such as utility excavations, framing, roofing, and scaffold work), it is our policy to hold a meeting in advance to review the company’s safety program for how they will conduct the work. These meetings are important as it forces conversations to be had of what the trades plan is, provide any necessary certifications, the type of safety equipment that they will be utilizing and it gives us, as the General Contractor, an opportunity to provide input and leave the meeting with a plan agreed upon by all parties that provides a safe environment for all involved.
WEEKLY REVIEWS, TRAINING, AND ENFORCEMENT
The Douglas Company holds weekly subcontractor meetings on our jobsites to review items such as safety, coordination items, outstanding documentation, and progress. The start of every meeting begins with safety, where we review observations throughout the course of the work week of what is going well and what needs addressed. As part of this we require all of our subcontractors to hold and document weekly “Tool Box Talks” where they are required to review a new safety topic with their employees weekly which requires trades to train their employees on various topics and keep safety top of mind. As it relates to enforcement, The Douglas Company utilizes verbal/written warnings, citations, and removal from the jobsite for those conducting work in an unsafe manner.
These are just a few of the items The Douglas Company utilizes to ensure the trades working on our jobsite have a safe environment to work in and return home at the end of everyday healthy.
NEED A GENERAL CONTRACTOR THAT PRIORITIZES SAFETY YOUR NEXT SENIOR LIVING OR MULTIFAMILY DEVELOPMENT?
At The Douglas Company, the safety of our trades is very important to us. We’d love to hear about your vision for your next high-quality living community. If you want to learn more about our Integri-D Process and how we work with our clients, click here. When you’re ready to have a conversation about working together, you can fill out our contact form and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
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Andrew Rahrig |
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