How Safety Can Be More Than Just a Buzz Word

“Safety” is a word that is utilized a lot in the construction industry. As it should be–construction is a relatively high-risk industry when it comes to the potential for injury and even fatality. However, just talking about safety to check off a box is not helpful or effective. Safety must be taken seriously by every person within a construction organization. 

Cenizo Services has been in operation for more than 20 years, and, during that time, we have learned some things about safety. That’s why we felt compelled to share some of the strategies that we use to ensure safety is prioritized across our company every day. 

The four main areas that we focus on to make safe behavior contagious are:

• Communication from Leadership
• Training
• Enforcing Safety
• Rewards

Let’s look at each area a little closer…

Communication from Leadership –  

We try to make safe practices and procedures second-nature to our team by communicating about them often! Our office and field leadership repeat certain phrases when communicating with the team so they become part of our company lingo and therefore are ingrained in our company culture. Some examples of the phases we use repeatedly are: 

• “We want everyone to return safely to their families and communities every day.” 
• “Safety is our most important core value.”
• “We are all responsible for safety.” 

We talk about safety during daily JSA meetings, monthly zoom meetings, in company announcements and messages, in our monthly newsletter, during new hire orientation, and incorporate it into casual conversations.

Training –  

In addition to ensuring safety-related conversations are occurring often and are top-of-mind, we require formalized training to ensure our entire team knows how to proactively prevent incidents and how to respond if one does occur. Our team performs daily microtraining on a variety of topics, with safety being one of them. We also host monthly safety meetings that the entire field team attends via zoom, and an annual in-person training meeting that covers safety and other topics. We also fill in other meetings/training as needed throughout the year. In addition to company-wide or field-wide training, we ensure that any role-specific training is covered as well. Certain job roles require safety awareness that doesn’t apply to other roles. For example, our team members that are CDL Truck Drivers receive specific DOT training that does not apply to the whole team. It’s important that our team is aware and prepared, and this is why we incorporate training into their everyday schedules.

Enforcing Safety – 

After ensuring we are communicating about and training on safe practices and procedures, it’s important that we enforce them. It’s one thing to talk about it and even conduct training on it, but a completely other (and necessary) thing to have consequences when those practices and procedures are not followed. We cannot build a lasting and effective safety culture without requiring safety standards to be met. Sure, companies could have a wonderfully written Safety Manual or deliver some great safety presentations, but those things become useless if the company doesn’t actually monitor safety and address poor practices or behavior. The way we respond to unsafe or even complacent actions really sets the tone of our safety culture. When we are made aware of an inappropriate or outright unsafe behavior, we take action quickly as a company to investigate what happened and either have a conversation with the team member whose behavior was an issue or even take disciplinary action, if needed. Ultimately, a company enforcing safe practices and procedures is looking out for the best interests of everyone in the company. 

Rewards –   

A fun way that we emphasize safety is by providing small incentives to those who demonstrate the most safety proficiency. Our leadership team selects one team member each month to receive our Safety Award which includes a bonus and being featured in our company newsletter. The criteria for receiving the award includes the number of microtrainings completed, driving safety, and demonstrating safe behavior over a period of time or during a particular situation. 

There are many different components that contribute to an effective safety culture within a team, and we have found the above-mentioned ones to be the most effective strategies that we employ as a company to help protect our team!