If you want to excel in safety, it’s not about TIME, but it is about expending time differently. Leadership must devote time and attention to all key components of successful project work. Unfortunately, many projects focus only on schedule, cost and budget. All are vastly important, but success comes when sufficient attention is given to other critical elements such as employee relationships, caring for and honoring workers, and achieving safety with quality results. These critical elements can be wrapped in these four fundamentals: committing, planning, performing and improving (CPPI).
Committing
Company and project leaders often say, “Safety is our No. 1 priority!” Safety is indeed a priority, but it’s not always a core value because priorities often change within the turmoil of a project. Change affects safety, too. Safety, as a value, should be first and foremost. When safety is done right, cost, schedule and quality fall in line.
I’ve been on projects that came in on budget and on schedule, but, sadly, they left behind a trail of pain, suffering and injured workers — a trail that was not easily forgot-ten. The injured worker remembers, and is remembered, long after the celebrations of project completion are over.
Planning
One of my previous project planners could do activity and task scheduling on a Kroger grocery sack, and he could get the message across to all the project leaders. However, craft workers are co-workers too, and when they don’t have a safe work plan, they become victims of re-work and safety incidents. A quality project never gets done when craft workers are not part of the planning.
Planning starts (or should start) the moment the drawings or electronic engineering/design files reach the company estimators. When safety is not a part of the work plan, a project is planning to fail in safety. I’ve seen many instances where safety supplies and staffing decisions were made after the project was estimated and bids submitted. That is far too late. Safety is integral to the work scope and it must be included. An esteemed colleague once said, “You can plan work and leave safety out, but you can never plan safety and leave the work out.” One must be a brother to the other.
Performing
Well-planned, supervised and executed work can result in a quality, on time and safe event. Even if a project team has included safety into its pre-job execution planning, it is the daily plan or job safety analysis that is the activity plan for crafts. When this is done poorly it results in re-work or an undesired event, but when done well it results in safe productivity.
No one, not project leader or corporate executive, has a right to put a worker in harm’s way. So who is to blame for a worker injury? Could it be at-risk behavior on the part of leadership due to improper or poor planning? What about poor leadership?
In 2009, I performed a nonscientific industry survey of Houston area contractors asking the question, “What percentage of your injuries, from first aid to recordable, are due to poor supervision or lack of supervision?” The startling answer was from 51 to 90 percent of injuries were caused by at-risk or poor supervision. The results of my survey led the Houston Area Safety Council to begin contractor hands-on supervisory training 101 and the word about town is the training has been most successful. Performing safe work begins with quality supervision. Honoring workers for their expected safety results makes for harmonious projects.
Improving
One of my former employers won many safety and quality awards and was known as “First in Safety; First in Quality.” It is my opinion you can’t have one without the other. At Crosby Quality College, I learned quality is meeting the customers’ expectations, doing things right the first time, removing errors that cause re-work and continuously improving. These same elements create great safety outcomes. If you are not improving in all project aspects, which way are you heading? Get your CPPI right then get out the confetti for your celebration. It’s about time!
For more information, contact HASC Customer Relations at (281) 476-9900, Ext. 310 or visit www.hasc.com.
