Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) recently released its 2017 Safety Performance Report to further the construction industry’s understanding of how to make job sites safer.
“ABC’s third annual report on the use of leading indicators such as substance abuse programs and new hire safety orientations confirms that high-performing ABC members have safer construction job sites,” said Michael Bellaman, president and CEO of ABC. “This is one of the few studies of commercial and industrial construction firms doing real work on real projects, and it shows that implementing best practices can produce world-class construction safety programs.”
The report documents the impact of using proactive safety practices to reduce recordable incidents by up to 87 percent. Implementing these practices could make the best-performing companies 770-percent safer than the industry average. The Safety Performance Report is based on data gathered from ABC member companies recording more than 1 billion hours of work, from which the findings concluded:
- Companies that attained the highest level of participation reduced their total recordable incident rate (TRIR) by 87 percent.
- Participants with a robust substance abuse program in place reduced their TRIR rates by 36 percent.
- Conducting a new hire safety orientation lasting more than 200 minutes reduced incident rates by 94 percent compared to an orientation of 30 minutes.
- Companies that held site-specific safety orientations reduced their TRIR by 45 percent.
- Holding daily toolbox talks (brief training sessions conducted on the job site for all employees) reduced TRIR by 64 percent compared to holding them monthly.
- Firms that scored high for C-suite leadership engagement and employee participation reduced their TRIR by 54 percent and 63 percent, respectively.
For more information, visit www. abc.org or call (202) 595-1505.