Transforming safety culture through innovation

Non-fatal injuries cost companies millions of dollars each year in work stoppages and loss of productivity, as well as taking an enormous human toll. 

Over time, industry has responded with more robust training and complex safety management systems. Yet, despite these innovations, serious dangers remain. At Bilfinger, digitization is transforming our safety culture. Effective digital processes can produce safer employees, more efficient work processes, improved analyses, increased collaboration and better decision making.

We start by hiring individuals with a safety mindset. Through ApplicantPro's hiring software and its SelectiveHiring assessment system, we identify optimal candidates and verify they possess qualities that align with our safety culture. Each candidate answers a series of questions related to safety, responsibility, reliability and rules compliance to provide insight on their personal safety. We then evaluate established criteria against baselines provided by SelectiveHiring to decide on the best candidate. Incorporating the SelectiveHiring profile into the employee selection process has significantly enhanced our ability to identify those individuals who perform their jobs in a conscientious and safe manner.

Most safety systems focus solely on inputting observations, inspections and audits. Bilfinger's app-based safety program takes it a step further by adding a detailed individual feedback process. Employees can see their contributions and impact to overall crew/project safety, as well as track their participation against goals and expectations.

With our app-based safety program, SPARTN (Safety Performance Action Risk Training Network), each worker has an individual dashboard that collects and displays data that is most important to them. This includes safety training, audits, observations, inspections, walkthroughs, and the outcomes that have occurred as a result of their contributions beyond the routine observation and inspection process.

SPARTN also enables front-line supervisors to assess crew safety and quality performance. Each crew member's safety training can be viewed from the dashboard. Supervisors can instantly identify crew members who may be falling below an acceptable safety participation threshold, allowing them to focus on at-risk crew members and proactively help to improve their contributions, behaviors and attitudes.

People want to know their efforts matter and that they can make a difference. Digitization allows for personalization, collaboration and individualized efforts. It empowers people to step up, report observations and be recognized for one's contributions, not just by stopping an event but by preventing it.

The digitization of safety is a journey. An effective digital strategy weaves technologies together to hire the best candidates, collect high-quality data through standardized and automated processes, and perform advanced analytics. It provides a real-time view of the health of a project and the entire organization. Detailed investigations and legwork remain essential, but digitization supports immediate action and the sharing of lessons learned.

The goal of digitization is not computerizing our processes. The value of predictive processes is that they allow us to be proactive and strengthen Bilfinger's safety culture.

For more information, visit www.bilfinger.com or call (337) 289-0092.