Construction safety culture should never stop evolving or improving, and one of the keys to that progress is avoiding the rut of ineffective repetition.
H.B. Neild Construction Director of Safety Quais “Q” Savoir stayed fresh with the latest initiatives while attending the recent ASSP Professional Development Conference and Expo in Florida.
The lessons learned there could result in improved safety in Southeast Texas and across the Gulf Coast.
According to Savoir, everyone in construction knows safety incidents and hazards are possibilities at all sites.
Transitioning from a behavior-based safety approach to that of a Human and Organizational Performance (HOP) perspective could mitigate those concerns.
“Most of the time when people write procedures, they write their procedure and give it to the employees to follow,” Savoir said.
“That’s not my philosophy. My philosophy is let me go out there and actually learn and see what the guys are doing and then create the procedure. Once I create the procedure, test it, because you can put all these fancy things on a piece of paper and then you go out there, test it and see it doesn’t work or it’s not being followed to the T.”
The recent traditional philosophies for safety cultures focus on zero injuries or zero tolerance. That can sometimes lead to a lack of understanding that there’s a risk.
“Let’s accept the fact that it’s going to happen and here’s how we’re going to mitigate it risk wise,” Savoir said.
“When these things come about, we need to look at the big picture of things. We need to be doing things before something actually occurs, and before it actually happens.”
In a field where burnout can often impact veteran mentors, the American Society of Safety Professionals expo offers a breath of fresh air for like-minded leaders and up-and-comers to network and share with those who know their concerns best.
“Some of these things these guys know is especially based upon experience,” Savoir said. “It’s not something that’s written in a book, and they have enough knowledge and are humble enough to invite you to their world. We’re all safety professionals but we all fight different things related to the industrial settings. What makes you a better safety professional is leaning on others and having an ample number of resources.”
He describes the safety culture at H.B. Neild as great, but adds that it can’t come at the expense of always pushing forward.
The point is not sustaining the safety culture, Savoir stressed, but consistently making it better. “At the end of the day, I want to be out there in the field with the guys,” he said. “I want to see. I may be behind this desk saying we’re doing this and we’re doing that, but is it actually happening? It doesn’t mean anything if is not actually happening. Let’s have a safety management system program that works for us and not against us.”