Tactics for Keeping Your Workplace Safe

What is your company doing to reduce workplace injuries?

August 1, 2002
Professional Builder

What is your company doing to reduce workplace injuries?

	Stefan Markowitz, President, MBK Homes Ltd., Irvine, Calif.

Stefan Markowitz
The greatest impact we’ve had on reducing workplace injuries was shifting the responsibility for our safety program from an administrator who made periodic field visits to our general superintendent, who is in the field all the time. By doing that, we have somebody who is virtually on every site five days a week and in a position to review and enforce all our various safety procedures and programs. And as part of his new job description, he’s continuously being trained through OSHA and our insurance carrier, and now we interact with our carrier more often. We have found a higher level of compliance both by our people and our subcontractors.

	Dan Delabruere, Construction Manager, The Snyder Companies, Essex Junction, Vt.

Dan Delabruere
Workplace safety was not a high priority for years and years in the home building industry. But for the past five years there has been a real increase in job-site safety awareness. I think the overall job site is fairly safe, but awareness about the little things has increased through meetings, going over everything, every detail. The meetings are broad, but they help to get little specific things and the hot spots that are the easy things to do better. I think people have been lax about safety in residential construction because they think, ‘I’m just building a house, no big deal.’ So we started having safety and awareness meetings, making sure they’re keeping up with equipment safety, and now they’re thinking about it.

	Augie Pannunzio, Production Manager, Premier Homes Inc., Pueblo, Colo.

Augie Pannunizo
In the past six to eight months, we’ve been emphasizing job cleanliness to reduce job injury because I’d bet a lot of these injuries were due to having too much trash and other materials laying around. We also have an in-house framing crew, and they always go through safety training.