Protecting Workers: Safety & Health
Today’s busy construction sites need to manage risk for the whole worker, says Roger Cornett, president of CSDZ, a Holmes Murphy company, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“The most important thing to CSDZ and Holmes Murphy is that our clients’ employees go home in the same condition, or better than when they showed up to work,” Cornett said. “There’s nothing more tragic and impactful to a construction company than when one of their team members dies or gets injured.” That doesn’t just include physical injuries, he said. That includes the employee’s total wellness including mental health.
The construction industry has the one of the highest rates of suicide among all industries, only behind oil and gas extraction, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicide in construction is more than three times higher than the rate for the general population. “It manifests itself in potential work comp claims,” Cornett said. “But I would say, thinking more holistically, if you take care of your employees and take care of their whole body and spirit and mind when they come to work … they are not only a productive worker, but a productive family member, or whatever situation.”
Cornett says that one of the biggest impacts to profitability for construction clients is absenteeism. That also includes what he referred to “presenteeism,” meaning, employees who may have managed to pull themselves out of bed to get to work, but due to health they may be 30% less productive because they are depressed, or have a substance abuse problem, for example. “If I’ve got a serious substance abuse issue, I’m probably not operating that bulldozer very safely or that forklift, or the quality of my work is going to suffer.”
“Every construction client would love to have zero claims,” says Cynthia Randall, vice president of business development, Gallagher Bassett Technical Services, which specializes in risk management and loss control services for construction businesses. “That’s what the utopia goal is that we all want to reach,” she said. “But we also know because we’re dealing with humans, that will probably never be achieved; however we can assist to reduce the claims and we can assist to reduce the severity.”
Randall says key components of a construction, health and safety risk management solution include oversight, implementation, and revision of the health and safety protocols and policies; onsite and web-based training for workers and supervisors; a certified EMT, or possibly a first responder or a safety professional to be on site to oversee and help administer the health and safety programs. “Whether it’s on-site training or web-based training, I don’t think I can stress training enough,” said Randall, adding how it’s equally important for the training to be understandable. “It might go in one ear and out the other. In essence, are we then taking it and actually applying it?”
Prevention is key and training is critical to that, she said.