Construction Safety

JMS-LLC professionals place safety as a top priority.
Our Safety Record for the past 30+ years is impeccable.

Planning – Training – Inspections

Contractors & subcontractors manage and consider a wide range of issues as they oversee the construction of structures, including budgets, labor, materials, and schedules. They must ensure compliance with countless regulatory requirements, from environmental standards to legal employment practices. One of the most important concerns all contractors & subcontractors must control in the construction industry, is the overall Safety for every person involved on a project work site.

The federal government considers construction safety a significant concern. In 2018, more than 62% of all federal inspections performed by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) nationwide, 32,396 inspections in all, took place in the construction sector. OSHA conducted an additional 30,000 state inspections at construction jobsites.

Over the past few years, incidents involving vehicles, tools or equipment have been the primary source of construction workplace injuries in the USA. Fall hazards also account for a high percentage of the mishaps which take place. Other hazards that result in jobsite injuries include electrical shock, caught-betweens and falling objects.

The approach to maintaining a safe jobsite and minimizing the risk from these and many other hazards is a three-pronged strategy of planning, training and inspections.

Planning – Stopping Mishaps Before They Occur

Planning ahead allows workers to see and avoid mishaps before they occur. Our work crews do pre-task planning every work day. Before work starts, we assess the tasks to be performed and identify hazards, then eliminate them or engineer them out. This process takes place before the project starts and repeats every morning until it’s done. The planning varies by location because each jobsite presents its own unique hazards, but the general process of ongoing planning remains the same.

On a more strategic level, we have a formal safety plan. The plan is thoroughly documented and made available to everyone involved in our projects. This ensures JMS operations stay within OSHA regulations and formalizes our policies, so that everyone, from employees to clients, knows our standards and procedures ahead of time.

Safety Training

Training is the second essential component of a successful safety plan. We require extensive training for our jobsite supervisors. All  jobsite supervisors have completed an OSHA 30-hour course, have been trained and certified in first aid, CPR and emergency response. And every worker onsite is continuously briefed on procedures to ensure jobsite safety and emergency response is coordinated with their jobsite supervisor.

One reason constant training is important is due to the ever-evolving nature of personal protective equipment (PPE). Manufacturers constantly produce new or improved PPE in response to identifiable needs in the marketplace, or as a result of evolving OSHA standards, and contractors must stay current on what is available.

PPE changes frequently. OSHA’s regulations are revised periodically and equipment manufacturers must innovate to meet those revisions. PPE that was fully compliant last year may not be today. For example, a few years ago, retractable lanyards for fall protection weren’t invented yet! Given all the different positions workers needed to be in to get the job done, in many situations the standard harness didn’t suffice. So, inventors came up with the retractable lanyard, one that creates an instant stop within two inches of the start of a fall, responding to that need. OSHA changes a requirement, manufacturers respond with new PPE and contractors are expected to stay on top of this.

Safety Inspections

Following on the heels of planning and training, the third component of a successful safety program is to self-inspect. JMS supervisors and a safety representative walk the jobsite several times a week, observing work processes, documenting procedural violations and potential hazards, then implement corrective actions. Often, these inspections result in procedural changes that are incorporated into the daily pre-task planning.

Our longstanding commitment to jobsite safety ensures our company will constantly monitor and manage safety concerns to do everything possible to protect not only our workers but all others who may visit the jobsite.

On JMS jobsites and long before OSHA jobsite inspections, safety concerns are addressed to comply with OSHA rules and regulations. First, we care about the well-being of all workers on the jobsite, and secondly, we recognize the high costs in terms of life, limb, lost time and financial penalties attributed to accidents and/or unmanaged safety issues.

Benefits of a Superior Construction Safety Program

Clearly, implementing a successful safety program requires a great deal of work at all levels of the project. The results are well worth the effort.

Our safety program gives us a big advantage in the marketplace. Our A+ rating with the insurance carriers reduces premiums considerably, allowing us to be more competitive in our bids. We’re finding that developers, owners and investors are becoming more interested in the safety programs of who they choose to work with. They recognize that a safety conscious contractor reduces their potential liability for law suits and bad publicity. Our safety program is a legitimate marketing advantage which allows JMS to separate ourselves from our competition.

Our safety program is a benefit from an operational standpoint as well. We haven’t suffered a time-lost incident during the past ten years. Workers come to our jobsites, trusting that we operate a safe work environment, and that improves morale. We have a track record for safety, which establishes an expectation in our workers’ minds that we won’t tolerate anything less than safe work procedures. In that sense the program is self-perpetuating. Most importantly, on a moral level we want our workers to be safe. We want them to go home in the same condition they came to work in. Our safety program provides cost benefits, marketing advantages, operating efficiencies, and is fundamentally the right thing to do.

The greatest challenge to maintaining a safe jobsite is attitude. Getting people to recognize the inherent risk of working on a construction site is a big part of what we do every day. It’s easy to cut corners on safety. It’s easy not to put on the reflector vest or harness or put up the barriers across door and window openings. For the safety program to be a success we must overcome complacency.

We take safety very personally, and make safety personal to our people in the field. We talk directly to the workers and subcontractors to make them think of their family and responsibilities beyond work. We make sure to touch the person’s heart first. We believe that’s how you start and finish the attitude change. If you can win the battle over attitude, the planning, training, and inspecting all falls into place.