To celebrate North American Occupational Health and Safety Week, we decided to go to our internal Safety Champion, Megan Warhurst, to talk about how she has made construction safety part of our company’s culture. It’s not as hard as one might think!
Megan started as our Operations Manager last May and has been championing construction safety ever since. As Operations Manager she has A LOT on her plate every day when she comes to work, and safety could easily be one of those items that slip. But Megan has always stood firm on safety and prioritized it for our team, working to integrate it into our company culture. So rather than construction safety becoming a nuisance or stand in the way of our work, it becomes in-tune with who we are and how we work.
How did she do that? Here are a few techniques she used to integrate construction safety into our company culture:
Toolbox Talks:
Every Monday morning we have a company-wide meeting where we meet at HQ to discuss the week ahead, milestones, accomplishments, challenges, and any points that need to be addressed. We have also built a weekly Toolbox Talk into the agenda, where we spend 5 to 10 minutes discussing something related to construction safety. Some recent topics have included:
- Ladder Safety
- Asbestos
- Ventilator best practices
- Site cleanliness
- Site hazards
- Incident reporting
Each week a member of our team volunteers to tackle the topic and presents it to the group in our meeting. The team loves the opportunity to prepare and present something to the group, and the team can then engage in dialogue through questions, examples, and stories.
Resources:
Megan is not afraid to look to the experts when it comes to furthering her goals, and this includes working with the leaders in construction safety training and equipment to make sure she can learn from the best. These include:
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- The BC Construction Safety Alliance: a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting employers improve safety in their workplace.
- Western Safety Equipment: a BC based company, the team at Western Safety has a fleet of fully stocked vans that help you make sure you have the right equipment based on your needs.
Open Communication:
Perhaps the most important change in our safety culture has been around the way we talk about construction safety and safety-related issues, including incidents or near misses. Megan has worked tirelessly to promote an open flow of communication about safety, encouraging everyone to talk about it, think about it, and take responsibility for it. It has worked well, and we are able to acknowledge and report on incidents as they come up and make sure everybody has the care they need should something occur. And they always do! Anyone in construction can attest to that, but as Megan quotes “it’s how you and the company responds to it that will make a difference in getting somebody back to work.”
Thanks, Megan for all of your hard work in keeping us safe. We are so proud of you for being recognized as a Safety Champion by NAOSH. Congrats!
