Braden Black CEO
“Skilled Trades is a skilled personnel provider to the industrial, commercial, and energy construction\maintenance industry. If you would like to learn more about how we can help your business maximize productivity and minimize employment risk, please click on your state below for a Market Manager in your area.”
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Develop a Culture Around Safety
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently opened new offices in San Diego, Oakland, Phoenix and Las Vegas with an eye toward supporting OSHA’s “increased activity, strengthened enforcement and enhanced state plan oversight.” It’s no surprise that these offices are located in what were some of the most active construction markets before the economy collapsed. These areas will once again be the sites of furious residential, commercial, industrial, hospitality and institutional building once the economy recovers. But OSHA’s “increased activity and strengthened enforcement” in the West is a sure harbinger of what the construction industry in other parts of the country can look forward to.
This current and future climate of aggressive OSHA inspections and enforcement makes now a perfect time to institute, review or tweak your company’s safety policies. In fact, a set of policies, procedures and priorities is not sufficient to ensure you’re doing all you can to protect your workers. Instead, it is crucial to adopt safety as a core value in your corporate culture. That means putting safety at the heart of your operations. Noting – not productivity, efficiency or even shareholder value – can be allowed to take precedence over safety. And that requires participation from within all levels of the organization, beginning with the CEO.
SAFETY STARTS AT THE TOP
The boss must embrace safety, not only through policies and directives, but through his own actions that show nothing will stand between his workers and a safe jobsite. The best top managers will create safety programs that make sense to the field workers and supervisors, and they will communicate these policies through every medium possible so workers understand that the suits are not simply paying lip service to safety. One of the best ways to demonstrate this commitment is to empower employees to correct safety hazards by making it clear that all workers have not only the right, but the duty to stop work if they notice a potentially unsafe condition – without regard to timelines, budgets or scheduling.
FIELD IMPLEMENTATION
The biggest gap in construction safety comes between policy adoption and implementation. We all learned to always position our hands on the steering wheel at 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock, but how many of us still drive that way? It’s the same with construction. All workers are drilled in the mechanics of safety, but for expedience sake, many take shortcuts. It’s up to the field supervisors, colleagues and the workers themselves to ensure this “slippage” does not occur.
Peer pressure can do much to ensure safety on the job. If older and more experienced workers observe safety procedures, their juniors are more likely to do the same. It’s a matter of establishing the working climate and atmosphere. Supervisors, foremen and veteran workers can, without saying a word, communicate what is expected of their coworkers in the field.
To foster this transfer of “institutional knowledge,” identify the crew leaders and put them in positions of authority in regard to safety. Studies have shown that soldiers most often perform dutifully – even heroically – in combat not for patriotic reasons, but because of reverence for and a sense of duty to their comrades. This loyalty and respect transfers to any group that is working toward a common goal.
WORKER PARTICIPATION
Employees are more likely to embrace the company’s safety culture if they feel they have some say in its development and evolution. Encourage employees at “toolbox talks” or other safety meetings to discuss innovative ways to assess and mitigate dangers on the construction site. Urge employee involvement by using specific examples from their experiences and demonstrations of their methods for dealing with them. These tactics, rather than memos and directives from the president’s desk, will increase worker “buy in.” By the same token, foster a belief in the safety policies for their own sake, rather than a fear of punishment. You want employees to always wear their hardhats and tie offs because it’s the right thing to do and will ensure their families greet them at the front door rather than at the emergency room, not because they might get reprimanded if the safety director spies them.
EVERYONE IS RESPONSIBLE
You may have heard the expression, “marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.” The sentiment is true tenfold for safety. Steve Jones, vice president of field operations for the PENTA Build¬ing Group in Las Vegas, understands the concept. “My first responsibility is to provide a safe and healthy work environment for each and every employee, on each and every PENTA project,” he wrote. “I can’t do it alone. I delegate this responsibility to our project management teams at the jobsite level, and I expect every one of our supervisors to hold the same belief in the ideal of safety and to promote our company’s safety culture. Superintendents are accountable for safety on their sites. They know exactly what the company expects from them in the support of safety, as well as the fact that their possible promo-tions and even their continued employment depend on their support and performance of safety.”
This are the words of a supervising executive, not the safety director.
“I can’t expect the safety department to shoulder the burden of accountability for the perfor-mance of safety on the project sites. I could have a safety manager for every single employee on our projects. Would that make us safer? I doubt it. Only you can make yourself safe,” Jones continued. “We are the operations department. We create the hazards that occur on the sites. We are responsible to manage those hazards to eliminate the opportunity for incidents.”
This current and future climate of aggressive OSHA inspections and enforcement makes now a perfect time to institute, review or tweak your company’s safety policies. In fact, a set of policies, procedures and priorities is not sufficient to ensure you’re doing all you can to protect your workers. Instead, it is crucial to adopt safety as a core value in your corporate culture. That means putting safety at the heart of your operations. Noting – not productivity, efficiency or even shareholder value – can be allowed to take precedence over safety. And that requires participation from within all levels of the organization, beginning with the CEO.
SAFETY STARTS AT THE TOP
The boss must embrace safety, not only through policies and directives, but through his own actions that show nothing will stand between his workers and a safe jobsite. The best top managers will create safety programs that make sense to the field workers and supervisors, and they will communicate these policies through every medium possible so workers understand that the suits are not simply paying lip service to safety. One of the best ways to demonstrate this commitment is to empower employees to correct safety hazards by making it clear that all workers have not only the right, but the duty to stop work if they notice a potentially unsafe condition – without regard to timelines, budgets or scheduling.
FIELD IMPLEMENTATION
The biggest gap in construction safety comes between policy adoption and implementation. We all learned to always position our hands on the steering wheel at 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock, but how many of us still drive that way? It’s the same with construction. All workers are drilled in the mechanics of safety, but for expedience sake, many take shortcuts. It’s up to the field supervisors, colleagues and the workers themselves to ensure this “slippage” does not occur.
Peer pressure can do much to ensure safety on the job. If older and more experienced workers observe safety procedures, their juniors are more likely to do the same. It’s a matter of establishing the working climate and atmosphere. Supervisors, foremen and veteran workers can, without saying a word, communicate what is expected of their coworkers in the field.
To foster this transfer of “institutional knowledge,” identify the crew leaders and put them in positions of authority in regard to safety. Studies have shown that soldiers most often perform dutifully – even heroically – in combat not for patriotic reasons, but because of reverence for and a sense of duty to their comrades. This loyalty and respect transfers to any group that is working toward a common goal.
WORKER PARTICIPATION
Employees are more likely to embrace the company’s safety culture if they feel they have some say in its development and evolution. Encourage employees at “toolbox talks” or other safety meetings to discuss innovative ways to assess and mitigate dangers on the construction site. Urge employee involvement by using specific examples from their experiences and demonstrations of their methods for dealing with them. These tactics, rather than memos and directives from the president’s desk, will increase worker “buy in.” By the same token, foster a belief in the safety policies for their own sake, rather than a fear of punishment. You want employees to always wear their hardhats and tie offs because it’s the right thing to do and will ensure their families greet them at the front door rather than at the emergency room, not because they might get reprimanded if the safety director spies them.
EVERYONE IS RESPONSIBLE
You may have heard the expression, “marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.” The sentiment is true tenfold for safety. Steve Jones, vice president of field operations for the PENTA Build¬ing Group in Las Vegas, understands the concept. “My first responsibility is to provide a safe and healthy work environment for each and every employee, on each and every PENTA project,” he wrote. “I can’t do it alone. I delegate this responsibility to our project management teams at the jobsite level, and I expect every one of our supervisors to hold the same belief in the ideal of safety and to promote our company’s safety culture. Superintendents are accountable for safety on their sites. They know exactly what the company expects from them in the support of safety, as well as the fact that their possible promo-tions and even their continued employment depend on their support and performance of safety.”
This are the words of a supervising executive, not the safety director.
“I can’t expect the safety department to shoulder the burden of accountability for the perfor-mance of safety on the project sites. I could have a safety manager for every single employee on our projects. Would that make us safer? I doubt it. Only you can make yourself safe,” Jones continued. “We are the operations department. We create the hazards that occur on the sites. We are responsible to manage those hazards to eliminate the opportunity for incidents.”
Labels: Commercial, Construction Industry, Industrial
Friday, September 10, 2010
Economic Outlook For Construction
According to economists, the recovery has begun. It is true that gross domestic product growth has been positive, even approaching normal levels of about 3 percent. Too bad nobody informed the construction industry of its return to prosperity.
The 3 percent GDP growth rate of the most recent quarters is hardly the robust gains America has come to expect in the first year of a real recovery. Non-residential construction will lag any improvement in the homebuilding industry, which in turn, likely will mirror the return to health of the economy as a whole. Residential construction staggered to a record low in the year ended July 2010. That, after many homebuilders ramped up activity to finish houses so they would be available for the new home-buyer tax credit.
First the bad news…According to Kermit Baker, chief economist for the American Institute of Architects, non-residential “prospects have deteriorated” beyond even the dismal 13 percent decline predicted at the beginning of the year. The sector will bottom out 20 percent below already depressed 2009 levels, Baker said. “The worst economic downturn in several generations, a fragile financial sector, excess commercial space, and unease in the international economy all share the blame for the current situation,” he noted.
Contractors are steadily completing projects in their backlogs and growing more frantic in their search for jobs to replace these finished jobs. Supply is scarce and despite attrition resulting from the economic situation, competition is as fierce as ever. This perfect storm sees builders slashing prices, possibly in vain attempts to stay in business, project a viable business face and keep their employees busy. Meanwhile, building material costs – even labor – continue to rise.
The decline is nearly across the board, with manufacturing facilities, office space and hospitality construction among the hardest hit.
The federal stimulus package already has delivered its hardest punch, and over the last year, public construction fell more than 7 percent. Funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act continues to pay for crucial infrastructure projects, projects that will make the country’s emergence from the downturn faster and more dramatic. But state and local governments have not followed Washington’s lead in trying to spend their way out of the recession. And the private sector continues to face a cash crunch and will continue to do so as lenders watch vacancy rates rise and rental rates freefall.
Barring another round of federal splurging, highway and bridge construction, and public works in general, probably will be the last sector to recover. Many states have raided their capital project budgets to pay for social services and day-to-day operations. And those capital budgets were smaller than expected because double digit unemployment means fewer people paying state income and sales taxes. For many municipalities, capital projects are all too easy to put on hold during tough times and the last to be restored during flush times.
Now to the good news….We know that non-residential construction recovers more slowly than residential building – usually about a year’s lag can be counted on. That hasn’t changed; but the housing market’s recovery has been delayed by several months. Where earlier forecasts called for the upturn to begin about this time, experts now say it won’t happen until the end of the year at the earliest. The great news is that the housing recovery could be quite robust – between 6 percent and 16 percent per year through 2014, according to management consultant and investment banker FMI Corp. As new houses are come on line and new population centers are created, supermarkets, tanning salons and daycare facilities will follow.
That’s cold comfort for contractors trying to make a living as building decreases year after year. However, a few non-residential sectors are already bucking the trend. Industrial construction long has been a drag on construction, as owners were forced to put expansion plans, upgrades and maintenance projects on hold, uncertain their investments would be rewarded by consumers putting a lock on spending. However, this sector is showing signs of life, as the nation’s automakers claw their way back from the brink, and other factories see greater consumer spending on the horizon. This sector also has benefited from the sustained interest in and emerging business models pertaining to sustainable energy and manufacturing processes. Wind and solar power initiatives, especially those eligible for federal grants and tax savings, give contractors proficient in building these facilities an advantage in these trying times.
As we’ve cautioned all along, however, the non-residential sector’s recovery will not be a super ball-bounce off the bottom. It likely will be quite gradual at first, with plenty of fits and starts. Hopefully, we are seeing some light at the end of this dark tunnel!
The 3 percent GDP growth rate of the most recent quarters is hardly the robust gains America has come to expect in the first year of a real recovery. Non-residential construction will lag any improvement in the homebuilding industry, which in turn, likely will mirror the return to health of the economy as a whole. Residential construction staggered to a record low in the year ended July 2010. That, after many homebuilders ramped up activity to finish houses so they would be available for the new home-buyer tax credit.
First the bad news…According to Kermit Baker, chief economist for the American Institute of Architects, non-residential “prospects have deteriorated” beyond even the dismal 13 percent decline predicted at the beginning of the year. The sector will bottom out 20 percent below already depressed 2009 levels, Baker said. “The worst economic downturn in several generations, a fragile financial sector, excess commercial space, and unease in the international economy all share the blame for the current situation,” he noted.
Contractors are steadily completing projects in their backlogs and growing more frantic in their search for jobs to replace these finished jobs. Supply is scarce and despite attrition resulting from the economic situation, competition is as fierce as ever. This perfect storm sees builders slashing prices, possibly in vain attempts to stay in business, project a viable business face and keep their employees busy. Meanwhile, building material costs – even labor – continue to rise.
The decline is nearly across the board, with manufacturing facilities, office space and hospitality construction among the hardest hit.
The federal stimulus package already has delivered its hardest punch, and over the last year, public construction fell more than 7 percent. Funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act continues to pay for crucial infrastructure projects, projects that will make the country’s emergence from the downturn faster and more dramatic. But state and local governments have not followed Washington’s lead in trying to spend their way out of the recession. And the private sector continues to face a cash crunch and will continue to do so as lenders watch vacancy rates rise and rental rates freefall.
Barring another round of federal splurging, highway and bridge construction, and public works in general, probably will be the last sector to recover. Many states have raided their capital project budgets to pay for social services and day-to-day operations. And those capital budgets were smaller than expected because double digit unemployment means fewer people paying state income and sales taxes. For many municipalities, capital projects are all too easy to put on hold during tough times and the last to be restored during flush times.
Now to the good news….We know that non-residential construction recovers more slowly than residential building – usually about a year’s lag can be counted on. That hasn’t changed; but the housing market’s recovery has been delayed by several months. Where earlier forecasts called for the upturn to begin about this time, experts now say it won’t happen until the end of the year at the earliest. The great news is that the housing recovery could be quite robust – between 6 percent and 16 percent per year through 2014, according to management consultant and investment banker FMI Corp. As new houses are come on line and new population centers are created, supermarkets, tanning salons and daycare facilities will follow.
That’s cold comfort for contractors trying to make a living as building decreases year after year. However, a few non-residential sectors are already bucking the trend. Industrial construction long has been a drag on construction, as owners were forced to put expansion plans, upgrades and maintenance projects on hold, uncertain their investments would be rewarded by consumers putting a lock on spending. However, this sector is showing signs of life, as the nation’s automakers claw their way back from the brink, and other factories see greater consumer spending on the horizon. This sector also has benefited from the sustained interest in and emerging business models pertaining to sustainable energy and manufacturing processes. Wind and solar power initiatives, especially those eligible for federal grants and tax savings, give contractors proficient in building these facilities an advantage in these trying times.
As we’ve cautioned all along, however, the non-residential sector’s recovery will not be a super ball-bounce off the bottom. It likely will be quite gradual at first, with plenty of fits and starts. Hopefully, we are seeing some light at the end of this dark tunnel!
Labels: Commercial, Construction Industry, Industrial