Strong Voices, Safe Choices: Highlight the Importance of Construction Safety Week 2023
Construction Safety Week was created in 2014 to emphasize construction’s top priority: protecting workers.
Jobsite health and safety programs have become more dynamic and advanced through technology, including data retention and analysis.
In a recent conversation between Donna Laquidara-Carr, industry insights research director at Dodge Construction Network, and Nathan Wood, founder and chief enabling officer at SpectrumAEC and executive director at Construction Progress Coalition, safety was at the forefront of the discussion.
Through Dodge’s research-based studies, the company has begun to educate the market on digital transformation and worker safety — gathering data on ongoing opportunities and challenges for implementation.
“When we started on these studies, one of our goals was to demonstrate that in addition to the really valuable benefits associated with improving safety and worker health, there are real business benefits of safety,” said Laquidara-Carr. “And those studies have conclusively shown that. We consistently found that you see improvements on safety elements such as recordable injury rates and worker willingness to report unsafe conditions, but you also see business improvements. Things like improved worker retention are widely reported across all the studies we’ve conducted. The ability to bring in new work for many contractors is influenced by what they’re doing in their safety program.”
The improved safety programs examined in the studies utilize technology, and thus, data, to make construction a safer industry for all involved. Although these technologies sometimes require more effort for inputting data, the output and results from the data collection greatly outweigh the input.
“When you say technology, what I hear is data, right? How is the collection of data impacting safety on the job site? And you have to say as a whole, it’s improving it,” said Wood. “The more you measure it, the more you’re aware of it — the more it starts to change those behaviors. But, there can be unintended consequences as well. There can be impacts on productivity and it can create more data entry than maybe you had before. So, I think it brings up this very interesting conversation with safety as such a core principle to what makes construction important. Getting home safe is paramount to everything. But with all this technology that’s around us, we need to prove that it’s not a distraction and that we’re actually using it to measure the right things and deliver feedback that’s actually making us safer. It’s a fine line to walk, for sure.”
The most recent Civil Quarterly from Dodge highlights how technology and data are making a distinct impact on jobsite safety: 67% of civil contractors cited lower recordable injury rates as a benefit to utilizing data analysis to manage safety. The research also showed that more than half of civil contractors expect that more than 10% of civil construction companies will be utilizing predictive analytics and AI in the next three years, with 47% of contractors expecting these tools to have a notable impact on safety. The report featured additional qualitative insight from within the industry.
“In the Civil Quarterly, we featured a couple of companies using data to improve their safety programs,” said Laquidara-Carr. “One of the companies talked about how they have this very elaborate safety checklist, and they said it seems kind of tedious at first, but they say just doing our checklist is a learning opportunity. If someone is relatively new to their company, and they have to go through 20 questions about how well-anchored something is, they’re going to get the message about all of the things that they’re expected to keep in mind. So it’s more about the interaction, than it is necessarily how you’re making that interaction happen.”
Aside from Construction Safety Week, May is Building Safety Month, which continues to raise awareness for safety and health in the industry. This dedicated time not only reinforces how important these safety initiatives are, but encourages industry professionals to challenge themselves to have harder conversations than usual.
“The month of May is now forever ingrained in my head as not just safety, but Mental Health and Suicide Awareness Month,” said Wood. “So as we look at different months, March is obviously very focused on women’s history, women’s advancement, and women construction days. May is really all about mental health and safety practices. As much as we should be thinking about safety and health all months of the year, having those months to really reflect on it and remind ourselves and look back on how far we’ve come in the last year, I think, are important steps to do.”
To learn more about Dodge Construction Network reports and insights, click here.
To learn more about Construction Progress Coalition, click here.