Make Safety the Cornerstone of Your Culture

Make Safety the Cornerstone of Your Culture
Drive safety in your orga­ni­za­tion and on your projects by creating a culture of safety in everything you do. 

Smart orga­ni­za­tions focus on designing and building safely, because doing so keeps projects on schedule and on budget—and because every worker deserves to come home safe every day. We're committed to an effective safety culture because it's the right thing to do for our clients, our projects and our people. As evidence that our approach and dedication to safety is working, we have consis­tently achieved experience modi­fi­ca­tion, total recordable incident and lost workday incident rates much better than the industry average. That's why we're sharing ideas and resources to help make your projects and your people safer.

 

Smart safety planning is critical to project success. Detailed, modern safety plans—both company-wide and site-specific—should always be developed and contin­u­ously updated to achieve safety excellence. From there, build your safety culture with a two-pronged approach to safety. Emphasizing a behavioral focus brings conver­sa­tions about safety front and center. Identify and highlight near-miss or good-catch moments where accidents were avoided. It might be tempting to sweep near-miss incidents under the rug, but it's actually crucial to bring them to light because they can prevent future accidents. In addition, maintaining a statistical focus provides an analytical backbone to your safety program. Regular audits of your projects, with multiple experts conducting onsite checks, maintain a constant evaluation of your safety plans so they can be optimized and improved. 

And, a powerful tactic to improving safety is to get the construc­tion team involved early in each project. That way, once the ground­break­ing occurs, your team has already thought through how they're going to build the project safely. Crane placement, layout, how to erect something—it's all been thought out in advance. That's one of the reasons why we think collab­o­ra­tive delivery is such a powerful approach to critical projects. And, it's why we are excited about the potential of virtual design and construc­tion technology to make projects more collab­o­ra­tive, more efficient, and most important of all, safer.

Houston Safety Award Houston Safety Award
An Award-Winning Safety Team
Learn how our work with the Lubrizol Corporation recently won an Excellence Award for their safe building practices.

Safe thinking from our experts

Safety is not just something to look out for at construc­tion sites – CDM Smith does a great job of raising awareness of the importance of Safe Thinking in everything that we do.
Randa Chichakli Vice President, Envi­ron­men­tal/Civil Engineer
Safety is not just something to look out for at construc­tion sites – CDM Smith does a great job of raising awareness of the importance of Safe Thinking in everything that we do.
Randa Chichakli Vice President, Envi­ron­men­tal/Civil Engineer
Safety is paramount. There is nothing more important than everyone going home at the end of the day.
Joseph Capotosta Project Manager, Associate
Safety is paramount. There is nothing more important than everyone going home at the end of the day.
Joseph Capotosta Project Manager, Associate
I normally put on my PPE before arriving to the plants because I want the client to see that I am ready upon arrival. Wearing PPE makes me feel more alert and more aware of my surround­ings.
Carlos Claros Industrial Water Process Lead
I normally put on my PPE before arriving to the plants because I want the client to see that I am ready upon arrival. Wearing PPE makes me feel more alert and more aware of my surround­ings.
Carlos Claros Industrial Water Process Lead
For our envi­ron­men­tal projects, we conduct a pre-design inves­ti­ga­tion to determine excavation cut lines or location of a groundwater plume so we can ensure we are addressing all cont­a­m­i­na­tion that could create health and safety concerns. We prepare the design and develop a health and safety spec­i­fi­ca­tion that requires contractors to follow proper procedures.
Geoff McKenzie Vice President, Delivery Leader
"Clients expect their contractors to be inherently safe in everything they do. Above all else, we must deliver projects safe to provide a great client experience."
Jeremy Wilkerson  | Senior Project Manager
For our envi­ron­men­tal projects, we conduct a pre-design inves­ti­ga­tion to determine excavation cut lines or location of a groundwater plume so we can ensure we are addressing all cont­a­m­i­na­tion that could create health and safety concerns. We prepare the design and develop a health and safety spec­i­fi­ca­tion that requires contractors to follow proper procedures.
Geoff McKenzie Vice President, Delivery Leader
"Clients expect their contractors to be inherently safe in everything they do. Above all else, we must deliver projects safe to provide a great client experience."
Jeremy Wilkerson  | Senior Project Manager
It's time to go to work when I put on my PPE. Just like you couldn't play a sport without putting on your uniform, putting on PPE puts me in the right frame of mind to go out on the jobsite with the right safety mindset.
Ryan Hagaman Principal, Construc­tion Project Manager
It's time to go to work when I put on my PPE. Just like you couldn't play a sport without putting on your uniform, putting on PPE puts me in the right frame of mind to go out on the jobsite with the right safety mindset.
Ryan Hagaman Principal, Construc­tion Project Manager
Safety is the single thread through all layers of a client's managerial team that a single event, when compared to any other type of issue, can potentially create a lasting negative impact for a project, and the project team. Therefore, legendary is not attainable without zero safety incidents.
Kevin Montesano Project Manager, Associate
Safety is the single thread through all layers of a client's managerial team that a single event, when compared to any other type of issue, can potentially create a lasting negative impact for a project, and the project team. Therefore, legendary is not attainable without zero safety incidents.
Kevin Montesano Project Manager, Associate
Safety by Design Safety by Design
Safety by Design
Ready to lead the charge for safer projects? Learn how to set yourself up for success.
Safety Moments Safety Moments
Safety Moments
This down­load­able PPT is packed with safety moments for your next team meeting, tailgate talk or conference call. Nine safety moments and a breakdown of the Safe-Think process will get you started to promoting a culture of safety!

More insights to power your safety culture

Health and Safety Health and Safety
CDM Smith's Health and Safety Program
Our program is based on the principles that people are our greatest asset, accidents and injuries are preventable, and everyone is responsible for safety.