Safety setup

There is no question your workers are your most valuable asset, and they have an extremely dangerous occupation. Ensuring their safety translates to greater productivity, efficiency and profitability. Regardless of what types of roof systems your crews install, their safety not only is essential but also paramount to your success.

To that end, ensuring you take basic steps to prevent accidents and injuries, including using the correct equipment and tools, is necessary as is implementing strict safety guidelines and practices that are more inclusive of employee input.

A safety program

An effective, functional safety program is directly tied to the success of any roofing company. Regardless of whether your roofing company employs a small handful of skilled workers or a few hundred, an effective safety program will be beneficial.

Although traditional safety programs provide for the collection of critical data and information necessary to evaluate and measure overall job safety, there are additional benefits that can be derived from a safety program that rewards proactive safety measures. Providing incentives for adhering to a safety program helps shift the focus of safety from accident reporting to accident prevention.

With staff safety being a priority, my company, MHS Legacy Group, the parent company for RSS Roofing Solutions & Services, St. Louis, implemented a proactive safety program initiative in 2012 called the MHS Legacy Safety League (LSL). After the first year of implementing the LSL program, we realized tangible and positive results. The LSL program is different from a traditional safety program: It is designed to provide key incentives to employees for their recognition, correction and reporting of unsafe conditions in company-owned facilities, projects and practices and on work sites and seeks to instill a new culture of workplace safety.

The LSL program focuses on pre-emptive hazard elimination and encourages all employees to make safety a proactive priority rather than focusing on zero-accident reporting. The LSL program results show a shift in employees' focus on safety, and their participation has helped identify ways to avoid accidents before they occur.

As part of the LSL program, employees accumulate points by attending weekly safety meetings and filing reports for three basic observations: hazard recognition, hazard elimination and positive observations made on job sites. A goal of the program was to shift the perception of on-the-job safety to a shared responsibility assigned to every member of the project team on the roof, not just the safety director.

The LSL program created a system of two-way trust that encourages all employees to do the right thing with the company fully supporting an employee's decision not to work when he or she deems it unsafe to do so. Employees are encouraged to be proactive and document unsafe situations so we can avoid potential future unsafe working conditions.

Measuring the effectiveness of a safety management program is as important as its implementation. Traditionally, there are two common measures employed in the roofing industry to evaluate job safety, safety performance and internal safety programs: leading indicators and lagging indicators.

Leading indicators focus on future safety performance and measure factors that indicate value and direction of performance, such as the number of new safety controls implemented, risk and hazard evaluation, and potential job hazard analysis. Lagging indicators measure facts and past events, such as the frequency and severity of injuries; lost workday rates caused by injuries, fatalities or other job-related accidents; and workers' compensation claims. Although leading and lagging indicators provide valuable figures and statistics, finding the right blend of both doesn't necessarily ensure greater safety on the roof.

To improve traditional safety programs, you might want to consider focusing on more than data and the numbers derived from lagging indicators and instead evaluate employee participation and incentives through leading indicators.

For example, traditional internal safety programs track efficiency based on recordable injuries. However, at times these programs don't place enough, or any, importance on identifying and understanding the cause of incidents. Additionally, lagging indicator programs base employee incentives on recordable documented incidents and injuries. This model leads employees to weigh their options of whether to report hazardous situations, unsafe work conditions and injuries for fear of losing their incentives.

For instance, if a worker is injured on the last day of a job and knows the safety performance incentive is based on finishing and completing the job incident-free, he or she may have an incentive to not report the case. A safety program should not reward employees at the cost of injuries and incidents going undocumented.

Cultivate a culture

Whether you are in the process of evaluating your current safety program or plan to create a new one, consider expanding on a traditional safety management program's use of lagging and leading indicators by empowering employees to buy into a culture of safety.

The incentives offered to employees are a powerful tool for cultivating a culture of safety. When we created the LSL program, the focus was on providing incentives for pre-emptive hazard elimination and encouraging all employees to make safety a proactive priority rather than focusing on lagging indicators such as zero-accident reporting. The result was a shift in focus not only on safety but also on developing ways to eliminate every accident possible.

The LSL program incentives offered include company clothing, gift cards and vouchers for boots. Additionally, at the end of the year, we hold an LSL banquet where cash prizes are awarded to top performers. Every employee who participated in the LSL program was entered into a raffle to win flat-screen televisions.

Once your safety program's incentives have been outlined, consider ways of creating a safety scoring system where employees accumulate points to receive those incentives. As previously mentioned, the LSL program awards points to employees who attend safety training meetings and complete reports regarding hazard recognition, hazard elimination and positive observation on the job site. Even a simple preventative measure, such as removing a power cord across a walkway, is enough to award points and grant stop-work authority to your employees to make sure everyone is safe.

Invite employees to participate in developing and/or revising your safety program. By inviting employees to share their thoughts, opinions and ideas, you may be able to ascertain potential risks that previously went unidentified.

One important observation came from a worker whose suggestion could potentially save lives. The observation was a recommendation to revise the procedure for contacting emergency personnel in case of an accident. The employee's observation helped streamline the protocol and procedures in the event an emergency situation occurs. We had all the proper documentation for reporting injuries in emergency situations; however, one thing overlooked was we did not have lists of emergency contacts for each foreman. So we made emergency contacts part of the reports and placed them in every work truck so each foreman has the information readily available.

Fortunately, we didn't have any emergency situations in 2012, but it is an incredible feeling to know our employees not only are looking out for their own safety but also the safety of others and improving everyone's future safety.

As a result of implementing the internal LSL safety program in 2012, we experienced the best year for safety in more than 10 years. That year was the first year in more than four years we were incident-free. During 2012, our employees worked 65,200.1 hours and recorded zero lost workdays, zero lost workday cases, zero restricted workday cases and zero first-aid cases and had zero total Occupational Safety and Health Administration recordable cases.

The new program has brought a great deal of benefits not only to our employees but also our clients. The ability to tell potential clients your company had zero lost workdays during the past year is an incredible selling tool.

Joe Lauberth is general manager of RSS Roofing Services & Solutions—St. Louis, a subsidiary of MHS Legacy Group Inc.

Be aware

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, on average, more than four roofing workers die each month because of falls. And the National Safety Council reports more than 6,000 people die each year from falling from roofs and ladders.

Consequently, before starting any type of roofing job, whether it is a complete roof system replacement, repair or basic maintenance, there are a few steps you can take to minimize the risk of falls.

Start by issuing employees appropriate safety equipment and educating them about how to properly use and wear hard hats, harnesses and suitable footwear. If workers will be on a steep-slope roof, protective equipment such as safety harnesses and guardrails should be used.

Always inspect harnesses for tears, splits, rips, and buckle or D-ring damage. Additionally, always carefully inspect any carabiners and snap hooks used on or with harnesses because excessive use can lead to failure. There are three basic inspections with regard to carabiners and snap hooks. First, make sure surfaces are free of cracks, sharp edges, corrosion, burrs and excessive wear. Second, ensure the carabiner's gate or latch opens, closes and secures properly. Third, be sure the carabiner's rivets are not bent, loose or missing any pieces.

To ensure workers are in the safest work environment possible, place a great deal of importance on employees taking preventative safety measures. For example, workers should routinely clear roofs of excess debris and always store tools to avoid creating tripping hazards.

In addition, ladders should be kept away from electrical wires and electrical boxes. If workers will be working near live electrical wires or boxes, consider using ladders made from nonconductive materials such as fiberglass. Traditional metal ladders can cause electricity to arc, or leap, from a live electrical wire or electrical box to a ladder several feet away.

Working near or around any type of live electrical circuit not only poses risks to those on metal ladders, but there also are a number of materials on every roof that conduct electricity, such as metal flashings and drip edges. You should contact the building owner and local power company before starting any type of work on any roof so they can clear the area of any live electrical circuits, wires or boxes that could potentially pose a threat to your employees.