The construction costs of NOT working toward incident prevention.

Not all accidents can be prevented, but many can. The costs of poor incident management fall into three categories: the loss of life, the loss of money, and the loss of work time due to stoppages related to incidents.

Loss of Life

The greatest cost of poor incident management and prevention is life. Every day 6,300 people around the world die in work-related accidents or illnesses, according to the International Labor Organization. In 2017, OSHA reported that more than 20 percent of worker fatalities in private industry in the United States were in construction. Nine hundred and seventy-one (971) construction workers died in 2017. Almost 60 percent of those deaths were the result of what OSHA calls the Fatal Four.

• Falls
• Struck by object
• Electrocution
• Caught-in/between

 

Falls

Most often, people consider falls as an incident in which a worker was working far above the ground and, for one reason or another, fell from that height. That’s not always the case, though. In this article, the worker tripped and landed on his head, dying as a result of the fall.

Struck by object

Sometimes it’s not the people who fall, but the objects in a construction area that deal the fatal blow. At an MIT construction site, beams fell and hit multiple workers, killing one. In Bethesda, Maryland, a worker died after being hit by a pipe from the pressurized tank he was working on.

Struck by object

Sometimes it’s not the people who fall, but the objects in a construction area that deal the fatal blow. At an MIT construction site, beams fell and hit multiple workers, killing one. In Bethesda, Maryland, a worker died after being hit by a pipe from the pressurized tank he was working on.

Electrocutions

Two workers in Omaha, Nebraska were lucky to be alive after being electrocuted at a construction site. In addition to the injuries they sustained, more than 2,000 electric customers experienced a power outage.

Caught-in/between

OSHA fined an Iowa company after a worker died as a result of the way he was operating an aerial lift. He suffered fatal injuries when he was pinned between the lift controls and a beam. OSHA cited poor training. (More about training later in the post.)

No project manager or contractor who cares about people wants the life of an employee to be considered a “cost of doing business.” Yet these incidents are costly. These incidents don’t include injuries that permanently impact a worker’s future or his ability to perform job tasks.

Caught-in/between

OSHA fined an Iowa company after a worker died as a result of the way he was operating an aerial lift. He suffered fatal injuries when he was pinned between the lift controls and a beam. OSHA cited poor training. (More about training later in the post.)

No project manager or contractor who cares about people wants the life of an employee to be considered a “cost of doing business.” Yet these incidents are costly. These incidents don’t include injuries that permanently impact a worker’s future or his ability to perform job tasks.

Loss of Money

Beyond the loss of life, there are also financial ramifications for poor incident management. These may come in the form of fines from OSHA or another organization, lawsuits filed by the victims or their families, and court appeals by the company. The four violations OSHA cites (and fines) are:

• Willful violations in which the company was knowingly negligent about preventing such incidents.
• Serious violations could result in death or serious injury.
• Repeated violations are just that. The same violation is still happening even after being cited.
• Other-than-serious violations directly relate to job safety and health but aren’t categorized as serious.

Let’s put some numbers on the potential financial losses. Consider these situations:

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• The incident mentioned above with the Iowa worker who died after being pinned between the aerial lift controls and a beam resulted in a fine to the company of $3,900 for failure to properly train that employee.
• A Grand Rapids construction company was fined a total of $8,500 when a worker (and father) was killed after being struck by wind-blown scaffolding.
• OSHA fined Florida contractors $110,250 after a beam shifted on a crane and fatally hit a worker in the head.
• Four Toledo iron workers were killed and four injured when a truss crane collapsed on them. The construction company paid $293,000 in fines and millions in lawsuits for failing to secure the truss properly.
• A Florida construction company filed for bankruptcy after accruing up to $90 million in losses from one major incident and multiple other incidents prior.

Work Stoppage

Work stoppage means downtime for part or all of a construction crew in which no work can be done. It costs money and negatively impacts deadlines. Accidents may cause work stoppage for any number of reasons, but the most likely are for making repairs to equipment, replacing injured workers or damaged equipment, and for OSHA investigations into the cause of accidents.

Construction at a school stopped when a worker fell 14 feet to his death at a construction site while an investigation took place. The man who died was a subcontractor who would have to be replaced.

One construction worker suffered a career-ending injury when a large steel plate severed both of his legs. Not only will the company have to find a replacement, but this man will need to find another source of income.

At a construction site in Massachusetts, work stopped while OSHA investigated an incident in which heavy machinery broke a man’s leg. Obviously, the man will be out of work for a period of time, and depending on the results of the investigation, the machine may need to be repaired or replaced.

Can you really afford any of these losses?

The Value of Incident Prevention in the Construction Industry

Proper incident management does more than document (although that is an essential part); it works to prevent future losses by helping workers avoid incidents in general. The National Security Council predicts that “every $1 invested in injury prevention can return between $2 to $6 as productivity increases, contentment with work and the workplace among employees rises, and higher retention creates a more sustainable and successful working environment.” Additionally, OSHA states that eliminating the Fatal Four (mentioned above) would save 582 workers’ lives in America every year.

That’s an ROI well worth considering.

Incident management systems, like Verity, help you identify repeat incidents (whether or not they have been cited by OSHA), assist internal auditors in pinpointing potential risks, and inform security measures. In other words, it helps construction companies and contractors know where additional training may be needed, what safety measures should be addressed with more fervor, and when equipment maintenance should be performed.

Training

Repeat incidents should lead to changes in training. An incident management system should show with clarity which incidents are happening over and over again. Once you identify those incidents, you can adjust or add training accordingly. Doing so could help you avoid incidents like these:

• A metal worker had to be rushed to the hospital after sustaining injuries when he became trapped in a machine used to load sheet metals.
• A Sheboygan construction worker died when he became pinned between heavy equipment and a wall while pouring concrete.

Both of these incidents potentially could have been avoided with better training on being aware of where an individual’s body is in relation to equipment.

Safety Measures (OSHA focuses)

An analysis of collective incidents may identify specific safety concerns that need to be addressed. Safety measures could have prevented the death of a Delaware man who died when he was hit by a concrete pumper truck as it backed up. Neither the driver nor the victim was aware of what the other was doing at the time.

OSHA referenced the number of construction deaths that result from falls as a reason for their 2019 safety focus campaign: the National Safety Stand-Down. “Falls from elevation continue to be a leading cause of death for construction employees, accounting for 366 of the 971 construction fatalities recorded in 2017 (BLS data).”

Construction companies should use an incident management system to help them identify similar safety concerns, to prevent the costs of worker falls.

Equipment Maintenance

A Sydney construction worker died when the forklift he was operating ran him over. What if the forklift remained in gear because it hadn’t been maintained properly? This article doesn’t state the findings of the investigation, but it’s not too difficult to imagine the dangers of improperly maintained equipment at a construction site.

What about the crane that fell on a passing vehicle, injuring the driver? Was that a case of faulty equipment or poor training? Either way, it could have been prevented by applying the knowledge gathered from an incident management system.

Verity Incident Management System tracks assets. Use the tracking functionality to inform workers when equipment is due for maintenance and what maintenance tasks need to be performed.

Conclusion

There are inherent risks in the construction industry, and not all accidents can be prevented but many can. At a return of between 200 and 600 percent, don’t you think it’s worth it to invest in incident management?

Verity understands that construction workers are not usually “techy” so the platform is incredibly user friendly and easy to use. It was also designed with multi-site operations in mind, providing a centralized location for all incident reporting within the web application itself. Need to see it for yourself? Schedule a free demo. You can’t afford not to.