Safety First: A Year in Review

New Year, New Goals

The New Year is often thought of as an opportunity for a fresh start and a new beginning. At East & Westbrook, the New Year is also a great opportunity for everyone at the company to review their safety performance from the year and set appropriate goals for the next 365 days. In that spirit, we have made it an annual tradition to host a safety summit that is attended by all E&W employees.

This year, due to our continued growth, the summit was actually a large breakfast meeting that took place off-site to accommodate our more than 100 employees. Extensive remarks were made by our company president and safety director on E&W’s impressive safety results from 2016 and how the company can improve even further in 2017.

Reinforcing Our Reputation

Due to the commendable efforts of our company’s leadership and its dedicated employees, this past year proved to be a particularly safe one, and the numbers speak for themselves. Our total incident rate (based on per 100 employees) was only .89, which is an especially impressive figure when compared to the 2016 industry average of 3.5. Our company is very proud of the steps our employees have taken to ensure everyone’s safety on the job, especially when so many man-hours were worked in so many challenging and potentially hazardous environments.

Goals to Strive For

Despite a very low 2016 incident rate, our yearly goal is always zero. This was a main topic of discussion at this year’s summit, where the E&W leadership addressed the many ways in which this could be accomplished. Some of the main ideas that were brought up included:

• Combating complacency by emphasizing the importance of keeping eyes and minds on task at all times, no matter what the job is.
• Always avoiding the line-of-fire and maintaining proper grip/traction while working.
• Remaining vigilant and proactive. After all, just because something bad hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it never will.
• Always relying on and applying the mandatory training experience that every E&W employee has gained through their extensive time spent in OSHA 10-hour training, Passport Training, First Aid/CPR, and/or OSHA 30-hour training.
• Continually incentivizing our workers, who have put in such great effort to ensure the safety of themselves and others throughout the year. In fact, we did just that at this year’s summit by concluding it with a massive drawing. Rest assured, plenty of prizes (including cash!) were given away.

We look forward to all the new work that 2017 will bring, but even more so, we look forward to further solidifying our reputation as the safest concrete construction company in the area.