While most companies strive for a spotless safety record, one company has beaten the odds and gone over 4.5 years and 4.5 million craft hours without a single recordable injury or time-loss incident.
Scheck Industries, a turnkey industrial construction contractor out of Countryside Ill., places a great emphasis on safety within the organization, and their efforts have resulted in their highest safety record to date.
“Scheck Industries has a long standing reputation for effective safety management,” says Joe Lasky, Director of Corporate Safety, Health, & Environment for Scheck. Having a strong safety culture is something the company has been proud for years, and since Lasky joined the team in 2007, he has only helped push the safety program to next level, with up-to-date resources and the introduction of the J.A.W.S. program.
The J.A.W.S. program debuted in 2008, giving Scheck Industries’ Safety, Health, and Environmental Program a facelift. The program, which stands for “Job Aids for Working Safely (J.A.W.S),” includes J.A.W.S. Daily Talks, weekly J.A.W.S. Job Aids and J.A.W.S. Alerts for quick action. It also provides information, procedures and forms to help managers and supervisors perform their work more safely.
While the company is very proud of its safety record, the key to its success is never taking it for granted, says Richard Scheck, President of Scheck Industries. The company looks at every day as a new day and is constantly making changes, updates and revisions to their program.
Its latest revision in 2012 incorporates new policies and procedures, inquires from third party consulting organizations and lessons learned from each project, Lasky says.
“The J.A.W.S. program is basically a proactive approach to safety,” he continues. “Instead of reacting, restoring and reminding, we strive to recognize and prevent hazards.”
The hazard recognition approach is emphasized and broken-down on the company website. Pre-Job Safety Analyses/ Risk Mitigation Plans are prepared for every project, and Daily Safe Work Plans are designed to help supervisors highlight any potential hazards on the job, Lasky explains. These checks are intended to help identify issues such as a grinding pipe to remind workers to wear protective earplugs for noise hazards, he continues.
However, despite having solid procedures for preventing risk, the program would be nothing without dedication and participation from Scheck employees on every level. The commitment of upper level management, supervisors and craft workers has generated Scheck’s safety culture and played a major role in the maintaining worker safety, Lasky says.
Click here to learn more about Scheck Industries and their safety program.