The safety of employees, trade partners, and community members is important for any construction project. But at JE Dunn, the focus on safety is more than just a priority, it is part of the company culture.
“The work we do as an industry is dangerous, but we have committed as a company to be in control of our safety success,” JE Dunn National Safety Director James Robles said. “We take safety very seriously. As soon as we initiate a project, we start assessing safety and risk, and create a plan in partnership with our clients, our trade partners, and the community.”
At JE Dunn, a team of safety professionals, skilled in their dedication to keeping people safe, are assigned to each region, each market, and each project has safety oversight from a member of the company’s safety team. Emphasis on ensuring all aspects of safety is vital. The success of a 100-year-old company doesn’t happen by chance. Just like the integration of an effective safety program doesn’t happen by chance.
Training is a key component of JE Dunn’s strong safety culture. Project safety meetings are held every week, incorporating safety handouts and “toolbox safety training” pertinent to each project condition. Continual, off-site safety training including first aid, CPR, trenching safety, safe crane operations, and more are provided to employees. Additionally, all trade partners are required to provide a written site-specific safety program and attend all weekly safety meetings. They also lead scope-specific safety meetings, which ensures a collaborative safety approach for all assigned to the project.
Additionally, buy-in from all aspects of the organization, from the top down, set the stage for the focus on safety. Executives, presidents, regional leaders, and other key leaders in the company regularly conduct safety walks of projects, focusing on all areas of the project to make sure safety remains a priority.
Each year in May, JE Dunn joins in the national construction Safety Week initiative, to highlight and celebrate the ways JE Dunn and its teams focus on safety. The Safety group also promotes various safety initiatives throughout the year, to reinforce safe practices.
JE Dunn also celebrates strong safety results, both internally and with trade partners.
“Publicly honoring safe behavior helps reinforce safety practice,” Robles said. “It’s important to us, to our trade partners, and to our employees.”
Robles and his team continuously track Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) reports of injury incidents on job sites and proudly report a company TRIR better national averages in the construction industry.
Robles hopes the safety practices at JE Dunn continue making sites “safer but also make a positive impact on the industry as a whole.”