As part of its Zero Harm commitment to making safety personal, Balfour Beatty Construction is set to launch its Safety Week 2016 campaign May 2 – 6. Joining forces with over 40 national and global construction firms to sponsor the week-long campaign, Balfour Beatty teams and trade partners across the country will make a stand for safety and reflect on what’s most important – going home safe to their families every day.
Safety Week provides an opportunity for Balfour Beatty to thank its workforce and partners for supporting safety year-round and to recognize their commitment to remaining injury free. Throughout the week, Balfour Beatty project teams around the country will recognize safety heroes, hold safety stand-downs and conduct safety trainings. For example, in Southern California, Balfour Beatty industry partners will conduct various on-site training sessions such as fall protection awareness, ladder safety, excavation and trench safety, in addition to hosting a blood pressure screening. In Atlanta, project teams will compete with one another to win prizes for the most creative ways in promoting safety week on their job sites.
“We have worked diligently to transform our safety culture to one that focuses on keeping our workforce safe through training and positive reinforcement not just enforcement of rules,” said Steve Smithgall, senior vice president of safety and operations for Balfour Beatty Construction. “Imagine how far we can move the needle on achieving Zero Harm if our project teams and trade partners embrace the concept of looking out for one another? As we reflect on what safety means for our company during Safety Week, we hope this kind of focus on people and making safety personal helps start an industry movement so everyone goes home safe.”
As part of Balfour Beatty’s commitment to accepting nothing less than Zero Harm for anyone coming into contact with its work, the company continues to improve its year-over-year safety performance. Though the ultimate goal remains to achieve zero, the company lowered its recordable incidence rate (RIR) from 2.43 in 2012 to 1.56 in 2015, and decreased its lost time incidence rate (LTIR) from .29 in 2012 to .12 in 2015.
In 2015, Balfour Beatty launched its new Zero Harm safety video designed to help make safety personal by featuring trade professionals on live construction sites and following team members at home with their families. The award-winning video served as a central theme of Smithgall’s presentation at LCI Congress in which he described the company’s Zero Harm journey. Produced in both English and Spanish, he shared Balfour Beatty’s Zero Harm safety video as an example of how the company has changed the way it engages its workforce on safety.
About Balfour Beatty Construction US
An industry leader for more than 80 years, Balfour Beatty Construction US provides general contracting, at-risk construction management, and design-build services for a wide variety of markets, serving clients in both the public and private sectors. The company is the U.S. subsidiary of London-based Balfour Beatty plc (LSE: BBY), a leading international infrastructure group that finances, develops, builds and maintains complex building programs focused on social and commercial buildings, power and utility systems, and transportation. Consistently ranked among the nation’s largest building contractors, Balfour Beatty Construction Services US has been cited as a Top 10 Domestic Building Contractor and Top 10 Green Builder by Engineering News-Record. To learn more, visit www.balfourbeattyus.com or look for BalfourBeattyUS on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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Contacts:
Matt Averitt, 214-451-1030
maveritt@balfourbeattyus.com
