When Troy Teepe worked on construction sites early in his career, he says he didn’t always follow safety protocols to a T. Today, he compares the confidence workers develop that makes them skip safety measures to playing in the lottery
Teepe’s grandfather started a plumbing business in the 1950s, which eventually expanded into heating, ventilation and mechanical work. When he joined the business, Teepe began working on larger commercial projects such as hotels and schools.
Fifteen years ago, he moved into the security industry and Teepe is now vice president of security at global insurance and technology company Charles Taylor. His work often takes him into the field, assisting company security directors or helping companies build their own programs.
Here, Teepe talks to Construction Dive about recent safety trends, how industry leaders are raising the bar, and what contractors can do to catch up.
The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
CONSTRUCTION Immersion: What is a safety failure you are seeing in the industry that needs to be addressed?
TROY TEEPE: I think what we see the most across the industry is people chasing from behind. To get the job done today and be on bigger projects, you need to be driven by a strong safety culture. We are seeing companies out there, if they want to work, they do everything right from the productivity side, but the security is not there. They are just being reactive instead of proactive about the situation.
I think this is where we see the biggest problems: people are simply not prepared for the expectations of the construction industry today.
This is a relatively new thing as far as lag goes. Expectations have risen and perhaps the practices of some companies have not kept up. I would say that in the last five years it has increased a lot. Large general contractors have gone far beyond OSHA requirements and want a safe workplace, they want a workplace that is risk free if possible.
So, if I’m a contractor who’s behind, how can I catch up?
Complying with the requirements can seem like a huge headache. But it’s about hiring the right person or consultant who knows how to handle these situations to get you on the right track.
Troy Teepe
Permission granted by Charles Taylor
I think the challenge becomes an overwhelming task for people who don’t know how to do it. If you own your own construction company, what do you focus on the most? You’re no longer focused on your OSHA 300 records, you’re out there focused on getting as much work as you can and having the manpower to do it. And this is where security is left behind.
So you really have to start and build a base. You have to understand if you want to achieve a good safety culture, you just have to start with the basics.
How can companies create and maintain a safety culture?
If you go to OSHA’s website, where they talk about things like a safety culture, they say it’s the shared beliefs, practices, and attitudes that exist in an establishment and an atmosphere created by those beliefs and attitudes.
I just look at it in a more practical way. To me, it’s a culture where both employees and management are competent and confident in safety.
And you don’t just wake up today and this happens. This is something you have to work for. You must have leadership commitment that sets the tone for the entire organization.
Will higher expectations from industry leaders have a prolonged impact?
Yes, I think so. If you look at the OSH Act of 1970, where we are today more than 50 years later, the incidence rates that have gone down since then, I’ve seen that it was driven by required compliance. Now we have this expectation of compliance to work on these jobs and even be able to bid on the work of the jobs. So if you keep that in mind, the incidence rates will continue to drop.
An accident or incident in the workplace is not something that just happens. There is a cause. There is a reason. There is human behavior behind it. There is a difference between whether an incident is controllable or, in rare cases, uncontrollable.
But I can tell you that in every investigation I’ve done there’s always been a reason, and it’s usually because a protocol wasn’t followed.
Is this human error more often due to overconfidence or ignorance?
I’ve worked with a lot of young safety professionals and I always tell them when they go on a job site to remember when you see something, so their eyes are trained to look at what the code of federal regulatory standards says in the industry. the construction
Sometimes people look at things and say, “Well, that’s just plain ignorant,” and I tell them to try to see it as a different view. Let’s find out why. How much training have they had? How much does your company promote safety culture?
And when you start asking these questions, many times I’m not surprised to learn that the training hasn’t been great. I have met people who have been trained during the training but it has not been in their mother tongue. It doesn’t give them the training they need. I see all the time, especially fall protection, people wear their gear wrong and don’t know any better.
And then there are people who have the training and choose to ignore it completely.
If you keep doing things wrong all the time and take shortcuts, you can get away with it for a long time. But eventually it will catch up with you.
