Goals and milestones do pay off with due diligence.
Just look to San Diego’s T.B. Penick & Sons and its entity, Innovative Concrete Systems.
The employees of the company recently went 1,000 days with no time lost to workplace injuries.
Amazing in this day and age? Certainly.
This performance equates to almost three years with no employee losing time from job-related injuries.
On top of that, Innovative Concrete Systems and T.B. Penick are part of a work force that typically has the highest incidence of work-related injury. It can be one of the most hazardous and toughest to insure.
The company focused on this very goal four years ago. The family-owned business at 9747 Olson Drive embraced the philosophy that employees should be treated like family.
Brothers Marc and Tim Penick recognized that a safety-conscious workforce would result in a safe work environment, fewer injuries and efficient completion of a job.
“Construction-related jobs require the use of many tools and heavy equipment, all processes that can cause injury if not properly used,” said Tim Penick, president of T.B. Penick. “Misuse of tools and equipment, poor planning of a construction process, or overlooking a potential hazard like exposure to falls, excavations or traffic, for example, can have serious consequences to our employees.”
From this attitude and vision, a culture of safety evolved for T.B. Penick. Along with it came a safety program that all employees must complete before starting any job-related task. The program’s goal was simply to increase awareness of safety first for self, then for others in any work environment. To launch the formal plan, Pete Lupo was hired as safety director for T.B. Penick.
“We are extremely proud of the success of our innovative program and the commitment of our group,” said Byron Klemaske II, executive vice-president of T.B. Penick’s Group 5-Innovative Concrete Systems. “We believe that the safety of every person is our top priority. This unsurpassed safety record demonstrates the level of commitment of each of our employees who have worked hard to bring our culture of safety to life.”
Companies in T.B. Penick’s line of work typically have higher insurance rates due to the nature of the work and its inherent job-related hazards.
However, T.B. Penick is able to control its rates by keeping its workers safe.
“We work hard to educate our personnel to eliminate or control on-the-job hazards,” Tim said. “Our people are trained on state-of-the-art equipment and processes with safety built into production. We have a saying, ‘A safe job is a productive job.’ Pete Lupo continually evaluates projects and their processes.”
Lupo and T.B. Penick’s insurance broker, Golden Triangle’s Barney & Barney, worked together to produce the safety plan. They each work with the insurance carrier to help keep things under control.
“Experts audit our activities and identify any potential gaps,” Tim added. “This is all done in an effort to keep safe. The savings on insurance is a secondary benefit to the health and safety of our people. There is no amount of money that would cause Penick to jeopardize someone’s well being.”
In the workplace, reinforcing a safety plan with new employees is always a challenge.
“New employees are interviewed and rated on experience and knowledge,” Tim said. “Once they are rated, they can be hired and placed to work if they meet our current need. All new employees are given a thorough job description and asked if there is any reason they will not be able to perform tasks required by the classification under which they are hired, in order to avoid assigning a person a task they will not be able to perform safely.
“Our company cannot and does not discriminate against someone’s prior work-related injuries. New employees must attend a mandatory safety orientation prior to going to work and are continually trained in safety to prevent injuries.”
With this type of attitude, safely simply makes sense.
“Our company has proven it is possible to manage risks successfully in an inherently hazardous business,” Klemaske said. “We know of no other company in the region that has achieved such a unique milestone.”
A distinctive feature of T.B. Penick’s program is that it uses random on-the-job-site drug testing.
“In a labor market as tight as ours, many companies are enticed to make concessions to keep their jobs staffed,” Tim said. “To us, this is simply unacceptable. No schedule is more important than our people’s safety.”
T.B. Penick is also instituting a “Green Hat Program” that involves a six-week safety evaluation and training for all new field personnel. New employees are evaluated weekly on their production in relation to safety, with additional training provided as needed.
“With the boom in construction drawing people from other walks of life, we found that our success and that of our employees rests on enforcing a strict culture of safety,” Tim said. “The company is committed to keep up with trends and changes in construction to protect all of our people.
“Penick has won the San Diego chapter of Associated General Contractors of America’s Constriction Safety Excellence Award (CSEA) for our division for two years running. We have also received safety awards from the American Society of Concrete Contractors in the past two years. Penick’s current experience modification rate is 0.86, which means we are 14 percent better than our average competitors and this rate is continually improving.”
The CSEA Award is given to building contractors with between 300,000 to 700,000 employee hours of on-the-job work per year.
T.B. Penick & Sons is a 100-year-old company that provides full-service general contracting services for clients in the commercial and public building sectors. It has completed more than 4,000 projects since its start in 1905. For more information visit www.tbpenick.com. n