Linbeck Case Study

by Grainne Matthews, Ph.D.
Quality Safety Edge

Despite the unique challenges of the construction industry, Linbeck Construction Corporation in Houston, Texas has achieved a 50% reduction in their incident rate with a Behavioral Safety Process.

Linbeck Safety Record

Linbeck Construction, a Houston based general contractor, has historically had lower injury rates than their industry. In 2002, Linbeck’s medical attention case rate was 4.8 and their lost time case rate was only 1.3. As a result, Linbeck’s worker’s compensation insurance rates were lower than the industry average. As result of improvements in the industry’s safety record, Linbeck anticipated that the advantage they enjoyed in comparative worker’s compensation premiums would erode. Company executives were committed to maintaining their leadership position and looked to meaningful employee involvement to further decrease their incident risk.

Linbeck Leadership

Construction projects, no matter how large, are, by their nature, time limited. The nature of the work and the composition of the workforce also change continuously over the course of the project. From clearing a green-field site to final installation of security systems and internal fittings, the people involved can vary from one superintendent coordinating the work of dozens of subcontractors and their scores of employees to a series of general contractor employees such as ironworkers, laborers, and carpenters. Other barriers cited by many in the industry were the education and literacy levels of employees as well as their level of commitment to the company. Construction workers typically move from contractor to contractor as the level of work varies. Many people were concerned that the short-term nature of employment would mean that employees would not be motivated to participate in a Behavioral Safety process.

These characteristics of the industry had prevented many construction companies from trying an employee-driven Behavioral Safety approach in the past. Linbeck was willing to assemble an employee Design Team to see whether they could design a workable implementation plan for their company.

Employee Involvement

Twenty foremen, superintendents, and project managers – the first three levels of permanent employees – were invited to participate in designing the Behavioral Safety Process following an orientation to the process. After an educational workshop, they conducted their design work in a series of working meetings. Three regional sub-teams customized each of the key elements of the Behavioral Safety Process and drafted an implementation strategy for their differing situations. Each regional team designed a process for a different kind of construction project as well as for their regional operations.

These specific projects included a ground up construction project scheduled to last two years (the new branch of Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in Houston); a renovation project being conducted primarily by subcontractors (Yale University Pierson dormitory in Connecticut), and a multi-year, multi-project renovation and construction where Linbeck is a semi-permanent presence on-site (Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas).

The implementation model devised by the Linbeck team was:

1. Pilot the design on these three representative projects using Quality Safety Edge consultants,
2. Train two internal trainers in each of the three regions during these pilot implementations,
3. Roll out the resulting tested process to all other existing projects using the internal trainers, and
4. Continue to implement the continuously improving process on all future projects and with all new staff as they join the company.

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