Linbeck Case Study cont.

by Grainne Matthews, Ph.D.
Quality Safety Edge

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Implementation Challenges Overcome

Language

The majority of most crews and a large minority of other employees were most comfortable reading and speaking Spanish. We trained two Spanish-speaking trainers to deliver the Observer workshop, translated the checklists into Spanish, and provided feedback on the process in Spanish at toolbox safety meetings.

Schedule

Linbeck work schedule is affected by the weather and subcontractors work in unpredictable ways. We broke the original training workshops into shorter modules that could be delivered one at a time without adversely affecting the project schedules.

Employee Reassignment

Linbeck employees move from project to project as the work dictates. Instead of waiting to roll out the process to new processes, employees themselves decided to start Behavioral Safety on each new project to which they were reassigned. This was an example of the empowerment of local Steering Committees. Steering Committees were very creative in devising ways to ensure that all their participants continued to reap the benefit of the process no matter where they worked.

Short-term Employees

Although the rate of hiring new employees on some pilot projects might have been considered high enough to justify scheduling an Observer workshop, the local Steering Committees were committed to involving newly hired employees as soon as possible. They therefore arranged for each employee to be individually trained on the job by a Design Team / Steering Committee member.

Success of Pilot Projects

Employee participation as peer observers / feedback providers was amazingly high – higher than that achieved by many companies with a more stable and more educated workforce. Participation – which the Steering Committees define as conducting two observations a week – averages 99% at the first location, 95% at the second, and 65% at the third. Steering Committees in all three locations are active and strong. They meet regularly to analyze the data for opportunities to improve the work environment to encourage safe work practices. They also manage individual recognition, site goal setting, and site celebration plans to support employee participation.

Employee response has been overwhelmingly positive – a recent survey found that employees report that they believe they have improved their safety at home as well as on the job. The first pilot location reduced their total incident rate from 30 to 6.5 and sustained that rate in the fifteen months since implementation. The second reduced their already low rate of 5.0 to 3.0 and continue to sustain that in the sixteen months since kick off. These successful projects illustrate one of the key features of the Quality Safety Edge Behavioral Safety Process – employee and manager involvement from the beginning of the design process through implementation. In fact, employees on one pilot site revised the design to include observing subcontractor employees because they believed this was where the greatest exposure on their project lay. The response from the subcontractor employees has been positive – they don’t seem to mind being observed and receiving constructive feedback on their safety practices.

Linbeck executive management have declared their Behavioral Safety process a success and they have begun to roll out the process to all existing projects. In fact, for future large projects, Linbeck plans to actively involve all major subcontractors in the Behavioral Safety process.

Linbeck Results as of August 2004

Bio

Grainne Matthews is a project manager with Quality Safety Edge. Grainne earned her doctorate at Western Michigan University where her advisors were Alyce Dickinson and Bill Redmon.

Quality Safety Edge, founded by Western Michigan University graduate, Terry McSween and by Judy Stowe (University of North Texas) works with clients to develop, implement, and improve employee-based performance improvement systems. Linbeck is the first commercial general contractor with which Grainne and QSE have developed a behavioral safety process but two other construction firms are currently piloting their new process.

www.qualitysafetyedge.com

grainne@qualitysafetyedge.com