BGCI Closes Out 2022 with Impressive Safety Record

By Logan Zeferjahn, Director of Safety

In 2022, we celebrated our third anniversary, the receipt of two Excellence in Construction Awards from Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), and the completion of several substantial projects. We also closed out the year with more than 1 million safe man hours and a total recordable incident rate (TRIR) of 0.19.  

This achievement is a result of the hard work and dedication of our co-workers. It also confirms that a strong culture and living our Incident and Injury Free (IIF) values can help send our co-workers home safely.

Everyone is Accountable for Safety

IIF is a personal and organizational commitment to create work environments that protect the safety and well-being of our co-workers, project partners, and clients. It is also a framework for building prevention into our processes and procedures. Some of the steps we take to create safe jobsites include:

• Exceeding baseline standards. We don’t just meet OSHA standards; we exceed them. Our safety policies, procedures, and standards reflect our drive to do better than baseline.
• Setting high expectations. Safety is everyone’s responsibility. We expect our supervisors and craftspeople to be each other’s keepers, and we empower them to take action when they see a potential hazard.
• Training, training, training. Our mentorship program pairs new hires with experienced mentors to ensure they learn how to do things the Baker way from the start. In addition, we constantly train, talk about, and reinforce our safety standards and procedures to keep them top of mind for our co-workers.
• Make sure it’s working. A year is a long time. Every day for 365 days we must be on our toes. Having good processes is only effective if you make sure they work. That is why engaging our site leadership in performing daily and weekly safety audits is a critical part of ensuring that we can identify and correct hazards before they cause injuries or damage to property.

Third-Party Confirmation of Safety Practices

While we take pride in being independent self-starters, we don’t believe in going it alone when it comes to safety. Our safety program is annually evaluated by the ABC STEP program, which measures participating organizations’ safety processes and procedures across 25 components.

In November, we were awarded a diamond-level STEP designation, the highest level awarded by the program. Companies that receive a Diamond STEP designation are considered 645% safer than the industry average.

A Project Partner and Employer of Choice

For our team, safety isn’t simply a matter of compliance; it’s about doing the right thing. As a company that values people above all else, we are naturally inclined to emphasize safety as a way of life. We are constantly assessing and refining our safety policies and procedures to ensure our co-workers and project partners go home safely to their families every night.

Safety is also part of our compact with our clients. It is the cornerstone to fulfilling our promises to deliver quality work on time and on budget. When safety comes first, everything else follows.