As Construction Safety Week unfolds across the U.S., contractors and industry leaders are putting an extra focus on protecting workers by ramping up training, hosting safety stand-downs, and facilitating toolbox talks. Their shared goal: ensuring every worker returns home safely at the end of the day.

According to environmental, health, and safety leaders from some of the country’s largest construction firms, safety is a collaborative effort, not a competition. By sharing knowledge and participating in events like Safety Week, companies say they’re collectively raising the bar for jobsite health and safety.

Several top safety leaders spoke with Construction Dive to share insights into the programs and practices they believe are making the biggest impact.

Dave Hulverson, Granite Construction

“The most significant safety practice we have enacted in the past several years is our STCKY initiative,” Hulverson said. “STCKY stands for ‘Stuff that can kill you,’ and is a training enhancement that teaches our workers about the riskiest high-energy hazards on construction sites and how to recognize and mitigate those hazards. This initiative has been a game-changer in improving worker safety and health.”

Granite also launched the Granite Guard hand safety initiative, which Hulverson said has helped reduce common but less serious injuries by standardizing hand and power tools companywide. “This has helped reduce the more common though less severe injuries so we can spend more time focused on eliminating STCKY,” he added.

Tricia Thibodeaux, Fluor

“Certain construction operations exhibit a disproportionately high number of precursors for fatalities or serious injuries,” Thibodeaux explained. “After evaluating industry data and our own incident history, Fluor identified nine operations conducted widely across the company that present the greatest risk of a fatality or serious injury.”

To address those risks, Thibodeaux said Fluor brought together subject matter experts to refine work practices, training, and risk assessments for what they call Life Critical operations.

She also emphasized the company’s Safer Choices Together initiative: “Fluor developed the Safer Choices Together program to educate workers about their personal risk tolerance and its impact on decision-making. This initiative underscores the importance of making safer choices and recognizing potential hazards before they become issues.”

“Given the multitude of decisions made daily, each with the potential for error, effective decision-making is crucial to maintaining our Safer Together culture,” Thibodeaux said. “Individuals must choose to work safely, and their safe choices are facilitated by both personal and management engagement.”

She added: “Safer Choices Together emphasizes individual learning, self-awareness, personal investment and growth, and input from the work front, empowering construction professionals to make informed and safe decisions.”

‍Lonnie Schock, DPR

“Like others in the construction industry, we have come to recognize that the things that cause high-frequency injuries, like hand and soft tissue injuries, are not the same things that cause severe, high-impact incidents,” Schock said. “With that context, DPR has expanded our safety focus to be more all-encompassing and to equip our teams with the right tools and resources to better anticipate risks, so they can be effectively managed and thus keep people safe.”

DPR is also piloting technology-driven solutions. “We have started exploring the use of new, emerging technologies like machine learning and AI, to analyze data and predict potential jobsite hazards so that we can more effectively and proactively act before something goes wrong,” Schock added.

Todd Friis, Clayco

“We rely a lot on our data to inform the path we take with our safety program,” Friis said. “For example, we see that a lot of injuries happen earlier in the day, so we have placed an emphasis on ‘The Golden Hour.’ It’s that time, first thing in the morning where our field supervisors spend a lot more time out of the office and in the field.”

Friis also noted a growing need to improve safety awareness among newer workers. “Over the years, we have seen more and more workers who are brand new to the construction workforce that do not have a lot of understanding of construction safety,” he said.

Looking ahead, Clayco is requiring all workers on its jobsites to have at least an OSHA 10 construction certification. “While this requirement technically doesn’t go into effect until July 1 of this year, we are already working with our trade partners to help their workers complete this training now,” Friis explained. “It is our feeling that making this a part of our process will help increase awareness and knowledge of safety, not just on Clayco jobsites, but as they move out to work for other contractors as well, helping to improve safety in some way across the industry.”

Bryan Kingsbury, Consigli

“Beyond making basic upgrades or enhancements to PPE or equipment, such as requiring helmets with chin strap retention, we’ve also identified opportunities where we can leverage our in-house Virtual Design & Construction team to create safer, more sustainable jobsites,” Kingsbury said.

He described using drones to inspect challenging areas: “Using drones flown by our VDC team, we can conduct virtual safety walks for high-reach and higher-risk areas, like roofs and site perimeters, which allows us to inspect and improve areas that aren’t easily accessible.”

Consigli also implemented an AI-based tool to enhance hazard detection. “We’re also using a new AI tool to analyze images taken of our jobsites, identify safety hazards and make corrective recommendations in an efficient and effective way,” Kingsbury explained. “With AI and cutting-edge VDC solutions, issues with site access, PPE, material storage and more can all be quickly identified — and resolved — by Consigli teams.”

Jeff Palombo, Robins & Morton

“Our approach to safety management is grounded in our human performance operating philosophy, which acknowledges the complexity of our operating system and its influence on behavior, including human error,” Palombo said. “We understand that errors expose system weaknesses, not personal failings, and blame does not improve performance — fixing the process does.”

Palombo added: “By emphasizing that workers are not the problem, and are instead part of the solution, a project’s leadership, culture, safety system design and defenses can truly thrive and succeed.”

To support this philosophy, Robins & Morton implemented several tools: “We have developed tools, defenses and consequence control strategies that provide our workforce with the capability and flexibility to safely perform work in an ever-evolving environment. Those include: Task planning meetings. Post-task reviews. Performance coaching. Granting team members stop-work authority. Team forums.”

Construction Safety Week continues to highlight the industry’s collective commitment to innovation, collaboration, and empowering workers to make safe choices every day.

Originally reported by Zachary Phillips in Construction Dive.