Happy New Year! Each year, as the clock strikes midnight, millions of people are infused with new passion to pursue their goals. They set their eyes upon a goal that requires commitment and change; restructuring and revising their routines to make themselves “new and improved.”

At Eby we love goals, but we don’t need a new year to see the importance of them! One of the best resolutions we’ve ever made was to change the way safety is integrated into our daily plans. In 2018, we’ll be celebrating the tenth year of our resolution to improve safety at our jobsites.

Eby has been in business for 80 years and has always strived to maintain a safe environment. We love our employees like family and want to prevent them from any injury. Despite our efforts, in 2008 our jobsite incidents were on the rise. We knew a change needed to be made.

A team from Eby set out to re-evaluate our safety practices to determine where things were going wrong. As management reviewed each incident report, they discovered some common threads. Many accidents were tied to rework, unplanned activities or work being done without the proper tools. At this point the team had an enlightening conclusion; safety is inextricably tied to both quality and productivity. It’s obvious when you think about it. When a task has been sufficiently planned and the team is fully prepared with the proper tools, manpower and materials, quality is improved, productivity is increased and the job becomes safer.

For example, after a ladder accident we asked why work from a ladder when a rolling scaffold is much more stable? On a scaffold, the workers have their hands free and their feet stable, resulting in safer and more productive work. Or another example; after an employee was involved in an auto accident we found this was the second trip in a short period of time to the parts store? Better planning reduces trips and makes it less likely to be involved in an auto accident.

If safer, higher quality and more productive jobs required a better plan, then each crew would need the tools to do it. The SQP Form (Safety Quality Productivity) was born out of this. It allows each crew leader to plan out work hour by hour and task by task. Each segment of their day is planned with the required tools, manpower, equipment, materials and safety provisions necessary to accomplish it. Now, everything becomes proactive instead of reactive. Crews aren’t scrambling to find the right tool or safety equipment in the middle of their work. Now everything needed for the task is on hand and ready for use before work begins.

Daily planning has been required by OSHA for some time, and Eby has always met the safety standards. But it still wasn’t good enough. So with the same passion as a new year’s resolution, we set out to change our behavior; to become better for the good of our employees. SQP planning became our new standard and it has changed our safety performance. To date, we have gone 580 days without a lost-time accident, and we are determined to beat our previous record of 829 days, set in 2016.

Here’s to a year of breaking the status quo, setting goals, and sticking to commitments! While you crush your health, finance, and organization goals, we’ll be over here continuing our resolution to find innovative ways of making jobsites safer each day.

Happy New Year,

The Eby Team