Photo courtesy Goodfellow Bros. Goodfellow Bros. won the Grand Award for Safety for its exceptional safety record.

Beginning in 2000, Goodfellow Bros. took a new and aggressive approach to workplace safety with a team of management and trade employees. As a result, the company’s experience modification rate declined from a 1.41 to .6705, and 2005 is projected at .5029.

Goodfellow’s safety program is based on 10 principles that include new worker orientation, jobsite inspections, hazard communications, project orderliness, incident investigations, critical safety training, multi-employer responsibility, accountability, personal protective equipment and an incentive program.

Goodfellow credits its success to its core construction crew, who have a history with each other and share a common value of safety first. Beginning in the morning shift, foremen gather their crews around a daily safety huddle, where they discuss safety as it relates to the day’s activities. Weekly safety meetings are also held to reinforce expectations and place a high emphasis on personal protective equipment.

The company says in order to be profitable it must adhere to its core values of careful management of resources, time, quality of work, safety, environment and customer relations — with safety having the highest priority.

Part of the success can be attributed to the company’s charge back system where individual projects are charged for safety losses. This serves as an accountability process for the project team and has proved to be successful.

Goodfellow rewards its employees with a financial bonus for zero injuries, which also encourages them to work as a team to prevent accidents.

“We can recover financial losses, but we can not recover a paralyzed employee,” said Richard Thody, safety and loss control manager.