[VoodooChile]

Who has a safety program in place?

A safety program would be a systematic set of materials to address and train employees in safe equipment operation, job site hazards, and so on.

How often is your safety program implemented: daily, weekly, monthly or never?

Where did you get your safety program and how much did you pay for it?

Have you customized your safety program?

Has your lawyer and/or insurance company reviewed and approved your safety program?

Please discuss at length please!

I suspect safety is the Achilles heel of many small successful landscape businesses.

The poll is just to get juices flowing. Check all the boxes that apply.

Thanks!

[Lawn Lad]

Our safety program is our own co-opted set of materials. We talk about safety regularly, but we don't have daily or weekly tail gate meetings. We strive to do weekly training on Tuesday mornings, but this doesn't always happen. In these training sessions if we're talking about performing a task, safety is addressed.

Safety touches on so many different things. So it's central to our conversation regularly. Unloading/loading equipment from a truck or trailer, is there one or two guys, are ramps better or should they take a trailer? Is someone wearing their hearing/eye protection? Is someone keeping their eyes open when operating a piece of equipment - are they aware of their surroundings?

We could formalize this more, but perhaps we haven't felt enough pain from accidents to warrant it. We have zero lost time on WC, and only minor medical expenses, perhaps one claim every 18 to 24 months on about 11,000 man hours of labor.

Safety can address many issues, but here are a few thoughts:
1) Driving vehicles and operating equipment
2) Loading, securing loads of materials or equipment in trucks/trailers
3) Working in various weather conditions (frostbite, heat exhaustion, sun etc.), so dressing properly, wearing sunscreen/bug stuff and staying hydrated
4) When to wear PPE (other than just working w/ pesticides)
5) Awareness, alertness to surroundings
6) Task specific issues (working with a chainsaw, power edgers, mowers, line trimmers, back pack blowers, on a ladder, etc.)
7) Working around pesticides, chemicals, flamables, etc.
8) Location of safety equipment (fire extinguishers, first aid kit)
9) Proper handling of equipment, lifting, etc.

I see companies that have a safety bulletin and they hang it up, people are supposed to initial they read it. Each quarter, each person either initials all of the lines in advance, or in arrears for the quarter. In this case, the owner is protecing himself, and letting the employee learn on their own. I don't agree with this, but it's better than nothing. This isn't to say they're not safe on a job, they are, but it's a little tongue in cheek.

One thing that we did that cut done on problems with PPE is that we provide safety glasses, a case for the glasses (little Smith & Wesson shooters eye glass bag), hearing protection and work gloves. If guys switched crews or left stuff in another truck, we'd be out on a job and you'd ask where their safety glasses were - they'd reply in the other truck or whereever. So, we issued "blue bags" that they must have with them every day. I don't care if they forget their lunch, water or underwear, but not having their blue duffel bag which is where they are to store their PPE and any other personal effects, is cause for being sent home. We have very few if any problems with PPE being used.

I think putting a shared set of scratched up safety glasses in each truck is falling short of company responsibility to promote a safe working environment. I have on many occassions seen workers in other landscaping companies who are line trimming, squinting their eyes and looking away from flying debris. I ask why would you risk loosing an eye. On several occasions I've stopped and given the safety glasses from my truck to them. They are often surprised, taken aback, and then grateful they have eye glasses and continue on their way. I yet have to have someone refuse them. Who knows, I could drive around the corner and they could just as quickly discard them.

Bottom line, I think safety is a part of a company's culture. It's something you work with every day to whatever degree necessary to minimize the exposure and risk you have for the type of work you're doing.

[Lawn Lad]

For what it's worth, here is an intro safety SOP sheet we use for all new hires. It's very generic, but I think begins to set the tone. We address it in our employee manual and their orientation when we talk about where first aid kits are and when distributing their uniform with their new blue bag with safety gear in it.

[johnkeegan]

I just signed on with Paychex to do the official Employee Handbook and to have their HR person setup an OSHA-proofed safety program. (Initial cost maybe for all $4000) They also initially moniter the program and for an additional fee (starting next year) of $325/year update the handbook on any new regulations and offer free consultation.
Seems pricey, but you know what, I don't need the headaches. Too many deadbeats and lawyers looking to make a quick buck off some overworked small businessman who's trying to wear too many hats at once. My time is limited. Do I spend hundreds of hours searching the internet for updated info and templates? Or do I leave it to the professionals, so I can concentrate on doing what I'm best at?
I don't know about anyone else but I know that if I drive down a street, I can tell who had their landscaping done by a professional design/build team or by a do-it-yourselfer. I bet that in the HR and labor law and OSHA fields they too can tell who was a do-it-yourselfer and who left it to the professionals. I don't want to find out the hard way.
(PS- I think it sucks that it's come to this. But I can no longer kid myself that I can keep up with all these rules and regulations.)

[Lawn Lad]

And the lawyers shall inherit the earth....

[TrickyDick]

We are just starting to implement some written standards this year. Over the next year or two I expect to formalize it more. So far the safety program has gone a little something like..."Dammit (insert obstinate employee name here), put the damn safety glasses on and keep them on! I don't care if they're fogging up you sweaty freak just put them on before I poke your eye out myself!"

Or something like that. We're trying to improve.

[johnkeegan]

...maybe have a "safety day" where we bring all the employees out into an empty field and leave them. Have them blindfolded (so they know what losing their eyesight would be like); stuff wax in their ears (so they know what being deaf is like) and duct tape a few fingers together (for the lost appendage effect)... And sit back and watch as they try to find their way back to the truck.
Maybe then they'd have some respect for safety.

[GLAN]

^ that's funny


I had a crew years ago that was kinda like that just about every day after lunch .........

Good bunch of guys.......and back then we absolutely hussled every day all day.

[VoodooChile]

I got a call from "Safety Services" earlier this week, and before I said I wasn't interested, their crack sales guy got me completely paranoid about how we handle safety.

We are a small company, having between 2 to 6 employees during the season. I do most training myself, usually 1 on 1. Safety meetings we have weekly in the spring, but after a couple of months they fall by the wayside.

We don't have a formal safety program and we have never consulted with a lawyer or our insurer about the implications of that.

Because one of the owners is almost always on the jobsite, safety infractions are dealt with quickly, like not wearing glasses or ear-protection, fueling running equipment, or something as simple as leaning an all-steel shovel up against a tree, instead on laying it out of the way on the ground.

Maybe I am naive but we have had hardly any accidents, and none that would qualify as serious or life threatening.

Am I really required to have a safety meeting when I'm down to 1 guy who has worked for me for 7 years?

Do insurance companies routinely deny claims because a weekly safety program wasn't in place?

Do employees have legal recourse when injured on a job-site through there own negligence?

I don't know the answers to these kind of questions, and they sure can make you lose sleep...

[johnkeegan]

I can relate Voodo. I got the same "threatdown" from the guy I talked to. Said the last place he worked got slammed hard by OSHA from one of those infamous "disgruntled ex-employees." Maybe it was true, maybe not. But it's like dealing with DOT. You know they get pressured to bring in the fines. Got to pay for all those governmental employees somehow.
In my case, I looked at it as an investment. Just like a piece of equipment. Yeah, I could dig every hole by hand or I could buy a piece of equipment that does it faster and with less backache. Regarding HR issues, I see it the same. The initial cost is high but over the span of a few years it saves hundreds of hours of being an HR do-it-yourselfer and restless nights pondering whether I'm doing it right or not. I need to stay focused on what I do best.

[VoodooChile]

I hear ya john about focusing on what I do best, and not trying to wear too many hats, but...

We don't have 4k of capital to sink into a plan right now, and before I spent that kinda money I would want to know that what I was buying was: 1) absolutely necessary from a legal/insurance perspective, and 2) tailored made to the green industry, not some generic plan that would require hours of adaptation (and thereby invalidation???) by me.

Fear is a great tool for manipulation and can create a problem that only purchasing a product will solve; the cosmetic industry's marketing to woman in their 40s is a great example.

It seems like every other phone call is some salesman-- blades, financing, advertising, safety programs-- out to get a cut of our hard-earned dollars.

[johnkeegan]

To answer your questions (from what I was told),
1) Is it "necessary" from a legal/insurance point of view? It may not be "necessary" as long as there is never an HR/OSHA -related occurence. It may seem like it is necessary, if there is one, however.
2) It is supposed to be an OSHA-based safety program based on what I do. Do I think I'll have to tweak it? Yes. But in reality, I'm really doing this to protect my butt. Of course, I hope it will increase safety etc. but I'm doing this out of altruism.
"You went through the training. You signed the book. You agreed to wear the proper equipment in writing." Hopefully, that will scare off the ambulance chasers.
Remember I live in NY state. I don't know about you, but every hour on the local news there a lawyer commercial and look at the yellow pages, who has the biggest ads, and the radio stations...

[GLAN]

True about NY.....

So many lawyer adds about accidents and work related issues.


I had a guy years ago..........worked for me like 3 weeks.....first HOT day in May......he deliberately sticks his hands into the discharge of a walkbehind......blades spinning..........Just to cut the tip of his finger.

2 days later he's at my house for me to fill out welfare, disabillity, workmans comp, school assistence for this kids.........about a dozen forms..........I offered to pay for the medical..........then after a week or two he could come back to work and just use a broom for another week..............No, no, no.............have to fill out the paper work..........Not my reponsibility to fill out his welfare paper work.

To make a long story shorter.........Workmans comp calls me.......they didn't receive an accident report.......I thought I didn't have to if I wanted to pay out of pocket for the medical and that if he wanted 2 weeks off that would be on his own time if he chose to.........he wouldn't collect the first 2 weeks on comp anyway..........OK so I sent in the paper work.

8 weeks later we see this guy........tell him he has to come back to work.......I call comp and the welfare lady that keeps calling about his refusal to work.

OK.......he was out from the first week in May........came back 1 week mid October and never saw him again.............till 6 years later.....


I got a workmans comp hearing for this guy...........turns out with his current employer where he twice while there in 18 or so months cut or reinjured tip of finger......I wasn't even supposed to be there.


Some people scam and play the system........no matter what safety program you implement.................There are those out there that seek out companies that have all the insurance......so they can scam there way not having to work.