500 Days of Zero Injuries – Influencing Safety Beyond Mortenson
At Mortenson, we take safety seriously. Our safety professionals and team members work tirelessly to establish our strong safety culture from day one on all our projects. Recently, our team in Utah, at a confidential project site, celebrated 500 days without an injury. This team successfully completed five projects and currently has four more active projects ongoing at this location today. The work is both complex and critical to our customer’s mission.
At the core of Mortenson’s culture is a deep caring for the wellbeing and safety of our team members and partners. Our team demonstrated this by establishing a solid “One Team” mindset on day one with all involved. We were fortunate to have genuine buy-in from trade partner leadership regarding safety culture, standards, and shared project success factors. The collaborative partnership between our customer, the Mortenson team, and trade partners, as well as support at every level, was the foundation to achieving 500 days without an injury.
The primary challenge to maintaining a culture dedicated to zero injuries was the repetitive nature of the work and the threat of complacency. Having a “One Team” mindset enabled accountability and allowed the team to remain focused on project goals and priorities. Early on, our team and trade partners established trust and effective communication about project issues and shared goals. Having the trust and confidence that everyone was committed to doing what’s right, willing to speak up, and look out for the safety of others, generated creative ideas that has benefitted the entire project across all trades, instead of fragmented solutions among individual crews.
Our Zero Injuries culture has been cultivated by the team, and truly embraced by our trade partners. Since working with Mortenson, one of our trade partners, S&S Electric, has started a pre-task planning process and has seen a strong positive influence in their company’s safety culture. They are currently collaborating with Mortenson’s onsite Superintendent, Austin Shreve, to assist in improving their company’s training program.
“At S&S Electric we have always taken safety very seriously and have tried to evolve our safety culture as we evolve. We have worked under MSHA and OSHA standards for many years. As a result of having high safety standards we have not had a recordable or LTI since April 20th, 2015. With that being said we at S&S Electric have been exposed to and educated on new standards and procedures by Mortenson. Austin Shreve has been willing to share these with us and has helped implement these standards and procedures not only on the Mortenson jobs but companywide. The culture, expectations and programs that Mortenson has in place has made a huge positive impact on the S&S Electric team. Safety is a forever evolving culture and Mortenson has showed that they truly do care about their trade partners and their wellbeing. It is very refreshing to have that relationship with such a wonderful General Contractor that has the “Team” first mentality and takes us under their wing. We look forward to future safe and successful projects with Mortenson and appreciate the continued support and opportunities, thank you.”
Rory Sower, Owner, S&S Electric – Salt Lake City, UT