For those active in the construction industry, safety is one of those topics that's frequently on everyone's mind but no one wants to talk about. No one wants to suffer an accident on site, but no one particularly cares for the safety bureaucracy that lurks in the background of every contracting business.
Two safety resources that underscore different angles on construction safety came into our purview recently:
One is the article last fall "The Fatal Four" by Mark Forget. JLC's new editor, who made a career shift from contracting last summer, took on the topic of construction safety by breaking down what went wrong in four real construction accidents. Forget's analysis of the most deadly accident types provides practical insights into how business owners and their employees can avoid construction's worst possible outcome.
The other resource - on the video channel, Ally Safety, by Rachel Walla-Housman - squarely addresses the safety bureaucracy: OSHA Top 10 Most Cited Violations of 2024. It's worth mentioning here that OSHA doesn't apply to everyone (self-employed contractors with no employees are exempt from OSHA regulations). But safety compliance should never be about simply avoiding a violation; after all, human life and well-being, not money lost to paying a fine, is what matters. Still, it's striking to learn who OSHA is targeting (though OSHA addresses all industries, construction leads the list in so many of these top violation categories). As we learn from Ms. Walla-Housman, there are a few very simple measures that can be taken to avoid getting plunged into bureaucratic hot water and also help your company avoid accidents.
