Construction Las Vegas - Greenspun Media Group
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/587358
53 CONSTRUCTION LAS VEGAS CONTRACTOR OF THE YEAR s a f e s t c o n t r a c t o r o f t H e Y e a r tHe penta building group Safety is oen a subject that flies under the radar until there's a problem. PENTA Building Group, however, is a contractor that prefers to start the safety conversation before there's a problem. Keeping safety top of mind is part of the company culture, says PENTA COO John Cannito. "It's funny; safety will even come up in an accounting meeting," the executive said. "e reality is that even from the top, down through operations, pre-construc- tion and other daily business, we put safety as a priority over cost and schedules. ... You never compromise safety to try to do things faster or less expensively." A construction site comes with its share of minor scrapes and cuts that still need to be documented as OSHA "recordables." When they do occur, PENTA looks to them as opportunities to better safety efforts. It's a program referred to internally as Lessons Learned, and with its help the company has not lost a man-hour to injury in nearly six years and has one of the top EMR (Experience Modification Rating) scores in the industry — 0.60, well below the national average of 1.0. With Lessons Learned, whenever there's a record- able incident, a company executive meets with the site's safety director to investigate the root cause. e team also evaluates whether a policy change can help prevent such recordables in the future, then communi- cates policy changes or recommendations to employees through emails and meetings. If the incident involved a subcontractor, a principal or senior officer of the subcontractor is called into a meeting and must be part of investigating the root cause. anks to Lessons Learned, PENTA recently imple- mented a 100 percent glove policy. All team members, including subcontractors, must wear cut-resistant gloves at all times on the job site. is change came as a result of reviewing recordables involving cuts and scrapes over the past 10 years. "We could boil it down to this: we could prevent about 40 percent of these incidences with a glove policy," Can- nito said. PENTA also uses a variety of programs and reminders to keep safety on the minds of employees and subcon- tractors. Innovation Station, for example, rewards employees for creative and efficient safety suggestions. is past year, employee input resulted in the creation of its "Safety Bubble" campaign, a policy encouraging the idea of a "bubble" of protection around work sites to keep zero contact between the site and adjacent public areas. "It's really about awareness and driving the point home that the first priority is to protect the public," Cannito said. PENTA's Safety Champion program also encourages supervisors and employees to take note of others doing their job safely or taking extra safety precautions with their work. e company also holds an annual corporate safety kick-off event. is year's campaign slogan was "Ex- ceptional Safety is our Scene in 2015." e event invites company employees, subcontractors, vendors, consul- tants, even state and federal OSHA representatives, to an event for its safety campaign. Attracting more than 1,000 people this year, the event hosts motivational speakers and highlights safety priorities for the com- pany. In 2015, Roger Crawford, the first athlete with four impaired limbs to compete in a NCAA Division I college sport, spoke. In the past year, PENTA won awards for its exception- al safety practices. It was granted AGC Safe Site honors on its Grand Bazaar Shops and Caesars Transition Hall project as well as a Safe Site honor for work done on the AEG MGM Arena. In an effort to help the industry's safety practices, the company also sponsors and coordinates quarterly AGC/ NCA safety forums and actively partners with other area construction firms to promote safety. For Cannito, a great safety record is really the natural result of an employee-first philosophy. "e reality is our culture in general at PENTA is focused on employees," he said. "And I believe by being focused on employees and creating an environment where people want to come to work and work hard, they will take care of all the things that make you successful. Safety is nothing more than an extension of that." — Brian Sodoma CONTRACTOR OF THE YEAR AWARDS 2015