Promoting a Safe and Healthy Culture

Loureiro focuses on safety in a wide range of industries. We are constantly updating our practices to align with the regulatory requirements of our projects. Focusing on safety best practices across a wide range of engineering, construction and related disciplines can prove challenging, and we have developed ways to help catch problems before they happen. 

Safety Practices and Tools

It’s standard practice to conduct a Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) as a first step at each site. A JHA helps us take a comprehensive look to define the potential hazards that may come about and how we can reduce or eliminate risk associated with performing each task.

“I like to think of JHA as something we do in our heads automatically, multiple times a day,” explains Corporate Health and Safety Manager Jordan Coleman. “Consider the task you’re about to take on. Say you’re driving to work. You put your seatbelt on. You check your mirror before backing up. These things are all second nature to us. That’s the sort of thing I hope to convey in our training, JHA’s, and the other programs we have implemented – making safety considerations automatic.”

Communication among departments, divisions and subsidiaries of Loureiro is very important. Sharing experiences is beneficial when trying to promote a safe and healthy environment for our employees and clients.

To promote that communication and collaboration, QUEST (Quality, Environmental and Safety Tool) was developed by Jordan Coleman and Quality Assurance Manager Karen Harris, is an interactive spreadsheet developed using Smartsheet where one can submit an observation for a safety / quality opportunity. This tool helps departments, divisions and subsidiaries of Loureiro communicate with one another. It also tracks positive reinforcement, and is a tool used for coaching.

A Good Catch vs. A Near Miss

We learn just as much from a near miss as we do from a good catch. A good catch describes a situation where an incident of any type was avoided, whereas a near miss describes an incident that didn’t result in an injury or damage, but could have.

A good catch might be as simple as noticing a prong was missing from a cord. A near miss might be something like an employee tripping on the loose rug or tile that they could not see because of poor corridor lighting.

“While people can be hesitant to report them, we can still learn a lot from near misses. I like to remind people that reporting a near miss may save themselves or their coworkers from harm in the future.” describes Coleman.

Making Safety Part of the Culture

“We run safety orientation with new employees,” says Coleman. “It’s a great time to set expectations and provide an overview of what our diverse team of employees do across the entire firm. It gives me the opportunity to get to know them personally while providing the 30,000 foot view of our safety program.”

Coleman says that everything starts with situational awareness.

“It got hammered into my brain as a civilian contractor when I was working overseas for a previous employer. When you got into the field, when you stepped into a client’s office – take a few moments to think about your surroundings.”

By promoting safety and holding open meetings about potential hazardous conditions that may arise in the delivery of our scope of our services, we hope to make our employees comfortable performing the job and communicating those good catches, near misses and lessons learned.