“People say, ‘I'm only building 10 houses a year; it doesn't apply to me,' ” says Mashburn, a former chairman of the NAHB's Home Builder Institute who helped establish the Residential Construction Superintendent certification program. “It applies to everyone. … It's a serious matter, I think it's nationwide, and I hope there's something we can put together that will bring attention to the need to have some kind of formal safety training on the jobsite.”
Mashburn says he's stunned by how few superintendents know even the basics of a safety program or understand its importance to business. The NAHB reports that the average builder with a safety program has 36 percent fewer accidents and can save between $4 and $6 for every dollar invested.
“When I start [teaching a safety training session], I ask if everyone has a hard copy of their safety program and if it's posted,” Mashburn says. “Their damn eyes start glassing over five minutes into a four-hour session. Then I ask, ‘Have you read it? Are you qualified to be the [OSHA] competent person?' And it goes downhill from there. There's a complete lack of concern for getting the superintendent involved [with safety]. … You can have company management say they're safety conscious, but if it's not on the jobsite, it's useless.”
A simple place to start, Mashburn says, is to include safety training in the pre-work conference. The first time a plumber, roofer, framer, or electrician comes to the site, set expectations for safety and clean up. Fines are a powerful tool to get a trade contractor's attention.
Mashburn gives his students a model safety program that includes a sample contract for trade contractors and a procedure for handling an OSHA inspection.
“You can't do it overnight, but you're making an effort for improvement,” he says. “You have to start someplace.”