Safety Week 2020: Focus on the Fundamentals
“The minute you get away from fundamentals – whether its proper technique, work ethic or mental preparation – the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you’re doing” – Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan is right; the bottom can fall out of your game without focusing on the fundamentals. In basketball, losing focus on the fundamentals will cause a player to miss a shot, miss a pass or a rebound. In the construction world, in our world, losing focus on the fundamentals can have much more serious consequences. If we lose focus on the fundamentals, someone could get injured or worse.
We are currently in very challenging and trying times. We are having to approach and build our work differently as we try to protect ourselves, our co-workers and our families from COVID-19. These challenges cause distractions, which in turn can cause us to lose focus on the fundamentals.
To build our work safely, we stress that our employees know what the fundamentals are, and why they are important. It is also critically important that our employees follow the principles of Speak Up – Listen Up; that they are watching out for one another. If we can commit to watching out for one another, speaking up and listening, we can ensure that distractions don’t allow any of us to lose focus.
The fundamentals in practice
Did you know? Friday, end of the day is said by many to have a higher than normal accident rate due to a number of factors. Fatigue, a lapse in judgment, rushing to complete work, or simply distracted by weekend festivities has contributed to countless workplace accidents. One of our jobsites recently experienced a situation that caused them to reflect on the fundamentals of working in confined spaces.
Because the team understood the fundamentals and policies surrounding working in confined spaces, the team was able to act quickly and luckily no one got injured as a result.