GBA Audio Education Series – Safety

This episode discusses the big picture challenges of handling safety concerns on a job site, and how the field engineer’s response is not “one size fits all” for all potential safety concerns. For example, the way a field engineer should handle a life threatening situation may be different than how they handle less severe safety concerns during contractor activities. The episode gets into the importance of documentation when addressing safety concerns, and potential liability concerns that could arise from reacting in certain ways. Lastly, the episode highlights a specific action that should be taken in almost every case where a field engineer is facing a safety concern at a job site.

Tiffany Vorhies and Ryan White recently uncovered a treasure trove of valuable content, GBA's outstanding audio-education series. In order to make this more accessible, they turned these into a podcast series. This series was originally available as downloadable audio files, designed for one-on-one listening by field representatives, or as material to spur discussion during brownbag seminars or other informal training sessions. Like other GBA audio education programs, Fundamentals of Field Representation uses dramatization to make its points. The roles are played by professional actors, supplemented by sound effects. In each episode, Tiffany and Ryan play the original audio and follow up with a discussion, including their own personal lessons learned from many years of experience in the industry as both field reps and technical leaders.

This monograph provides important information essential to the development of an effective safety program. Part of this information focuses on the direct and indirect costs of an inadequate safety program, ranging from higher insurance premiums and legal exposures to lost business and lower productivity. Also covered: Some of the key safety metrics being use; benchmarks firms can use as targeted objectives; and an array of techniques for developing a “robust, proactive safety program that seeks to eliminate hazards and prevent injuries.”

“Safety Is Priority One” – That’s the key message of an employee-pocket safety card developed by the GBA Safety Committee for use by its member firms. The front of the card poses a series of brief instructions and questions employees should address before moving forward with a task. The card’s reverse side includes prompts for which hazards are present, including contact, exposure, fall, caught/crushed, ergonomics, and energy source. GBA members can print the card in its GBA PDF format, using the GBA logo.

Working outdoors when it’s hot can create an array of safety challenges that firms and individuals need to be aware of and plan for. Some of the key issues include sun and UV-ray exposure, heat, Lyme Disease and other tick-borne diseases, West Nile Virus, and poison ivy and related plants. Each of these issues is expanded upon in this GBA Best Practices monograph, developed by GBA’s Construction-Materials Engineering and Testing Business Committee.

This 20-page guide provides innovative model daily field report (MDFR) forms that firms can tailor to meet their own individual needs, along with suggestions for developing your own materials.

This booklet provides sample reporting forms for geoenvironmental field observation and suggestions for preparing similar forms for your own firm. Includes a model daily field report (DFR) form.