This year’s winner of AWCI’s Excellence in Construction Safety Award for companies with fewer than 450,000 annual man hours is T.J. Wies Contracting, Inc. in Lake St. Louis, Mo.
At Wies, safety is at the core of its culture. Creating an injury-free workplace is simply a way of life. From day one at orientation, every single employee is taught that they own safety, every day, on every job. In fact, company safety policies and expectations promote individual accountability: there are rewards for safe work practices, as well as disciplinary action for infractions.
Wies issues each employee his own personal fall arrest system. It also provides the highest-quality personal protective equipment for daily use. Wearing cut-resistant gloves is a requirement, not a choice. And when working at or above the height of 5 feet, employees are required to tie-off, surpassing the higher OSHA mandate.
Wies’s safety program is intensely proactive. A safety committee made up of management and field employees is vital to its success. The members of the committee review procedures, evaluate their effectiveness and revise them accordingly, conduct on-site safety inspections and, to make sure everything is working successfully and safely, regularly solicit feedback from field personnel.
The company also has developed an exceptional training curriculum that includes educating employees immediately on new or revised items.
T.J. Wies proudly reports that its employees have worked nearly 850,000 man-hours since its last lost-time incident. This achievement is not lost on its customers: They continually acknowledge the company is one of the safest subcontractors in the marketplace.
And it’s not just AWCI that is noticing T.J. Wies’s safety program. The Finishing Contractors Association presented the company with its Contractors Recognizing Excellence in Safety Training (CREST) Chairman’s Award, and they also finished in second place in the AGC of America/Willis Construction Safety and Excellence Award’s specialty contractor division.
