This year’s winner of AWCI’s Excellence in Construction Safety Award for companies with fewer than 300,000 annual man-hours is Grayhawk, LLC in Lexington, Ky.
In its home state of Kentucky, Grayhawk, LLC has been a leader in changing the face of workplace safety. The company’s core safety values are strongly supported by its management, which firmly believes its emphasis on safety has positioned Grayhawk as the contractor of choice for owners, general contractors and designers.
With safety at the top of both its daily and long-term success, it takes consistent—and persistent—efforts to work toward Grayhawk’s ambitious safety goal: zero injuries and no lost time accidents. The success of this mission relies on a combination of ongoing employee training, accountability and recognition.
Overseeing those efforts is Grayhawk’s full-time bilingual safety director. An authorized federal OSHA trainer, the safety director handles the in-house training of all Grayhawk and subcontractor employees. She also visits all job sites on a regular and unannounced basis. On-the-spot safety re-training, coaching—and even discipline—remind the entire crew that the safety of all is priority one.
The success of Grayhawk’s safety program is evidenced in its numbers: In the past four years, the average total direct claim costs dropped by an impressive 68 percent. This, in turn, affected the cost of workers’ compensation insurance by lowering the company’s EMR. An even more impressive example of monetary savings was in indirect costs tied to fewer claims experiences. The company’s projected savings in indirect claim costs total nearly $108,000 a year!
In addition, the company workers’ compensation self-insurance fund is scheduled to send the company a check for more than $42,000 as a dividend for its 2007 claims performance—a return of 27 percent of the total workers’ compensation premiums paid in 2007. The company anticipates equal or better dividends in the coming years by continuing to make safety its highest priority.
For the second year in a row, AWCI recognizes Grayhawk, LLC’s commitment to excellence in safety.