Elements for Achieving a Zero‑Injury Culture

In 2003, I had the privilege to publish the first edition of The Employer Safety Guidebook to Zero Employee Injury. Since that time, I became a co-founder of the Zero Injury Institute along with Bennett Ghormley. Now, after 20+ years of additional field interventions, where the Institute associates encountered construction project employees, in ‘The Elements’ we are introducing some new revelations to the world of construction where nobody gets hurt. Bennett Ghormley has enhanced the Employer Safety Guidebook, calling the new edition The Elements for Achieving a Zero-Injury Culture.

Until employers reach the point that their safety program is not just a management supported program, but is co-owned by all employees, your total workforce, they cannot know the joy that comes from reaching a point where employees go home each day injury-free. If your organization has not yet reached the point of no hurts, I sincerely urge you to utilize the ‘Elements…’ and share them across your entire organization in the journey to zero-injury. You’ll never know how many lives will be changed and how many families may remain whole until you use all available techniques described in the book.

If your goal is to set the foundation for a ‘nobody gets hurt’ safety program the Elements for Achieving a Zero-Injury Culture book is for you. As the VP of Safety of Zachry Group from 2015 to 2019 we incorporated the elements of the Zero Injury Institute into our Construction Practices (CP). We realized a significant reduction in injuries, especially on the serious side, and managed to have health and safety consistency from project to project.

I co-chaired the Construction Industry Institute RT #284 from 2010 to 2012 Measuring Safety Performance with Active Safety Leading Indicators that utilized the Zero Injury Institute research in setting the background for our research as had been investigated by CII RT #101.

Bennett Ghormley has been my mentor and his passion for safety was evident in his teachings, the workplace, and in his volunteer service to the industry. I hope that you can benefit as much as I did from his sound counsel by putting the elements of this book into your company’s safety program.

As a Zero Injury Institute customer, both as President of Wanzek and Primoris Energy Services, our organizations experienced improvements in our safety program. In the process of involving all levels of construction workers, we experienced better communications, shared ownership of the safety program and excellent results in injury prevention. The elements learned from ZII were good for the safety excellence of both companies. If your company is experiencing minimal results from your traditional safety efforts, this book and the intervention by ZII is your remedy.

As an associate of Zero Injury Institute, I assisted in numerous ZII client interventions throughout the country to a variety of construction sites including in Canada. Upon introducing our ‘Elements’ to the client, we were frequently met with skepticism and doubt. However, it soon became obvious that the zero-injury techniques were different from traditional safety programs because they work in transforming safety programs where nobody gets hurt. Client leaders became aware that what they thought was happening in the field was not really happening at their workplaces. By hearing from the crafts, they saw the real life of their projects.

The Zero-Injury philosophy appeals to the most basic of human instincts: the desire to live and survive and the desire to avoid pain, injury, and even death. From a management perspective it also includes the financial and monetary costs as well as the disruption to the projects. In the end, the zero-injury techniques presented by ZII associates demonstrated and validated that Zero-Injury is possible for preserving workers and their families for long periods of time.