A Bridge-Building Safety Culture
Priorities
United Infrastructure Group, Inc. (UIG) is a premier bridge builder throughout the Southeast and has built bridges safely for more than 95 years!
UIG is committed to the Health/Safety/Environmental and Well-being of each employee and their family members. Building a true safety culture within a heavy-civil bridge construction environment is not easy; it requires every team member to be vigilant and focused on specific Health/Safety/Environmental (HSE) activities every day. UIG strives to make safety ‘visible’ throughout our organization. We expect team members, project owners, subcontractors, and the public to recognize and witness UIG’s performance-based safety initiatives designed to protect us all.
At the end of a hard day’s work, our reward is to safely return home to family and friends.
5 Key Elements
UIG prides itself on the evolving, proactive, performance-based nature of its HSE Program. We work hard to not complicate this process, but to do the things that ensure safety for each UIG Project and each team member. In this way, we can help control loss and prevent exposure to risk.
There are five key elements to UIG’s HSE & Compliance Management Program:
- Management’s Commitment to HSE & Employee Well-being
- Employee Involvement & Participation in UIG’s HSE Program and Processes
- UIG Project Evaluations, Audits, Surveys & Analyses
- Hazard Prevention & Control; Use of Personal Protective Equipment, (PPE)
- Health, Safety & Environmental Training, Apprenticeships, and Professional Development
UIG's 5 Key
Safety Elements (details)
The best way to ensure our team of UIG Management’s ongoing safety commitment and leadership is to (1) create a work environment that allows each associate to engage and develop best safety practices, and (2) provide the required resources that will allow any safe work environment to flourish.
These two performance-based leadership principles are pillars of UIG’s safety culture, and they are fundamental to any bridge-building function. We strive to demonstrate our commitment to HSE and Well-being and make it visible throughout the site. It is important for others to “see” what it takes to achieve a proactive, winning safety culture. UIG management and safety leadership will set company expectations, create a disciplined environment, and execute with a sense of urgency. In this way we will set the framework for successful, injury-free and profitable projects.
To ensure company success, UIG strives to engage and encourage every employee to actively participate in building an incident-free, injury-free culture. At UIG, people come first, and it is EVERYONE’S responsibility to take ownership in the process and get involved with project HSE requirements. We encourage every employee to identify jobsite hazards and risks, and take immediate corrective action. UIG employees should be safety-conscious and maintain a proactive safety mindset. They should help communicate health, safety, environmental, and well-being expectations to associates who are working with them every day.
UIG is continually learning how to strengthen its safety management systems. We employ regular and periodic project safety evaluations, audits, inspections, surveys, analyses, and metrics conducted by members of the HSE Team. We also broker and captive insurance carrier loss control & risk representatives, regulatory and other voluntary construction safety compliance personnel.
Safety inspections often make people nervous, but they shouldn’t!
At UIG, we utilize information gained from safety observations and findings as a means of self-improvement. UIG also uses inspection and survey findings to challenge ourselves to improve and train bridge building/demolition crews with the best HSE practices. Our goal is to always avoid loss and minimize exposure to jobsite hazards. UIG’s immediate and timely incident investigation and reporting also represents a proven strategy for effective claims management. The inspection, survey, and evaluation process is critical to the success of any HSE program and requires us to identify root causes to prevent future losses.
Bridge building is prone to health, safety, environmental and work zone safety hazards. Because risk and potential exposure to risk is always present, UIG engages multiple forms of hazard prevention and control. These include:
Administrative Controls
Engineering Controls
Training
Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
UIG’s goal is to prevent job-site hazards and control exposure to risk. Administrative Controls help achieve this goal by developing policies, procedures, site safety rules, and project specific HSE Orientations. UIG Engineering Controls utilize benefits derived from Design-build or Traffic Control Plans to help control risk and exposure to job-site hazards. Training, certification, qualifications, and professional development further provide UIG with the knowledge and expertise to control risk. Finally, UIG provides and requires the use of PPE. This includes hard hats, safety glasses, reflective safety vests, work gloves, and high-quality safety work boots. Crews also have access to personal fall arrest systems, face shields, welding gloves, hearing protection, respirators, and traffic control devices. Each of these items help serve as a barrier to known job-site hazards and further allow UIG to control risk and prevent injury and loss.
UIG is committed to the professional development of each employee.
We have dedicated considerable time and financial resources to ongoing HSE Training, Apprenticeship Programs, Conferences, Seminars, CEU’s, Professional Development, Education, and Certification and Designation programs. Training and Education initiatives include UIG’s 10-Hour Construction Safety Courses, Crane Operator & Rigger Certifications, Mechanical Apprenticeships, Bridge Welding Certifications, First Aid & CPR/AED, UIG’s Supervisor’s Training Program, CAGC Construction Conferences and Webinars and Engineering.
