Upson Company is committed to safety. With strict OSHA regulations about workplace and on the job safety there is no room for deviation – as it should be. But there is also a lot more that can be done to keep workers safe through company initiated actions. 

Business safety ratings can affect landing potential jobs. Some general contractors want to know how safe a company is before allowing them to compete in the bidding process. This pre-bid qualification process asks pertinent questions about how a company handles their on-the-job safety and requires a list of all past safety violations and injuries. Some contractors prefer to work with a company they know is safety conscious and give that company more weight when analyzing bids. Without a safety policy and active adherence to such policies, companies are often overlooked. 

As a commitment to safety and to its employees, Upson Company created a safety committee made up of foreman, journeymen, admin, their production manager and an outside safety consultant. They meet every five weeks and discuss any violations or near misses and any injuries, if there were any. They look at what went wrong and what the current policy is and how the situation could have been handled differently. The safety committee makes decisions about how Upson Company can be safer by deciding if current safety policy needs to be changed or if a new policy needs to be implemented, and what discipline needs to be dispensed. They also evaluate replacement equipment, especially if it was part of an accident or involved in an injury.

Upson Company’s safety committee is also responsible for implementing new safety procedures at company warehouses and jobsites. They have tweaked Upson Company’s safety policy in multiple areas and added lightning safety clauses that formerly didn’t exist. They also plan safety training classes. 

If there is an injury on the job, the foreman and injured person together call a third party triage company comprised of registered nurses who analyze the injury, give acute medical treatment advice, and assess the need for follow up care at a proper facility.

In addition to random safety checks by the production manager, Upson Company has a third party safety consultant, Safety Enterprise, that makes random periodic safety checks at job sites. They check for proper adherence to OSHA laws and Upson’s own safety rules. Before a job begins, the foreman meets with the salesman and the production manager to go over the safety plan for completing the job. Each job has a jobsite hazard analysis completed before any employee can set foot on the roof. That plan must be read, understood and signed by each worker who will be working on the roof. 

Not only does safety encompass the roof and its workers, but also the surrounding buildings and businesses, streets, parking lots, and people who come near the worksite. Upson Company is committed to not only their employees’ safety but also the safety of everyone who could be potentially in harm’s way should they venture too close to the jobsite.