America's Safest Companies 2023: S&B Engineers and Constructors
S&B Engineers and Constructors
Engineering and construction
Houston, TX
4,800 employees | 22 sites | 123 EHS professionals
Compromise is unacceptable at S&B Engineers and Constructors with respect to safety.
To ensure that everyone lives up to their potential when it comes to safety, the company embraces the concept of personal ownership. Their motto is: “See It, Own It, Solve It (SOS).” If an employee sees something that they consider unsafe, they need to take personal accountability in that situation and act, either by personal intervention or by getting someone else involved to address the issue.
And to further emphasize the importance of this concept, the company has a program called Life Saving Commitment. “This is a tool that reinforces personal ownership and accountability when S&B team members are performing work that has a known risk of serious injury or fatality if hazards are not properly controlled,” says Brad Gibson, vice president of HSE. “They have been developed with the understanding that human error is normal and that even the best people make mistakes. When errors do occur, these Life Saving Commitments and their critical elements will prevent an unrecoverable and potentially fatal outcome. As such, a Life Saving Commitment is something that an individual makes for themselves, their coworkers and their family.” The goal, Gibson says, is for all employees to actively care for each other and to treat each other like a family member.
In tandem with the SOS, S&B has a program called People Observing People (POP), which is a behavior-based safety program. For this program, the company focuses on the following areas:
- Fall protection,
- Tools and equipment,
- Mobile equipment and
- Body positioning.
If unsafe behavior is observed and corrected, employees are asked to document this progress through a POP database. Comments and suggestions are also encouraged, and the company is currently averaging 2,000 observations per week.
This level of participation reflects the level of emphasis placed on safety. As Gibson explains, “The safety of personnel shall have priority over the protection of property and operational considerations.”
