2023 Safety Excellence Award

We were presented with the 2023 EMCOR Safety Excellence Award in the Building Services category. The award recognizes the incredible success we've had engaging employees in our safety program with creative, impactful new initiatives. Each year, one of the companies under EMCOR Building Services (EBS) is given this award for demonstrating an outstanding commitment to safety.

In 2022, we launched a safety campaign called “Do What’s Right, Make Safe Happen” focused on empowering employees to take ownership over our organization’s safety program. The campaign encourages slowing down work to think and adjust and heavily emphasizes that all team members have the authority to stop work if they feel something is unsafe. 

The campaign slogan is featured prominently on hardhats, clothing, and safety documents, and stop work authority is a consistent message at toolbox talks, mandatory monthly safety meetings, and safety committee meetings. 

Our senior management regularly participate in these safety meetings, as well as periodic site safety inspections and corrective actions. In 2023, we hosted a roundtable discussion called “Russ’s Breakfast,” that included space for employees to share candid thoughts about challenges facing the company, including safety issues. This visible and vocal engagement from the top of the company has helped reinforce the message that if employees stop work for safety concerns, they’ll be supported by leadership.

We also brought in speaker Alden Davis who spoke about situational awareness and the development of automatic safety habits. Further, Davis conducted a survey with 10 NEMSI field supervisors, providing additional valuable feedback for the safety team. 

To further build engagement, we’ve held pre-task plan (PTP) completion contests, safety supervisor incentives, and celebrations for safety performance improvements. We have developed targeted initiatives for locations struggling with their safety performance, such as field safety leadership trainings, peer-to-peer mentorship, and text alert programs, which can then be used as a model for company-wide projects. 

These efforts have reduced our TRIR by 73 percent and we’ve seen an increase in suggestions to our safety committees, more thorough completion of PTPs and job hazard analyses, and a greater number of safety inquiries to supervisors. 

NEMSI’s “Do What’s Right, Make Safe Happen” campaign is a great example of how creative ideas built on sound safety principles can drive engagement and improve safety performance.