2023年1月27日

Matt Compher在2009年加入承包商PLH集团后，作为负责安全、健康和环境的高级副总裁，他努力保护员工。自从他在2016年离开该公司加入美国最大的专业承包商广达服务(Quanta Services)以来，他现在的职责范围类似，包括工作质量。广达服务拥有4.5万名员工。但Compher和他的同事们已经接受了一个更大的挑战:根据“新观点”安全原则彻底改革公司的做法。这似乎起作用了。安全科学家早就意识到较小的故障和更严重的故障之间的区别。尽管广达和其他承包商利用现有的安全计划，多年来一直能够降低可记录的总伤害率，但严重和致命事故并没有以同样的速度下降，甚至实际上有所上升。这种新观点的重点不仅仅是预防安全事故和事件，而是建立能力，使事故发生的危害最小化。初步结果令人鼓舞。康普尔说，Quanta的运营部门从事涉及管道和电线的危险工作，其中许多在工作完成时必须通电，危及生命、改变生活或致命事故的数量已累计同比下降29%。Matt Compher致力于将“新视角”安全背后的理念转化为面向Quanta Services现场工作人员的独特程序。 Photo courtesy Quanta Services THE CAPACITY MODEL The effort is still in its early stages. After his research of what new view ideas entailed—no punishment for errors, streamlined safety rules and constant learning from mistakes about how to limit the peril when an error or accident does occur—Compher tailored the ideas to Quanta’s needs. In late 2019, the company began adopting “The Capacity Model”—a key concept that describes the ability to absorb and avoid severe injury even when mistakes are made. The new view safety has been practiced at a handful of construction employers going as far back as 10 years. Quanta, however, has taken a very systematic approach centered around high-energy-events—the most dangerous kinds. Prior to his review of safety practices and ideas that he conducted upon joining Quanta, Compher’s world included many of the traditional goals and measures of construction safety programs. “My career involved total recordable injury rates, hand injuries, slips and falls, those kinds of things,” he says. Traditional measures of success had an effect, but things that hurt workers are not the same as what kills them—new view safety sometimes dubs them S**T That Can Kill You —and Quanta now puts a lot of effort into identifying them. Much construction safety in recent decades has been conducted with a goal of zero: zero incidents, injuries or deaths. The new view recognizes the impossibility of that idea in order to embrace resilience and limit harm. And it involves a lot of grassroots information, conversations and learning with the construction field crews. Todd Conklin, an organizational culture expert and leading theorist of new view safety, sees Compher as part of “the new generation of construction leaders who is okay with giving up the zero idea” to embrace another approach. Another new view safety expert notes that Compher is ideally suited to adapt these safety ideas into a program geared for craft workers. “Matt’s very much a grunt who doesn’t need to go extremely deeply into the minutia of the ecclesiastical issues” involving new view or traditional safety, observes consultant Mark Yeston. If Compher and Quanta succeed, expect to see other construction contractors that have been wedded to their behavior-based safety programs take a fresh look at this alternative approach to safety. Quanta’s s early signs of success are likely to generate more interest, especially where the most hazardous types of work are performed. Deputy Editor Richard Korman helps run ENR's business and legal news and investigations, selects ENR's commentary and op-ed viewpoint submissions and oversees editorial content on ENR.com. He has been a fellow on drone safety with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. In 2015 he won the Timothy White Award from American Business Media for investigations of individual surety fraud and workplace bullying. A member of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Richard's freelance writing has appeared in the Seattle Times, the New York Times, Business Week and the websites of The Atlantic and Salon.com. He admires construction projects that finish on time and budget, pay before the earth completes its annual orbit of the sun and record zero fatalities or serious injuries.