How Do We Practice Unparalleled Safety? From Start to Finish.
Our comprehensive commitment to safety sets us apart from our competitors. To Barnhart Crane & Rigging, safety is not only one of our core values but also a mindset, and as a result, our commitment to safety starts with hiring the right people, thorough training, and then inevitably extends throughout all the work the company performs.
Our training programs for employees coincide with our safety instruction from the beginning. Our employees should not merely practice safety, but they have safety engrained into their minds.
Because we firmly believe safety and training go hand-in-hand, employees learn the right way to perform their work. That way, employees only do work the right way, and less safe alternatives are not an option.
To appropriately train our staff, each branch provides its own in-house training. In fact, Barnhart runs an in-house training facility at its Memphis headquarters for very intensive, equipment-specific or discipline-specific training. Not only do our employees learn Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations and other trade standards, we train our employees ourselves in order to maximize quality control.
You might even say we go over the top when it comes to our safety standards.
For example, Barnhart’s commitment to safety runs so deep that when the OSHA instituted a new law requiring crane operators to obtain certification, our safety standards had already included a compliant protocol on cranes for years. All of our crane operators have held NCCCO certification for years. We entrench our standards in safety so heavily that we stay ahead of governmental regulations!
Barnhart continually stays on top of safety and quality. The company implemented a quality improvement system in which all employees earn “Qual-Cards” that record, monitor, and update their training, experience, and abilities.
This also includes special requirements employees need to operate a crane or other equipment. An employee obtains a Qual-Card for particular pieces of equipment, such as cranes, forklifts, gantries, Goldhofers, and slide systems, or they earn a Qual-Card for particular jobs, such as rigger, signal person, and assembly or disassembly director.
As a result, Barnhart assigns employees to jobs according to their credentials on record in the Qual-Card system. Without appropriate training and experience, an employee will not work a project beyond their abilities.
Furthermore, the Qual-Card allows employees to undertake new training and work on new, more difficult jobs. This allows our employees to constantly improve their talents and production.
The Qual-Cards also coincide with another card system Barnhart employs called the Continuous Improvement Cards (C.I.C.). CIC’s allow us to monitor and track incidents, near misses, and other lessons learned, so that the company will not make the same mistake twice.
Barnhart definitely manages the company in such a way that safety starts at the beginning. We simply practice the old cliché “safety first!”
Because our safety commitments gain so much momentum from the outset, it spreads to all the work we do. For example, Barnhart conducts numerous meetings on any given job to address safety issues. Weekly safety meetings and monthly safety committee meetings allow employees to offer their input on safety concerns.
Project foremen or superintendents perform pre-shift job hazard analyses, also known at “toolbox talks,” when leaders highlight safety concerns for the upcoming stage of the work (e.g., before each rig, before each haul) and also give everyone involved a chance to provide their input.
But Barnhart doesn’t stop there. We do on-the-spot training and mentorships to help workers in the field learn the trade in a hands-on approach.
To learn more about our training approach, check out our latest Lifting Letter that features an article on our approach to safety. Or you may take a look at our core values.