[00:00:13] Shayne: Hey everyone, welcome to today's episode. Very excited to join and have everybody here with us to talk about safety manuals.

So, to set the scene a little bit here, I'm sure you guys have heard this whole AI thing, or artificial intelligence, or LLM, or large language model. You usually hear those two things used interchangeably. But for the construction industry, especially in regards to safety manuals, AI from our perspectives has already really started to fundamentally change the way that manuals are read. Manuals understand. And really impact the just labor it takes to actually get into manuals and read manuals. I know if Dave was at Harvard, which he mentioned last episode, I mean, how many hours would it take you, Dave, to read a single contractor's safety manual?

[00:01:09] Dave: Yeah, it would take a lot. Too many, right?

[00:01:12] Shayne: Too many.

[00:01:13] Dave: I remember sitting in my cubicle at Harvard reading safety manuals of just general contractors, right? So general contractors that were gonna be working on this big program, that we had to do a major life safety upgrade in a number of different residential halls. And so I just remember vividly sitting in my cubicle.

Turning page by page, looking through these manuals and seeing if they had references to some of the things that Harvard required. Jotting down notes, sending them back to the GCs, having them make updates. And as I think back to that, really asking myself like, what was I doing? Like, what are we, what are we doing right?

So when I think about that, compared to how far we've come. And also just, some of the things that we'll talk about today are like, does it even matter what's in a contractor's safety manual? I think there are some really important talking points, but yeah, I think it's really difficult, and when you have hundreds of contractors bidding on your projects, the idea of reviewing those documents manually is just, it's daunting, and it's just not realistic.

[00:02:25] Shayne: Yep. Yeah, so from my perspective, it seems like EMR, not EMR in the construction, but EMR as in the medical record from my history. The same thing. If I had a new patient, it would take me sometimes an hour to understand, read the MRI report, read the CT scans, read the test results. All those things would take me a long time to do that.

But in order for me to get an understanding of this patient, I would have to read the full medical record. And now speaking to my friends in the industry still, same thing. AI can basically read the whole medical record in a matter of seconds and spit back what the summary is. Things to look out for.

Obviously, you have to do still your due diligence and read some things to make sure that the AI isn't manifesting things inaccurately. But I mean, that's also been a huge change in the medical industry, and I think a good parallel to the construction industry too. And yeah, I think the biggest thing was just the manual labor and the, the intensiveness of that between the safety manuals as well as the electronic medical records.

[00:03:36] Dave: Yeah, I think it's an interesting parallel. If I think about the way I want to spend my time and it kind of sounds like it's very similar to what you were getting at. The way I want to spend my time is having interactions with a contractor about, the contents of that safety manual.

But I can't read through that safety manual to find it. Right. But I do, it is important for me to understand what's in there. And first, let me just say, like, what I'm not expecting to find in there is a regurgitation of an OSHA standard, right? So it's just kind of like a common misconception.

That's not what a good safety manual is, right? I don't need you to rewrite the OSHA standard, so that's the first part of it. But what I want to know is, you know, in terms of the contents. Is there evidence that this contractor has looked at their scope of work? What is the scope of work that my company delivers?

And within that scope of work, what are the hazards that my employees are likely to encounter? And then it's important to maybe have a reference to the OSHA standard to kind of make it obvious that they understand what standards apply. But beyond that. What I want to understand is have they identified the activities that their employees perform, where their employees are likely to encounter those hazards, and what are the control measures that their employees are gonna are gonna use?

Right? And then beyond that, how are they gonna train their employees to make sure that they understand the hazards, they can recognize the hazards, that they can implement the controls? And then how are they gonna monitor the effectiveness of their program? Or of their training? Those are some of the things that are important, and again, I want to be able to get those insights without having to spend my time reading those documents.

If you think back 20 years ago, general contractors would collect the safety programs of all of the subcontractors working on their projects, and they would get them in binders. So you would go into any construction trailer and you would see shelves that just had binders with the contractor's company name on it, and that's where they sat.

Right? There was not enough time in the day to read those, but we know we had to have them. We need to make sure our contractors had to have 'em. So if anybody comes and asks, we can point to it. There it is. It's up on that shelf. But very little value in that exercise.

Right?

[00:06:03] Shayne: So really more of a compliance thing as opposed to an understanding if a contractor was missing maybe a program or had terrible, outdated procedures, things like that.

It was more just checking a box opposed to actually understanding if that contractor had good programs and initiatives and things like that in place.

[00:06:24] Dave: Yeah. And that's probably just the function of what we talked about, which is to say we don't have the resources to read all those things, but we know that when OSHA comes knocking on our door, if they do, they're gonna ask for that contractor safety manual and we're gonna be able to pull it off the shelf.

I also want to say that just from an individual contractor's perspective, I want to just make the differentiation between compliance versus like managing risk. You know, compliance is a reason to have a written safety program, but it's not the reason, right? You have to have a written program that addresses the hazards your employees face.

You have to. That, you're required to have that. But that is not the reason. The reason is to be able to make sure that. The things that we're gonna do as a company to mitigate risks associated with working at heights. Those things are outlined, and they're clear, and it doesn't have to be 300 pages.

In fact, it shouldn't be 300 pages because no one within your own company is even gonna know what's in that document. Right?

[00:07:28] Shayne: Right.

[00:07:29] Dave: It should be about managing risk, building safety culture, and outlining the things that we're gonna do from a management system perspective to make sure that the programs we've written are effective. To make sure that the training we're delivering is effective. To make sure that we're out in the field monitoring conditions, monitoring behaviors, evaluating our programs annually, and making changes to address any emerging trends, to just continuously improve, right?

So I do want to say, I want to make that differentiation even from an individual contractor's perspective. Yes, you are required to have a safety manual, but you should really be thinking of it through the lens of how am I gonna make sure that we are providing a safe and healthy workplace for our workers?

And that workers are able to identify hazards, recognize them, take steps to mitigate them, and understand that if something doesn't look right, they can take a step back and say, Hey, we need to reevaluate again. Just some important things to think about from a safety manual perspective, from the trade contractor's perspective.

[00:08:38] Shayne: For sure. So, I mean, we talked to this. They are super labor-intensive. Typically, they would sit on a shelf collecting dust unless OSHA came. You have to take 'em off the shelf, pull the dust off, and hand it to the inspector or something. So do, this may be a little bit of a polarizing question, but do safety manuals actually matter still today in 2025?

[00:09:02] Dave: Yeah, I mean, I think the short answer is absolutely, right? They matter for a few different reasons. Compliance is one of them, again. Maybe the least important one, but it is an important one. Right? Compliance is an important one. I'm gonna maybe answer this question through the lens of putting myself back in my shoes at Harvard, right?

Or I did work for a couple general contractors for a period of time as well and, and I think it's probably best to talk through this from a kind of real-world example perspective.

[00:09:30] Shayne: Yeah.

[00:09:30] Dave: Let's say that I was hiring a masonry contractor to come out and re-point the entire facade of our building.

And I knew that they were gonna be working from heights, that the entire scope of work is working from heights, and primarily from supported scaffolds. And maybe I'm using masonry as an example because if I think back to some of the projects that we had and some of maybe the most egregious hazards that I saw on our projects.

I don't mean to pick on masonry contractors, but we had some, some doozies, right? In terms of like, is this really happening sort of deal? So, I'm gonna use that real-world example to say. You know, as opposed to just collecting that document and putting it on a shelf. What if I was able to look at the analysis of their scaffolding program and recognize that, maybe they had some general references to scaffolding, but maybe it was very basic in nature. There wasn't much detail there. Right?

And maybe I also was able to identify that, hey, guess what? They had some previous OSHA citations related to the use of scaffold. Maybe I also had some inspection data for that company, so maybe I have a little bit more robust data set to say, Hey. We've also noticed a number of issues related to the safe use of scaffold or accessing scaffold, or we've had some issues where a competent person wasn't present on site.

When I look at that safety manual and I see that their scaffold program is either not present at all or maybe it's lacking in some key points, that is a conversation starter, right? Hey. We know that you're gonna be working from scaffold every day, all day, to do this work. There are some things within your scaffold safety program that are missing.

I think you should really think about addressing those, and here's some suggestions. But in addition to that, because you know, just making some changes to a scaffold program on the fly, that doesn't necessarily translate to safer work in the field. Just because you change a document. It doesn't mean that the work is gonna be delivered anymore safely the next day.

So that's one part of it. Hey, you should really consider making some changes, making some enhancements to the way that you manage that activity. But for this project, let's put together a job hazard analysis based on your specific scope of work that addresses what are you gonna do each day to make sure that the scaffold is in good condition? To make sure that it's being inspected, to make sure that your employees can recognize the hazards. Let's get that job hazard analysis in place, and then let's deliver task-specific training to every worker that's gonna be on this project. Here's what we're gonna do on this project to make sure that we do this work safely, and then let's make sure we're monitoring every day to make sure that we're delivering.

So that's one sort of real-world example that, you know, it becomes very hard to look through a safety manual and read it and find that insight. But if technology can help us identify potential gaps or weaknesses that facilitate conversations, that's what contractor success is about as well.

[00:12:42] Shayne: Yep. Yep. So how would, you got at this a little bit, but I'm curious to go into more detail about the enforcement, because that's something where you've probably read a thousand manuals, so you know what a good manual is, and I'm sure others in this listening probably do that too.

But what were some of the ways that you would actually enforce those programs? Was it just doing JHAs and things like that, or was there other things to it?

[00:13:09] Dave: Yeah, when, I guess, when we talk about enforcing them, I might just maybe reframe that a little bit.

[00:13:16] Shayne: Yeah.

[00:13:16] Dave: When we talk about enforcement, I think more about execution, right?

Our company is executing and doing the things that they say they do.

So when I say the things they say they do, that could come from their safety manual. I want to make a distinction as well. Just because somebody has a really robust, really well-written safety program that doesn't necessarily equate to great performance in the field.

[00:13:47] Shayne: Sure.

[00:13:47] Dave: And on the flip side, they might have a safety program or a written safety program that you look at and you say, boy, this isn't as detailed as I would like. But that contractor might execute really well in the field. There are other things that they do that might not purely be reflected in their manual, in terms of training and inspections and leadership and commitment and things like that. So just because you have a well-written, really robust safety manual doesn't mean that you're actually able to execute it. So I would look at it through the lens of, are they doing the things that they say they're gonna do?

And the only way that I know that is to be out in the field to be engaging. But if I'm sitting in my cubicle reading manuals, I'm not out in the field. And I don't have that engagement, and I don't have that visibility. So that's, that's the sort of double-edged sword, right? And that's why technology helping identify those gaps up upfront so that if you think about sitting in a pre-construction safety meeting with a contractor, as opposed to just sitting across the table from them, telling them all the things that you expect them to do when you're on.

When they're on your project, and I've been in a ton of pre-construction meetings where it is exactly that. General contractor sitting next to me, as Harvard, the owner, and we're just telling the subcontractor, here's all the things that you need to do on this Harvard project. This is what we expect of you.

Instead of doing that, that could still be part of the conversation, but instead of doing that. Talking about maybe some of the gaps that you've identified, some of the opportunities to focus efforts on this project, and then putting a plan together to make sure that we focus on those things and deliver on them, that's the more meaningful interaction.

That comes from spending less time in the weeds of a safety manual, but still having the insights available to you, if that makes sense.

[00:15:41] Shayne: For sure.

Yeah. It's crazy that parallels like between PT, so physical therapy ,and this, same thing. Instead of me reading a medical record, I could spend more time doing patient care, which is why I wanted to go to school for it in the first place.

[00:15:55] Dave: Yeah.

[00:15:56] Shayne: And then I knew that, hey, this person's straight leg raise was really terrible. So instead of me saying do more straight leg raises, I could actually go through and do a straight leg raise with them and give them tips and ideas and stuff like that to do it as they were doing it. Yeah, that's a really interesting parallel, for example.

[00:16:12] Dave: Yeah.

That's great. And I really liked that, right? And. Again, when we when we think about the concept of this podcast "Beyond Prequalification," and when we think about the vision of contractor success, that is the type, like what we just talked about, that even just that one example of a pre-construction meeting and the type of conversations that you have.

That's what we mean by beyond prequalification, where it's not just looking at a result and saying yes or no. This contractor can come on-site. It's really about being able to use the analysis, use the risk insights that come from prequalification to facilitate conversations and to create collaboration, right?

Again, as the owner, you are not gonna be successful if your general contractor's not successful. As the GC, you're not gonna be successful if one or more of your subcontractors or trade contractors is not successful. There's a partnership here where everybody succeeds together, so why not spend time collaborating when it's appropriate?

Again, we're not talking about directing means and methods and saying you have to do it this way. We're talking about collaborating and sharing feedback. Having some back and forth to say what is the best way to make sure that this scope of work is delivered successfully? Especially when it's a high-risk activity.

We will talk a lot about SIF prevention, preventing injuries or incidents that result in a serious injury or fatality. Huge topic in the industry, but it's about collaborating to identify those HRAs or high-risk activities. Make sure that we understand where they are, where those exposures might occur.

And we have a plan in place to make sure that those types of activities are well managed. Workers understand how they're gonna control those hazards. And again, everyone succeeds together.

[00:18:05] Shayne: For sure. So let's actually get to the meat of the conversation after 20 minutes. How is AI involved in this whole neck of the woods with safety manuals?

And, we've talked a lot about it, but what do you think the benefits of AI are in this whole realm?

[00:18:24] Dave: I guess we should start with efficiency, right?

[00:18:26] Shayne: Yeah, I think we talked about that already. Kinda obvious.

[00:18:29] Dave: Everyone on here has probably experimented a ton with AI at this point, right?

And if you've done it in know, in the world of safety, you're probably amazed, like I have been, at what it can do. And from our perspective. I guess I'll speak a little bit to Highwire here, but also just in general, what AI can deliver. We wanna be able to analyze a contractor's safety programs and their management systems, and turn around a result quickly, and not just a result to say, yes, this safety manual addresses goals and objectives, or employee training and development, or scaffolding. Right? The example that I used earlier.

But also to be able to say, yeah, it addresses it, but it's pretty basic in nature. This one's a little more detailed. This one outlines a comprehensive approach to managing the hazards associated with scaffolding or work at heights, or confined space entry.

One of the greatest enhancements or improvements to some of the things that we do have been facilitated by AI, and saying, Hey, we can deliver this a hundred-page, 200-page, 300-page document. Or maybe a contractor has 15 or 20 documents that address different topics. Being able to deliver that and feed that to AI with some very specific instructions and framework and turn around, a result that our clients can use to help them make decisions and facilitate those conversations that we've been talking about is really powerful and uh, it's been exciting.

Being able to turn around a result within hours as opposed to days or weeks can really help deliver what we're trying to deliver.

[00:20:15] Shayne: And I think a good parallel to here is when you were in the trailer at Harvard, reading your first, maybe 10 safety manuals.

I'm sure you got more context from one to two, then two to three, and then four to five. You understood what a good safety manual looks like. You understood to your example, if you have a really poor scaffolding program, after you read a thousand manuals, you probably know what a good scaffolding program in a safety manual looks like.

So from an AI perspective, it really is, depending on the context of the model, you hear a lot with AI, is context, right?

And AI needs context. So essentially, what we're doing is Dave's brain for 20 years working into safety, we are able to essentially feed that into the model, plus all the other information across the internet that gets fed into the model.

And that model becomes an expert, quote unquote, in safety. And it was really exciting for me to work on this here 'cause we worked with Dave day in and day out ,and we wanted to call the model Dave at times, like Dave Junior or whatever. 'Cause it really was, what we were doing is taking Dave's knowledge and his incredible knowledge of safety manuals and performance and all these things and getting into a model.

So really cool for me to work on that.

[00:21:39] Dave: And if I guess I'd go back to something I said earlier, which is to say, even when I was looking at a safety manual and I was reading it, I was not looking for a regurgitation of the OSHA standard. There's no value in rewriting that. That's already been written.

Reference it in your safety manual, but don't rewrite the standard. And when I think about what a good safety manual looks like. I'm gonna, I'm gonna touch on it from just two different perspectives quickly. There, there is the, what you might quotation fingers call the compliance programs aspect of it, which is like if the contractor's employees are exposed to work to falls. If they work at heights, they should have a fall protection program. If they do work in manholes or vaults, they should have a confined space entry program. That program should really be very specific to their organization.

That's like a really key part of all of it. How does the standard apply to my company? Because there might be aspects of a standard that don't apply, because maybe that specific aspect is not part of what you do. But what are the, what are, how does the standard apply to my work? What do I want to do that might be above and beyond the standard?

Because remember, it's a minimum standard. What are the things that I might want to do to go above and beyond and mitigate that hazard? If you look at the way that programs should be written, it all starts with that risk assessment. What hazards do my employees face? What hazards are they going to encounter based off their scope of work?

What are some of the control measures that we are gonna put in place that are available to our employees to mitigate those hazards? How are we gonna plan our work to make sure that we do it safely? How are we gonna train our employees? How are we gonna measure the effectiveness of our training?

How are we gonna monitor performance out in the field? And so when I think about a good safety program that addresses what you might think of as a compliance topic, those are the things that are, are important, right? Those are the things that are gonna actually drive performance. And the other part of a good safety manual, what we believe, is that you have to have good management systems in place.

If you even want a chance of your programs being effective, you need to have management, leadership, and commitment. You need to outline goals and objectives. You need to have an accountability program. You need to have a very well-defined employee training and development program, and you need an inspection and hazard identification program, amongst other things.

An annual evaluation to see how are our programs performing? Do we need to make any revisions? How do we need to adjust our goals for the next year? So when I think about a good safety program, it encompasses both of those things. What are the things we're gonna do as an organization to make sure that our well-thought-out programs are going to be effective?

Another thing that we hear a lot is general contractors or owners will say, I don't really care what's in a contractor's safety manual, 'cause they're just gonna follow mine.

They're just gonna follow my standard. They're gonna be held accountable to what our health and safety plan says. And I think that is good. It's good in theory to some extent, right? But what I want to say is. If the contractor themselves if they don't have a well-thought-out management system and a program, and if we used scaffolding, I'm gonna keep going back to scaffolding.

If they don't have a scaffolding program and a training program and an inspection program that sets their employees up for success, when they're working on scaffolds, that gives them the knowledge they need to be able to work on scaffold safely. Just because you want them to comply with what's in your safety manual. Relevant to working from scaffold. If they don't have a baseline, if they don't have that core knowledge and ability to recognize hazards and implement controls. It's all well and good to say they're gonna comply with yours, but they need to have a certain level of understanding.

They need to have a certain level of safety culture ingrained in them, and that comes from the company that they work for. So I think that's just a really important note to make as well. So that's just another reason why when you asked the question, Are safety manuals important in 2025? Yes, they are.

That's another reason.

[00:26:06] Shayne: Sure.

You and I both knew the answer to this before, so it's good. They definitely matter. So I guess in summary, we talked a lot about stuff today, but AI definitely helpful for summarizing critical policies, critical elements, critical programs. Ideally, as Dave mentioned, it enables that better alignments between the GC and the subcontractor.

And then I think most importantly, something that I would really like if I was a safety pro, is it gives me time back to focus on the stuff I'd gotten a safety professional to do right, work with contractors, help improve their programs, help improve their safety on the job sites. So I think that's really critical to understand that.

So I guess bottom line from our perspectives is for sure, safety manuals do matter, but potentially, instead of a manual sitting on a shelf collecting dust, we can actually do something a lot better with the use of AI. And AI should ideally help us get things right, or at least get things more right than not reading a manual at all.

[00:27:16] Dave: I think you summed up maybe the main takeaway really well there, Shayne, which is to say, we want to empower safety professionals to spend their time doing the things that matter the most, right? And the things that matter the most are being present, engaging in conversations, collaborating, and making sure that everyone is set up for success to do their job safely.

And we've uh, focused very much on safety today. Which is obviously because of the topic. But when we think about prequalification as a whole, and we will certainly cover different aspects of this throughout the different episodes that we run, there are different aspects to prequalification.

Safety is one of them. Financial risk, default risk, quality of work. There are a lot of different aspects that we'll cover. And while today was very focused on safety because of the topic, I think that general takeaway is applicable across the board, which is to say if we're doing prequalification with the mindset of contractor success, it's about the team members being able to use their time, looking at the insights.

As opposed to trying to dig deep into documents, which is not the most effective use of time. So use the analysis, find the insights, have the conversations, drive towards a successful outcome.

[00:28:45] Shayne: That's great. I really enjoyed this conversation. Obviously, you continue to teach me a ton about this industry.

So, thank you for that. What are we talking about next?

[00:28:57] Dave: I think next week we'll be sitting down with one of our data center clients. I don't know if you've realized this or not, Shayne, but uh, data center is a pretty big deal today.

[00:29:08] Shayne: Because this whole AI thing, or what? Is that why?

[00:29:10] Dave: I think that's I think that's part of it, but uh.

It's, it is like the biggest booming sector of construction. We're lucky enough to have quite a few clients that are building and operating data centers. And so these projects are complex. And this is, again, getting back to the, what do we want to do? We wanna have industry leaders on, we want to talk about challenges, and we wanna talk about solutions.

So that's what we'll be doing next.

[00:29:33] Shayne: Great. I think I'm excited for that, Dave. I don't know, maybe just a little bit.

[00:29:37] Dave: I'm super excited.

[00:29:40] Shayne: Alright, thanks everybody. Remember shayne@highwire.com and dave@highwire.com for any comments, suggestions, feedback is always welcomed and yeah. Thanks, everybody.

We'll see you on the next one.

[00:29:51] Dave: Yeah, thanks, everyone.