Safety Commitment

Safety by Choice, Not by Accident.

Keeping our employees safe and healthy is an integral part of our culture at SWCA. We believe that giving our employees the necessary training and equipment to get their jobs done without injury is absolutely paramount. We also believe that safety is everyone’s responsibility. By empowering employees to make safety a part of everything they do, our clients can be assured that we operate in a safe manner.

— John Thomas, President and CEO

Our Safety Program
Because our goal is to see all of our employees go home safely and in good health at the end of the day, we have created a robust Safety Program based on proactive measures to prevent accidents as well as ensuring a positive outcome if a safety incident does occur. Our Safety Program has the following components:

• A dedicated Safety Council provides tactical direction and decision-making for the program with involvement from the highest levels of management.
• Our Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Manager administers and audits the program and has dotted-line oversight over more than 45 Office Safety Representatives (OSRs) located throughout all SWCA offices. These OSRs coordinate, document, and communicate the program to staff on a day-to-day basis and oversee the completion and submission of safety incident reports to the EHS Manager. OSRs are also a technical resource for the program and help identify and mitigate new risks.
• Our Field Safety Observer visits all of our field offices and select project sites for periodic training and to ensure that proper procedures are being followed.
• Our Safety Coordinator tracks incident reports to ensure compliance and to spotlight trends with management, and helps develop training content and Safety Program updates.
• Our Project Managers oversee and draft Job Hazard Assessments (JHAs) prior to any field work. JHAs are reviewed and signed by a Field Supervisor and all field crew members on a daily basis to ensure that hazards are contemplated and understood by everyone.
• Every employee can call a safety time-out at any time.

Our Commitment to Safety Training
We encourage our employees to be stewards of safety, and we provide continual education and ongoing communication on the importance of safety. All regular field-bound employees receive First Aid + CPR training, and every employee, including temporary employees, receives core safety training at the time of hire and once per year thereafter. Additional specialized training is provided as needed for particular environments or project-specific hazards.

Safety Policy Statement
All employees are expected to do their part to work safely. As such, there is no job or objective so important that we will risk the safety or health of our employees to achieve it. Our goal is to have a health and safety program that minimizes work-related injuries. Employees are expected to report incidents to their supervisor immediately. Likewise, if a workplace hazard or practice is observed, it must be reported to the supervisor immediately. If it appears that immediate action is necessary to prevent an accident from occurring and a supervisor is not immediately available, it is the employee’s responsibility to call attention to the hazard, personally. We will investigate every accident to prevent recurrence. Each employee is responsible for knowing and complying with all the information and rules contained in our Safety Program. Management supports this program and is responsible for the safety of employees under their supervision and ensuring that established safety procedures are observed. All employees, as a condition of employment, must support this policy by working safely and abiding by all safety policies and procedures.

National Safety Council
SWCA is a proud member of the National Safety Council. This organization provides valuable information on many safety, health, and environmental topics, as well as training resources for our employees.