Building a Culture of Safety - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Eric Vittardi from SafetyHQ. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

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Karen Edwards: From RoofersCoffeeShop. My name's Karen Edwards, and today we are going to be talking about a life-saving topic and that topic is safety and I am really excited to welcome Eric Vittardi of SafetyHQ to today's episode. Welcome, Eric.

Eric Vittardi: Hey, Karen, how are you? Thanks so much for having me.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, yeah, this is such an important conversation, so I'm really glad that we're having it and hopefully we can make a difference for some of our listeners out there.

Eric Vittardi: Absolutely. And a timely one at that, right? I don't know when this will actually air, but we are talking during mid-June here, so national safety month, we're right in the thick of things, so especially with the heat that I'm experiencing up in the Cleveland Ohio area and I think much of the country is experiencing, very timely topic as a whole.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, it sure is. So how about you introduce yourself and tell us who you are and then a little bit about SafetyHQ?

Eric Vittardi: Certainly. Yeah. My name is Eric Vittardi. I work for SafetyHQ. It is a Foundation Software brand. It's specifically a construction safety and compliance software. So what we really try and do is help a lot of contractors, not just in roofing, but roofing is definitely our primary focus or one of our heaviest trades, but we're trying to help simplify and manage their safety program for them. So as far as helping track and manage things like JHAs, toolbox talks, incident reports, data and analysis associated with all of those things so that you can make decisions on leading indicators before they become accidents, what have you. The long and short of it, it's a software program to help you manage your safety and the bigger picture, it's an easy way to help take those paper items and safety that's not always the forefront of attention because of the difficulty in disparate systems and make it easy to integrate across your company as a whole. So it's a long answer for you.

Karen Edwards: Well, I want to talk a little bit too about, we know that every roofing contractor company out there needs to have a safety plan. There's certain requirements, by law we've got to be having safety talks, we've got to be doing documentation, but I want to take that a step further and talk about the difference between having a safety plan and really creating a safety culture within the company. Can you just address that a little bit?

Eric Vittardi: No, that's a great point. And a lot of the folks that I talk to, there's having a safety plan and that's somebody that really just wants to check the box in case OSHA comes by or really some CYA if you will, if there's an accident or things like that. But that particular plate of things, just getting a safety plan is almost, I wouldn't say the smallest piece of the puzzle. It's almost useless if you don't have a safety culture as a whole, right? If you have a binder with the most thought out safety measures and protections and plans, if you don't really integrate it into your business and that culture isn't encouraged, established and rejuvenated, invigorated throughout the year, then that's just going to collect dust. It's not going to do anything for you.

And actually, unfortunately too, everything that those contractors try and do to protect themselves and put that safety plan together, if it's just sitting there collecting dust, the way these OSHA penalties are written and the way these inspectors and investigators get into things, if something does happen, it's not even really a fail-safe protection either. So really it's beneficial to you to both not only make it a process and a procedure, but to really live it because that's where you're going to protect yourself as a business. And most importantly, you're going to protect your team, which is your most valuable asset.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So we know, I'm going to address the elephant in the room. There's so many crews that I watched my neighbor across the street get a new roof and there were five guys running around that roof and not a single one of them was tied off. And so you get some grumbling and you get some pushback like, "Ah, that's an extra step. The cord gets in my way." How do you overcome those pushbacks from the workers that are not wearing their safety gear?

Eric Vittardi: Yeah, I think it starts at the top. If those guys on the roof don't get, if no one ever follows up with following safety procedures and things like that, if it's not important to the people that they report to, it's going to be hard for them to take it important to themselves. And I know that there's the safety aspect, but we know culture in construction in particular is a really fickle thing. So do you want to be the one guy that's asking to be tied off or what have you? But I really do believe in doing this for a while and talking with a lot of folks that folks do want to be safe and most importantly, they want to work with safe people. They want to work with other people that are safe. They want their peers to be safe because that way they're not getting put.

At risk at the end of the day, I think if you ask any of those folks who are tied off or not tied off, what's your most important thing? "Hey, I want to get my paycheck and I want to go home. I want to see my family. I want to do whatever, I play with my dog," whatever they want to do, that's their most important priority. And when you realize that the safety aspect is what's going to help them get there, they really do focus on that. And I think everyone really truly wants to be safe, but it's setting it from the top and making that expectation or that understanding from the top down.

Karen Edwards: Okay, so I want to talk about the benefits of creating that safety culture. I mean, you have a lot of data, you have a lot of customers. I'm sure you probably have some stories that you could share, but let's talk about how does a company change when they have a culture of safety that encompasses everybody from the office to the field, the entire company, every day?

Eric Vittardi: And you kind of hinted on it a little bit when you talked about guys not being tied off and just wanting to get their work done, just go, go, go, right? And I think that's something, right? So you need to make it efficient. You can't have safety absolutely slowed on your day. That's, kind of an unselfish plug here, that's what we focus on with our software is everything needs to be simple and easy to use. Based on the selections you make, it's only showing you what you need. Keeping it boiled down and focus to what the team needs out in the field, if you hand them a safety binder of 200 pages, they're not going to be able to work their way through it. You need to give them relevant information based on what they're doing on a regular basis and then follow up on that on a regular basis.

If they know that's something that, A, they're going to need to pay attention to and B, this is going to come up again, that really helps to integrate it and make it part of a routine on the sites as they go. Again, making it efficient so we're not spending an extra 45 minutes in the hot sun like it probably is today, going through those things when they just want to do their work and go. Making it efficient, making it relevant, making it simple and easy to use. And then again, prioritizing at the top and pushing that all the way down.

Karen Edwards: And I mean, we mentioned being tied off or wearing equipment on the roof, but there's a lot more to safety than just fall prevention. As you mentioned, we're in the middle of a heat wave right now with temperatures that feels like over 100 and the heat dome is covering the country. So I don't think it really matters where you are. But there are precautions and things that you need to do for heat stress. There is mental health. There are a lot of different areas where safety. So I think are we seeing more companies think beyond fall protection when it comes to their safety programs?

Eric Vittardi: Absolutely. I mean, OSHA has obviously with an area of emphasis on heat lately, so that helps. It had been fall protection for a while, and we've kind of branched out into this heat area as of late too. So it's been very helpful to broaden people's horizons. But it's almost crazy to think it's been a while now since Covid, but I think that also helped keep people's minds open to, hey, what impacts my employees is not just work-related items. It's everything around that too. And the one awesome thing about construction, the one thing I love about construction, in particular roofing, is it's the camaraderie, it's the relationships, it's the people and people love the people that they work for and the people that they work with. And I think once you spend more time and once you get to know the guys, and once they become almost part of your work family or just even almost your family in some ways, you start looking at it more than just work-related issues.

The drug and alcohol is included. We didn't mention that one as an item too as well too. So mental health is absolutely huge. It's the full spectrum, it's the employee as a whole. And I think especially with the hiring environment as it is, it's tough to find people. So you got to really invest in those people that you have on your job sites as it is. Getting skilled labor is difficult, replacing skilled labor is even more difficult. So if for nothing else, invest in the team that you have so that they're there. But again, I think that's just construction as a whole. We got a really good network of people looking out for people and deeply caring about the people that they work next to.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, it's so true. I mean, you mentioned some benefits of employee retention. Like you said, it's a family, everyone cares about each other and people are going to stay. It attracts new employees. If you can show that your company has that safety culture, newer folks may be more inclined to want to work for you, versus somebody that has that 700 page binder that's hardly looked at. I think you'll find your teams are more productive. You're going to reduce your number of incidents. There are a lot of benefits that come along with having that culture of safety in your business. So one question for you though is how can you make it engaging so that everybody buys in and participates?

Eric Vittardi: Yeah, there's a few ways. And the one thing you need to keep in mind is everybody who's sitting there has a different perspective. And it's been a while since I've been up on a roof doing that kind of work, probably 15 years for myself. But I remember being a young guy doing a lot of that type of work and people, you don't want to speak up. There's older guys that have been doing it, and you don't want to speak up to the concerns that you have about this or that. You don't want to be the guy that's slowing things down or might be, "Am I a dweeb" or "Am I a nerd" or what have you. But you don't know what's in everybody's mind and what everyone's thinking of. Whereas the guy who's been on that site for 20 years, he might be thinking, "Oh, well this guy does such and such a particular way and he could put me in danger."

So I don't think we're really good as an industry at expressing those items and talking about concerns and things like that. So I think a good way to get that engagement and get that buy-in is making it a dialogue, having some conversations with everybody, making it a safe space. I know as kind of strange as that sounds, talk about a near miss, not in a penalizing, a punishment type of way. Hey, we almost had something happen the other day and maybe it was another job site maybe it's a peer finding relevant information that makes sense to the team, talking about it openly. And I think that really resonates with the team as a whole, that really connects with them. And then maybe they're not going to take every single guideline or piece of that toolbox talk or whatever to heart, but hopefully they get a couple of pieces out of that because that is relevant and they can see that that happens to them. So staying active and keeping that dialogue open is critical and the processes in place to do so is even more important.

Karen Edwards: I really like the approaching it not from a position of, you are in trouble, but from a position of, this almost happened. How can we make sure this doesn't happen again? And what do you think led to this almost happening? Because then you're really getting input from the entire team. Maybe not even people who were on that particular job site, but everyone's aware of it, everyone's participating and everyone feels included. I think that's important.

And you know what? Sometimes when it gets to a point of an actual injury, accident, things along the lines, I don't know that everyone's the most receptive to listen at that point too. It's kind of shock, depending. Every company's different. Maybe you go 15 years without an accident. Maybe unfortunately accidents are commonplace in the place that you may work. But taking those near misses and things along those lines as good examples and learning from things that we do on a day-to-day, even from peers or news stories and things like that. Again, a lot of folks in this space feel pretty invincible. So I think when you see how close it can be, or at least what's happened to similar folks, it really resonates. It's a little bit more relatable in that sense. And the ears open up a little bit more, I guess.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, definitely. So I want to know how a software like SafetyHQ, we talked briefly about this at the beginning, but how does it help and then what kind of data can you see about your safety program?

Eric Vittardi: Yeah, you know what, and here's a big disclaimer, which isn't great of it, it helps you none at all if you think that this is going to go ahead and solve all your problems with a flip of a switch. It still involves buy-in. It still involves you guys carrying, not you guys, but teams caring and making it a priority. So in this case, for those that are motivated and do care about safety and do want to put it as a priority, we do kind of what I mentioned before. We simplify the process. We try and get rid of all the paper headaches that simply slow teams down when they try and do the right things. So we try and make it simple and easy to use. We eliminate the inefficiencies, and then we put everything all in one place.

We don't want to have to worry about a binder over there, and I took my paper for the JHA over here or this and that. Put it all in one place, make it simple and easy to use. At least for us, everything is designed with the user first and realizing that construction space is not bleeding edge as far as technology. Simple and easy to use for the team. Save them time and effort, bring it all into one place and go from there.

So I think that's where we really shine and where we can really help is simplifying the process, making things efficient. And then in that way, they can go do all the things that they want and they can get their job done for the day, work a little bit quicker, maybe get home a hair faster because we were able to handle that safety related compliance issues efficiently.

Karen Edwards: And is this accessible on a mobile device?

Eric Vittardi: It is. It's got to be, right? Tablet, iPhone, Android, Samsung, whatever's out there, we make it accessible on all digital platforms, all mobile devices. So from that perspective, it's really handy for when the team's at the job site, they pull up their phone, they can do what they need to do, whether it be an inspection, highlight an issue related to safety and then all that information that they're tracking on a day-to-day basis connects them with their coworkers, with their peers, the safety team if necessary. And it's all collecting data on leading indicators, trends, analysis, things along those lines that you can use to prevent injuries, to prevent accidents. So it's not just about managing what's already happened, it's about making yourself better going forward and preventing those expensive and painful injuries and accidents down the line too.

Karen Edwards: Tell me a little bit about am I able to see or take photos of something that I see, maybe it's before the job starts and I'm doing a pre-site assessment and here are a couple of areas where I think we're going to have to take extra safety precautions or be extra careful. Am I able to upload those photos?

Eric Vittardi: Absolutely. Take photos, mark them up. And again, we route and manage that to, if that needs to be sent to a particular person, we handle all that within the software to simplify the communication aspect. But that's a really good example. You're walking the job site, that's where all the data's at, right, is on the job site. So you can walk, point out some particular issues that may need attention and then if the team sees those, maybe it's photos and those things get addressed.

Too many times, whoever's doing safety has seven job sites to get to. They're swamped and they can't spend enough time. So they see something and they fix it, and then the team doesn't see what the issue was. They just have been told, "Hey, we didn't do this and this repaired or rectified in this way." Take those photos, show how and why it could have been an issue, what particular issues we had on the site. Those are good to track and trend for the data that we discussed before. But also, again, that visual for the team, especially when you get into marking it up, it's so handy to really make that connect with the team that's reviewing those items or getting a talk before they go out there for the day.

Karen Edwards: I would imagine that there would be some benefit too, in being able to maybe share it with a building owner or with a facility manager about, hey, here's why we're going to have to get a lift or here's why we're going to have to take this extra safety precaution. How does that work with contractors?

Eric Vittardi: Yeah. Safety is not in a bubble. Your safety is impacted. It impacts every part of your business, and every part of your business impacts safety. It's just something that flows throughout your entire business. So it's really handy whether you're doing a daily log or a daily job report, maybe you just think of that from a production standpoint and say, "Hey, here's where we're at. Here's why we had these delays." But all of those delays typically involve safety concerns, hazards, things along those lines as well.

So having everything documented, easily accessible, easily shareable and then the way we have it organized in there is extremely useful as well too, as everything could be done by project or by date range or by who completed it. So you can pull all these things up really in seconds. You can share all of it automatically. So having all that information is really key, and it really speeds up that dialogue when there is something that needs to be addressed and you can ultimately save time 'cause you're working with the information in front of you, other than having to go and collect that, send it to them later, go back and forth.

Karen Edwards: Okay. I want to ask too, because this is a question that gets asked a lot. How does it play with the other software programs you might be using? What's that look like?

Eric Vittardi: Yeah, so it depends on what you're using. Everybody's got a little bit of a different setup. It connects to a few accounting solutions. It'll connect to a few estimating solutions, things like that out there as well too. It really depends, especially nowadays, there are so many specific setups that everyone has. It just kind of depends. It's almost a case by case basis. But we certainly do connect and we're continuing to work on connectivity throughout your platform to get you what you need.

Karen Edwards: And that's something that your support team can look at what a contractor's currently using and help them figure out how to integrate that?

Eric Vittardi: Yeah. And I think it's not just on the integration side. We like to think we do a really good job of getting that figured out just from a safety plan and process as a whole. Our system is really configurable, and that's because everybody's safety program's a little bit different. There's the letter of the law and then there's what actually everybody does and what resonates with their teams. So pretty much everything we have in there is customizable. We charge for almost none of it as far as the additional customizations and things like that. So our team based in the US, all our employees, what have you, do a really good job of meeting with the contractors, seeing what's important to them and then kind of tailoring a solution to their needs.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So this is great. We've simplified safety, we put it all in one place. It's easy to use, it's intuitive and we're working toward building a safety culture. So that contractor out there that's listening that says, "Yep, I think this is going to solve a lot of problems for me and really help my company and my team," how do they find you?

Eric Vittardi: Yeah, so I can be reached at edv@foundationsoft.com. That's the really easy way to do it. That's the direct, that is my email as it is. But at the same time too, I can be reached at mysafetyhq.com. You can go ahead and that's our website where you can get any information that you need from there. Happy to provide you anything else from that side as well also. SafetyHQ is the name. We're pretty accessible on Google, Bing, Edge, I don't know, whatever.

Karen Edwards: Whatever your favorite browser is.

Eric Vittardi: Absolutely. SafetyHQ.

Karen Edwards: All right. And just as you mentioned, SafetyHQ is part of the Foundation Software family, which has Estimating Edge and which has a number of technology solutions and has been around for many, many years.

Eric Vittardi: Since 1985. So we know construction, we're really focused in that space as a whole. However, if you're new to the family, no biggie, don't have to have Edge, don't have to have foundation accounting or our timekeeping solutions or anything like that too. So the point is is we have a pretty well-developed team of software folks that have been working in the construction and roofing space for a long time. But at the same time too, we welcome any and all that are coming in and maybe checking us out for the first time as well.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. And if you missed that email address, you're driving or whatever, you can always just go to rooferscoffeeshop.com and look up SafetyHQ. They have a directory on our website and the contact information will be there and you can learn more about SafetyHQ.

Eric Vittardi: Yeah, absolutely.

Karen Edwards: Eric, thank you so much for being here. It was great to have this conversation about such an important topic.

Eric Vittardi: Yeah, no, thank you for having me. I always look forward to the conversations and then we'll have to look forward to the next RoofersCoffeeShop in person, I think, right?

Karen Edwards: Oh yeah, yeah, definitely.

Eric Vittardi: May be here before we know it.

Karen Edwards: I know. It sure will. Well, thank you everyone out there for listening. Be sure to subscribe, follow us on social media. We want to make sure that you don't miss a thing. And we'll see you on a future episode of Roofing Road Trips.

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