What is the key to minimizing the potential for injuries on the job? Practicing “sneaky safety”—reducing the risk to workers without them even knowing it.

So says Matthew R. Pierce, vice president of safety, quality and productivity at EMCOR Group Inc., Norwalk, Conn. Pierce shared what led him to the safety field and how to protect workers. He also offered advice for safety leaders just starting out.

Pierce’s responsibilities include injury and incident prevention, environmental compliance, shop and field productivity improvement, fleet effectiveness and business continuity planning. His 20-plus years of experience in mechanical and electrical construction and facilities services have led EMCOR to become a leader in safety, quality and productivity.

Pierce started at Wasatch Electric, an EMCOR company in Salt Lake City, in 1996. In 2001, he joined EMCOR Facilities Services. He has worked in many operational and financial roles, and served as EMCOR’s director of productivity and quality management. He has been an ASQ certified manager of quality/organizational excellence and served on the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics.

Why did you get into the safety profession?

My passion has always been problem-solving and improving performance. Safety is one of the greatest and most rewarding business challenges in a hazardous and labor-intensive industry like construction. This challenge requires safety leaders to bring their best every day. It requires innovative thinking, communication, leadership, collaboration and constant personal and professional growth. And the reward is the well-being of others. What more could you want?

What practices have been effective at EMCOR?

Often, the most effective safety practices happen long before we reach a job site or train a tradesperson. Project selection, hiring and placement practices, tool selection and maintenance practices, prefabrication and assembly, project design or getting estimating involved early to plan—all of these things happen before anyone arrives on site, or dons PPE, or does a pretask plan or toolbox talk or other training. This is “sneaky safety”—reducing the risk to folks without them even knowing it.

Is there a specific injury or almost-injury that changed how you thought about safety on the job?

Not just one. Over the years, I’ve had a front-row seat to thousands of workplace injuries. I’ve learned that there is no such thing as an insignificant incident. The difference between a minor injury and a major injury is often very, very small—one defense or control, or even randomness like what part of the body hits the ground first.

A fall from a ladder could kill, and another might not even be a bruise, and there’s often little anyone can do to determine that [before] it happens. The potential to do great harm is ever-present and should be thought of that way. You can’t just prevent serious injuries—you must act to prevent them all.

What challenges do you face in managing safety responsibilities for your company?

There are many, but EMCOR’s scale and lone workers are top of the list. EMCOR is very large with a ton of safety data to manage. We have many types of work—and risk—all over the country. In many places we have field leaders that ensure we manage it for success. But we also have thousands of lone workers whose days look very different. Reaching them in a meaningful and effective way is very challenging.

How do you get crews to take safety seriously?

The same way that you encourage crews to take anything—production, quality, customer service—seriously. 

Safety is not distinct or something special or different than how we do anything well. The values that an organization, or that a trade shares, should permeate every aspect of our work—including safety. I think it comes down to the same things: accountability, clear expectations, metrics, leadership, communication, training, respect, trust and many other characteristics of craftsmanship and professionalism.

Do you have any advice for safety professionals?

You are not alone, so don’t act like you are. Reach out. Safety professionals must be partners with operations, HR, executive and field leadership, IT, marketing and others. Internal partnerships are massive force-multipliers. Be innovative in engineering out hazards by working with operations to increase prefabrication, for example, or work with HR to better manage driver issues, or work with IT to better manage your data and communication.

If you feel like you’re struggling on your own, then find some internal partners that share common interests and try a new approach together.