A Safety Week Conversation with Jamie Dabbs, TD Director of Safety

TD embraces the Safety Week 2021 objective to "Be Present, Be Focused, and Be Safe" on and off job sites, with messaging and trainings scheduled throughout the week. TD’s Director of Safety and 12+ year Partner, Jamie Dabbs, offers insights into what safety means at TD and how TD has grown to employ more than 20 safety professionals throughout Arizona, Colorado and Texas.

TD – What does TD’s Core Value, "Fiercely Protect the Safety of  all Partners" mean to you and your role at TDIndustries?

JD – "Fiercely Protect the Safety of all Partners" in a safety professional’s role means that our foundational focus is protecting others regardless of role, their company of employment, at work, or home. We are shepherds of the core value and spend lots of time working to make TD a safer place to work, setting the standard for safety excellence.

How have TD’s Safety objectives grown or changed since 2020?

2020 didn’t change our safety objectives, but we did have to adjust our approaches, speed and rollouts of some goals and objectives due to COVID-19. As a safety department during the heat of the pandemic, we were very busy, but we kept the ball moving on our most important objectives, improved many safety controls, and increased our safety engagement processes. I was very proud of TD’s ability to improve safety performance amid 2020’s challenges.

What is "Stop Work" authority, and what does it mean to TD Partners and the projects they work on?

"Stop Work" authority is our Partners’ ability and expectation of refusing to perform any work that they feel is unsafe. This is so important and crucial that we actually cover this during new hire orientation. This is one area where TD shows its commitment to our core values. When our Partners utilize this ability, we as safety leaders need to thank them for speaking up and addressing safety concerns.

What goes into implementing new safety innovations and process improvements?

When we are implementing new safety initiatives, the conversation starts with the team of safety managers as an idea, suggestion, or process improvement opportunity. These are based primarily on the pursuit of safety excellence, gap analysis, known improvement needs, industry or regulation trends, and changes. These objectives are covered with our world class safety team, then action plans are created for implementation.

How long has TD recognized Safety Week? What is the key focus for TD during this year’s Safety Week initiatives and daily "Toolbox Talks"?

TD has been conducting a Safety Week campaign every year since 2015. TD sets the standard for how to execute these campaigns. In fact, TD’s creative methods, materials, activities, and plans for Safety Week have been replicated by others in the industry.

Safety Week 2021’s objective is "Be Present, Be Focused, and Be Safe." TD capitalizes on this week to perform job site safety meetings, annual emergency drills, a fall protection stand down and refocus our Partners on safety before entering the hottest months of the year.

In what ways is TD leveraging cutting edge technology to support field Partners while promoting Zero Harm?

Leveraging safety technology is one of the most active areas that TD’s safety team has worked to improve over the past few years. Our biggest efforts in this area have been using Samsara Camera/GPS units on our 800+ TD fleet vehicles, HSI chemical inventory online system, Samba Safety MVR monitoring systems, and SmartTagIt (TD’s Safety App).

In 2021, our Partners embarked on our journey of video-based pre-task safety planning which has given us the ability to begin measuring and improving on the seven essential elements of an effective pre-task safety plan. The seven essential elements include:

• Care
• High hazard
• Observer engagement
• Planning
• Participant engagement
• Question quality
• Real hazard

How many safety professionals does TD employ? How do these safety professionals support TD Partners across all geographies and ensure they are educated and making safe decisions?

TD’s Safety Center of Excellence is currently made up of 26 safety professionals and two mobile medics located in north and central Texas. Each business unit at TD has assigned safety support that is responsible for Occupational Safety & Health, Environmental and Loss Control.

TD’s safety team has come a long way since 2008 when I arrived as a safety manager in Dallas. Back then there were only three safety professionals across TD. Today we are much more prepared to provide high-level safety coverage proactively across all of TD.

How is TD planning to enhance safety protocols in the future?

TD sets the standard for safety on our job sites and is known across the industry as a safety-focused company. Even so, we have areas of opportunity that we aspire to improve. ZERO Harm is TD’s 2025 safety vision of performing work that results in zero serious injuries and fatalities. To do this, we must continue to work on risk reduction of our life-critical tasks by increasing safety controls in those high hazard activities and reducing amplifiers that increase the likelihood of a negative outcome.

TD is committed to fiercely protecting the safety of all Partners and Customers. See what steps TD is taking to protect individuals and their business at tdindustries.com/about/safety.