Make Your Jobsite 7 Times Safer

The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) reported in May that construction professionals can safeguard workers with best practices in the health and safety arena. That might sound like common sense, but there’s proof now quantifying what safety directors have known for years. Let’s take a closer look at the report titled 2025 Health and Safety Performance Report.

ABC members participating in STEP achieved incident rates 658% safer than the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics construction industry average.

ABC published the annual guide to construction jobsite health and safety best practices ahead of Construction Safety Week 2025 to support an industrywide call to action for safer jobsites and a stronger safety culture. Within the report, ABC member companies that participate in ABC’s STEP® Health and Safety Management System, provide data and tools for improving safety practices across the industry.

STEP was established in 1989. It’s a program that provides contractors and suppliers with a no-cost framework for measuring health and safety data and benchmarking with peers in the industry. According to ABC, the 2025 report discussed herein showed top-performing ABC members participating in STEP achieved incident rates 658% safer than the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics construction industry average, reducing total recordable incident rates by 85%.

The 2025 report detailed research from more than 1 billion work hours completed by participants in the construction, heavy construction, civil engineering and specialty trades in 2024. Here are the five foundational best practices these safety leaders have in common:

• They offer new-hire safety orientation: Companies that conduct an in-depth indoctrination of new employees into health and safety culture, systems and processes experience Total Recordable Incident Rates, or TRIR, 52% lower than companies that limit their orientations to basic health and safety compliance topics. Additionally, Days Away, Restricted or Transferred, or DART, rates are reduced by 56%.
• They offer substance-abuse prevention programs: Robust substance abuse prevention programs and policies with provisions for drug and alcohol testing where permitted lead to a 52% reduction in TRIR and a 55% reduction in DART rates.
• They offer more frequent toolbox talks: Companies that conduct daily, 15-to-30-minute toolbox talks reduce TRIR rates by 78% and DART rates by 79% compared to companies that hold them monthly. If you don’t already subscribe to the free Toolbox Tips newsletter from AsphaltPro, sign up for that weekly email at TheAsphaltPro.com. And check out the library of Toolbox Tips for those topics most relevant to your team at TheAsphaltPro.com.
• Their top management is engaged: Employer involvement at the highest level of company management in safety best practices produces a 49% reduction in TRIR and a 52% reduction in DART rates.
• They assess leading indicators: Tracking and reviewing activities carried out to prevent and control injuries, such as safety training, new hire safety orientation and substance abuse prevention, leads to a 59% reduction in TRIR and a 60% reduction in DART rates.

“Transforming the status quo to set the expectation that all incidents are preventable creates a culture where health and safety are elevated to core values, a moral obligation for employers and employees,” said Greg Sizemore, ABC vice president of health, safety, environment and workforce development. “Priorities change frequently, but values remain consistent. The tools in ABC’s safety report draw the blueprint for industry leaders and workers to create a culture of health and safety, win and deliver work to communities without incident and protect the construction industry’s most valuable resource: its workforce.”