The construction company specialized in large scale commercial landscape and excavation, requiring knowledgeable heavy equipment operators and an impeccable safety record. Their operations were growing yearly.

Workman’s compensation claims were increasing, resulting in lost productivity, increased operations costs and diverting the attention of the owner from managing revenue generating aspects of the business.

Conflict:
The owner was looking for solutions to improving the culture of the organization. The workers were ‘strong silent’ types, tough, blue-collar guys who were challenging to communicate with in terms of ‘softer’ yet business impacting issues such as safety.

Lidia was brought in to undertake ‘team-building’, and in the course of the 1 day discussion discovered cultural factors that were significantly impacting safety, such as the need for respect and self-esteem which unfortunately, resulted in a lack of communication in regards to competency levels on various large pieces of equipment.

It was uncovered that it’s not ‘ok’ to say you don’t know how to operate a piece of equipment, so they preferred to put themselves and others at risk, rather than to express the perceived weakness of not knowing.

Resolution:
Because the owner couldn’t trust them to divulge what they were skilled at or experienced in managing, the only way to ensure a minimum competency level was to have everyone (approx. 17 men) trained on every piece of equipment. The organization stopped making assumptions in regards to specific equipment skills.

As result of Lidia’s facilitation, the owner quickly discerned the need to train all employees on all the equipment. In training everyone on the operations of each piece of equipment, workman’s compensation claims were reduced and productivity increased.