Safety progress
Quanta-wide stats: *Date range for below is Jan 1-Dec 31 ( LATAM is not included for 2019 and 2020*)
The Capacity Model
We are in the people business, and we know that people are fallible. We always choose prevention, but we realize that mistakes will happen. The question becomes do we have the capacity to absorb failure without causing harm. To be ready, we will plan and execute work assuming that failure could happen at any moment. We will learn from each job, each mistake and each success – to continue getting better in every aspect.
Traditional safety practices have greatly reduced the number of workplace injuries during the last several decades, but life-ending events have declined at a slower rate. To further reduce serious and life-ending events, Quanta Services leveraged the resources and expertise of Northwest Lineman College (NLC) and several industry-leading safety organizations and experts to develop a new approach to safety: The Capacity Model™.
This model shifts the focus from simply preventing errors to building in the capacity to absorb errors, without catastrophic injury or death. The model incorporates human performance principles while looking at safety through three categories: prevention, learning and capacity for failure.
In partnership with Quanta’s Safety, Health, Environmental and Quality (SHEQ) management team, NLC has developed curriculum in support of each element of the model:
STKY (S**t That Kills You)
A concept that focuses on hazards that can seriously injure or kill people.
The Energy Wheel
A hazard-identification tool used prior to or during work.
Absolute Controls
Critical safety controls required of all employees.
Operational Learning
Teams of workers led by a facilitator who analyze workplace safety, including job briefings, post-work debriefs, routine safety inspections, job hazard analyses, successful operations, near-miss incidents, and incidents resulting in an injury, illness, or environmental exposure. The goal is to learn more about the context of an event. This approach helps companies reproduce successful outcomes or, for a safety or health incident, actually improve safety rather than just simply affix blame.
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Capacity Model By The Numbers
YTD STKYa (significant events) decreased from 2019 by 29%
*# we have trained in The Capacity Model
Training the Trainers: We trained 153 trainers to teach Capacity Model
We trained 943 foremen level and above employees in advanced Capacity Model course.
We trained 9725 employees in the Capacity Model.
WITH VIDEO
Vehicle safety metrics
We are tracking various metrics to continuously improve the safety of our fleet, including hard braking, speeding and quick acceleration. We are working to track our full fleet, so that we can baseline and set reduction goals.
Building up newly acquired companies to meet the Quanta safety standard
Attached a Safety Management System – please use attached / create visuals for this to disclose full piece in this portion of report
Employee Safety Recognition
Commitment Coin – 39 coins awarded in 2020
We know that in order to reach the goal of ZERO incidents, our leaders must drive the safety initiatives. We are dedicated to bringing all of our people home each day, and that means having support for the top down. Not only are we committed to our employees, but Quanta is also committed to the industry we serve, to our customers and to our communities. To demonstrate our commitment to our employees, the Quanta Commitment Coin is awarded to those employees who exemplify safe work habits and their commitment to safety.
OSHA Partnership
Quanta is a founding member of the Electrical Transmission & Distribution OSHA Partnership (ET&D), a formal collaboration of industry leaders that sets best practices for line worker safety.
Today, the ET&D covers an estimated 80 percent of total workers in the electric line construction industry, and is one of only a few national partnerships between employers and OSHA.
Partnership goals include the following:
Ensuring Job Site Safety with Corporate Oversight
We self-perform more than 85% of our work – we hold ourselves to high internal and customer safety standards. All of our 40,000+ employees receive safety training.
We create customized emergency action plans on job sites, and we recently created a new Fire / Risk Safety Manager position to mitigate risk in fire zones. This position will lead the development of fire risk plans on all applicable job sites.
We have a robust corporate job site auditing program that ensures best-in-class safety. In 2020, corporate safety professionals audited 339 job sites.
CPR and First Aid Training
We offer first aid and CPR training for all employees, providing multiple classes a year and training thousands of employees. In our electric power sector, we ensure all employees are trained in CPR.
AED Program
The goal of our Automated External Defibrillator (AED) program is to increase the rate of survival for people who have sudden cardiac arrests. The AED program is designed to provide equipment and training to enhance life-saving response measures.
AEDs make it possible for trained and untrained responders to administer defibrillation prior to the arrival of Emergency Medical Services (EMS). We deploy an AED on every job site across North America. We go above the industry standards and hold ourselves to the Quanta standard. Our AED program has so far saved 29 lives, including bystanders and customers, and continues to be a life-saving success for our workforce and communities across North America and beyond. As of December 31, 2020, we deployed 10,278 AED units.
With VIDEO – create icons for: 29 lives saved; 10,278 units deployed
Ongoing Innovation
CEO Innovation Award
The CEO Innovation and Entrepreneurial Award was instituted in 2013 to honor the most innovative and impressive advancements made by Quanta employees. Since 2013, Quanta has collectively awarded more than $600,000 to the winners of this competition, and many of the ideas have been integrated into field processes. The purpose of this program is to continually encourage entrepreneurial drive and creativity – and to benefit our customers and the overall industry with ongoing innovation.
Safety Innovation
Personal voltage detectors
In 2020, Quanta invested approximately $50,000 to purchase Personal Voltage Detectors (PVDs) for each crew member working on storm response. These innovative tools allow our employees to remain safe should they encounter an energized conductor when they arrive to a new site to restore power. During the 2020 storm season, Quanta experienced seven incidents where these devices alerted the crew to the presence of energized conductors in the work area.
EPZGrounder trailer
Quanta invested more than $500,000 to develop and build the innovative EPZGrounder training product, in order to deliver advanced training that improves the entire industry.
This mobile training simulator provides equipotential bonding and grounding scenarios at four overhead distribution stations, eight switchable underground stations and eight scaled-down transmission stations. Each is designed to replicate real-world scenarios and allow workers to create and test different equipotential grounding and bonding setups. The overhead and underground distribution lines can be energized independently.
The trainee’s work can be evaluated through the Lineman Meter, a touch-screen panel that simulates a worker’s heartbeat. If the work is done improperly, the heartbeat will flatline, allowing trainees to fail safely. At the overhead stations, trainees can install grounds from an elevated position while belted off to the pole. This allows them to develop correct work positioning and learn sequential installation of grounds.
Trainees will also have access to a custom-built mobile app, which features high-quality 3D graphics that guide them through grounding and bonding scenarios for different structures.
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Handrail system
Quanta invented a handrail system that provides protection to employees from falling off the truck while entering the bucket. This innovation has since been expanded for use outside of Quanta, to the industry as a whole.
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Tie on Bucket Trucks
Quanta invented this to ensure an employee is safely attached prior to the truck beginning to move. This prevents falls and adds to a safe working environment. This innovation has since been expanded for use outside of Quanta, to the industry as a whole.
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Training + Education
People are our most important asset. We believe that by investing in our craft-skilled workforce, we benefit our employees, our customers and the overall industry.
100% of our more than 40,000 employees receive safety training. We also provide environmental, professional, ethics, diversity and inclusion training throughout the year to various employee groups.
In 2020, Quanta companies spent more than $58 million on employee training.
We will continue to invest our time and resources to lead the industry in the workforce who keeps our country’s lights on, heat generated and communications connected – and is enabling the grid of the future.
Can we create a graph that shows training numbers going up since last year? In 2020, we trained more than 13,000 students at our campuses.
And an icon that says 100% of our 40,000 employees are safety trained.
And an icon that says we spent more than $58 million on employee training in 2020.
Quanta Advanced Training Center at Lazy Q Ranch
The Quanta Advanced Training Center at the Lazy Q Ranch in La Grange, Texas, is a 2,300-acre ranch that has been transformed into a world-class training facility. Our customers depend on us to provide a consistently trained and skilled workforce in order to ensure the safest job sites across North America. We deliver the highest level of training by constantly innovating with the latest research and technology across the industries we serve. Currently we offer aviation, electric power, pipeline, communications and other industry-wide training.
The training center continues to respond to customer and industry needs and add additional training options. In 2020, the Quanta Utility Engineering Services course was added. This eight-week course targets a veteran’s transition to the civilian sector, training the student to become a pole inspection foreman.
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Total students trained – 801
Total number of instructors — 231
Total number of training days – 8,729