Health and Safety

Here at Posillico, our greatest asset is our employees. We strive to maintain the most highly trained employees in the construction industry. Our safety goal is made a reality by providing in-the-field and in-house safety training to all employees. This is conducted in Posillico’s training center located at our main headquarters in Farmingdale office and training for New York City projects takes place at our College Point location.

Besides formal classroom training, Posillico also provides detailed in-field training on a variety of construction safety issues. These include, but are not limited to, OSHA ten and thirty-hour training sessions; HAZWOPER forty-hour and eight-hour training sessions; fall protection, confined space training, scaffolds, cranes excavations and pre-planning, etc.

One of Posillico’s goals is to have the most highly trained and skilled safety personnel in the industry, as well as promote safety to others. Through the Health & Safety Internship Program, students concentrating in Environmental Safety & Health, Industrial Hygiene, and Public Health have the opportunity to apply their formal classroom knowledge in a real-world construction setting. Combining fresh, formally-gained knowledge of health and safety with field applications is a mutual benefit for both Posillico and the student interns as each is able to learn from the other through this program.

As with all new Posillico employees, students are required to participate in a health and safety orientation. This includes a discussion of workplace policies and procedures as well as a discussion of OSHA rules and regulations. Our new-hire orientation sets the tone for each new employee and exemplifies that Posillico is dedicated to excellence in construction and creating a safe work environment for all.

Posillico requires that all field employees successfully complete an OSHA 10 prior to starting work in the field. All supervisory and executive staff must successfully complete, at a minimum, an OSHA 30 class. All field employees that have been chosen as a designated competent person for a specific construction activity must maintain an OSHA 30.

In order to ensure that all field employees are safety trained, an annual health and safety training is conducted in our training center located in Farmingdale, NY. The annual training is administered by Posillico personnel who are OSHA outreach trainers with proficiency in various construction activities and trained in hazard recognition. This in-house training is combined with intensive, hands on, in-field training, creating knowledgeable, and trained personnel.

Posillico is committed to providing a safe working environment for all employees. Posillico has partnered with Arrowsight, Inc. to implement a hybrid Remote Video Auditing (RVA) and Artificial Intelligence technology and services system.  This system utilizes lightweight portable cameras which record videos of high-risk workplace behaviors. These videos are subsequently reviewed by front line supervisors who coach and retrain workers to quickly reduce the risk of severe life-changing injuries on our jobsites.

Posillico, Inc. is the first in the construction industry to utilize this technology. Cameras have been installed on facility grounds and are used to monitor daily operations. The footage is reviewed with the goal of identifying and correcting unsafe working conditions in order to mitigate risk. These risks include bodily injury, defects in workmanship, and property damage. The benefits of this system became immediately apparent with Arrowsight’s Remote Video Auditing & AI Workplace Safety solutions helping to reduce the highest risk injuries on some construction job sites by over 90% during the initial six-month pilot test.

Not only was Posillico able to reduce injuries and improve the safety of its employees but the organization was also recognized by BTEA with a Construction Safety Award for being at the forefront of technology in the heavy construction industry. 

Our proactive approach is what distinguishes Posillico from other companies. This proactive approach includes a company-wide commitment to pre-planning work which includes:

Frequent inspections of all projects and on-site safety programs conducted by Posillico’s Health & Safety Department helps drive compliance of policies and procedures to keep employees and their work environments as safe as possible.

Our Safety Department is compised of skilled, in-the-field Safety Managers. These Safety Managers act as a resource to all project teams and ensure Posillico’s high standards for safety. Posillico’s proactive approach to Health & Safety is evident in the statistics we generate.

Our Experience Modification Rate (EMR) has remained well ahead of the industry standard. An EMR determines how much a company pays for workers’ compensation insurance and helps determine the effectiveness of the safety programs that are in place. We are very proud of the results of our hard work.

In 2018, Posillico implemented a site surveillance and remote video auditing (RVA) system on its job sites to further ensure workers’ safety. The system allows a collection of data then used to implement new trainings and procedures to help modify unsafe behaviors. Evolving in one of the most dangerous work environments, Posillico strives to constantly educate and train its employees to maintain a safe environment on job sites.

Due to this proactive and forward-thinking approach, in 2019 Posillico received the Construction Safety Award in the category of Safety Innovation from The Building Trades Employers’ Association (BTEA). Posillico was also honored with the ‘Safety Excellence Award’by the Associated General Contractors Association (AGC) of New York State. In 2016, Posillico was awarded the AGC of America, Willis Towers Watson Construction Safety Excellence Award, 3rd place in the heavy construction category. The award ceremony took place in San Antonio, Texas at the 97th AGC Annual Convention. These awards are reflective of Posillico’s approach to making health & safety paramount on all their sites.

Before work begins on any given day, all field employees participate in weekly “Toolbox” Talks and daily “Safety Huddles.” These task-specific briefings outline the work to be performed for the day, the potential hazards associated with the work, and how employees can better protect themselves.

In addition to increasing awareness about hazards associated with the work that is to be performed, these briefings also serve as training on specific topics. It is Posillico’s goal to have some of the most highly skilled and best trained employees in the industry through the implementation of the “Toolbox” Talks and “Safety Huddles”.

Pre-planning meetings are an integral part of Posillico’s safety program. During meetings, workers discuss the construction activity step-by-step from start to finish. Very often, unanticipated construction and safety issues are “shaken out” and discussed. These activities are what makes up the AHA.

An AHA, also referred to as an Activity Hazard Analysis, is required for all work activities. An AHA defines the work activity by its potential hazards and identifies how these hazards will be resolved and mitigated. The Posillico AHA’s are also used as a training tool and an integral part of pre-planning work. AHA’s review potential hazards of work at the morning huddles and prior to commencement of work.

Pre-Planning Is a Strategy for Success! 
Our commitment to safety begins at the highest levels of management and extends through all levels of supervision, which is clearly communicated to all personnel. Here at Posillico, we continually review our Corporate Health and Safety Plan and other supporting documents in order to implement the necessary changes and meet our high standard of excellence. Our staff of health and safety professionals works closely with each project team to identify project needs and encourages active participation in health and safety at all levels.

Posillico’s Corporate HASP contains policies and procedures regarding many of the activities we perform on a regular basis including excavations, working from heights, working with heavy equipment, crane operations, and confined spaces. All policies and procedures are located in the Corporate HASP. The HASP also serves as a good starting point for all of our individual site HASPs, which are required on all of our project sites and contain site-specific information on the work activities that are to be performed.

Posillico’s HASP reflects our compliance with OSHA rules and regulations. It also reflects our commitment to continually review our policies, integrate new OSHA rules and regulations and incorporate OSHA policies.

In addition to the HASP, we have also developed a Health and Safety Field manual as a reference. This manual synthesizes all of the important HASP information that individuals might need to reference on a daily basis and presents the information in a concise, easy to understand guide that is available either as an interactive electronic document or as a pocket-sized reference book.

Since Health & Safety Plans (HASPs) are extremely technically detailed and span hundreds of pages of policies, Posillico’s Health & Safety Department has developed a field expedient, user-friendly version of the HASP called the “Field Health & Safety Manual.” This synthesizes all important HASP information individuals might need to reference on a daily basis and presents it in a concise, easy to understand guide, available either as an interactive electronic document or as a pocket-sized reference book.

While the book is an excellent reference for our employees in the field without internet access, the electronic version adds a tremendous amount of interactive content that allows the reader to instantly access other programs that were not included in the original document, download useful mobile applications, and access OSHA’s website directly for all of the topics not covered in the manual. Posillico’s Field Health & Safety Manual is a crucial tool to help ensure compliance and promote safe production throughout the entire company.

Our incident-free performance starts with effective safety programs and incentives for working in a safe manner. Posillico has taken these concepts a step further with its Good Catch program. This program encourages and supports our crews to identify and report potential hazards before they potentially become an issue. These potential hazards are reported to the Safety Department on a project-by-project basis. Upon recognition, the hazards are then abated and the sites are made safer as a result. Through this program, our employees have the potential to prevent injury to themselves and others.

All newly hired employees at Posillico are required to participate in a Health and Safety Orientation. Our orientations include a discussion of workplace policies, procedures and requirements; a discussion of OSHA rules and regulations; Posillico’s policies and requirements; and an opportunity for the newly hired to ask questions. Our new-hire orientations help set the standard for each new employee. The message is clear that Posillico is dedicated to excellence in construction and creating a safe work environment for all!