Purpose
The Safety Excellence Awards (SEA) are presented annually to contractors or subcontractors in the Texas Gulf Coast Area who achieve outstanding on-the-job safety promotion and performance at an asset owner’s site or business. The awards process aims to facilitate learning and sharing between participants by observing other programs and exchanging best practices.
Background
The Industry Business Roundtable (IBR) collects nominations from asset owners or contractor companies who utilize subcontractors. Every year, the nominees, finalists and winners of the best safety and health performers among those contractors and subcontractors are formally recognized at the Safety Excellent Awards (SEA) Banquet.
Team Leaders, the asset owner/member representatives, volunteer to direct an audit team to evaluate nominees in each category. Each team leader, along with the mentors (members from the winning company the previous year), has the task of selecting the finalists from all the nominated company submittals for each category. Once the finalists are chosen and announced at the Health and Safety Council Tailgate Extravaganza, the Team Lead schedules audits to select the best of the best. Each team ideally consists of the Team Lead and a mix of 8 to 10 asset owner and contractor peers who audit the finalists and select the best-performing contract companies.
Who Can Nominate?
Any asset owner or contractor who uses a contractor company or subcontractor. You do not have to be a Member of IBR* to nominate or to be nominated. Contractors and Subcontractors** must be nominated by a user of their services.
*An administrative fee shall apply for the award application submissions by any contract/subcontract company that is not a current IBR partner-subscriber. This will only apply to the award submission.
**Self-nominations are not accepted.
Eligibility
All industrial, commercial, highway heavy, and utility contractors and subcontractors in the Texas Gulf Coast Area are eligible. Affiliation with Industry Business Roundtable (IBR) is not a requirement. Nominees will compete in the category in which they are nominated.
For the process to maintain credibility and to promote fairness to the service providers/contract companies, vendors of products, including audit teams, are not eligible for the awards process.
Evaluation
The initial evaluation (submittal) determines whether the contract company will be eligible as a finalist for the final field audit. This information must be thorough. This step grants the ability to participate in the next level and should be thorough.
Safety data for the initial evaluation process will include the following:
- IBR Initial Evaluation Form
- IBR Contractor Safety Information Sheet (one per nomination)
- Incident Data
- Fatalities
- OSHA Incident Rate for Lost Workday Cases
- OSHA Incident Rate for Total Recordable Injuries and Illnesses
- Regulatory Agency Citations
- Written Safety Program
- Year to Year Improvement
- Safety Goals
- Accidental/Incident Investigation Procedure
- Incident Lessons Learned
- Internal Audit/Assessment Program
- Contractor Orientation and HSE Training Program
- Environmental Program
- Industrial Hygiene Program
- Short Service Employee Program
- Behavioral-Based Safety Program
- Contractor Written Employee Workforce Development Program
- Supervisor Training
- Best Practices
- Step 1: Initial Submission
Each nominee’s requested information and submissions will be measured using a score multiplied by a weighted percentage system. The top 3 or 4 scores in each category are selected for field audits (finalists). The finalists are announced each year at the HASC Tailgate Extravaganza event in February.
- Step 2 – Category Winner Selection
A site/field awards audit will be conducted on the finalists in each category as determined in Step 1. The site/field audit will be conducted by audit teams led by an asset owner representative. The field audit uses an unbiased but structured scoring system to verify the extent and effectiveness of the contract company’s safety program.
Mentors
The previous year’s Best in Class winner in their respective categories are Mentors for the present year’s finalists. The mentor company is not eligible to compete for the current year’s award but rather assists the finalists with their audit preparation. Mentoring the next group of winners is a tremendous honor for the Mentor company. Mentors are not assigned to a company that would otherwise be considered within their participating category.
Awards
All companies that participate in an audit will be recognized. Additionally, more than one Contractor may be recognized at various levels (Gold, Silver, and Bronze), but there will only be one Best-in-Class. Nominees will be recognized on the IBR website. The team leader will decide on the level based on team input and scores from the audit team.
Bronze: Companies nominated by their clients and submit entries for consideration but are not selected as finalists.
Silver: The minimum level of recognition that will be given to a company selected as a finalist. This recognition is based on audit scoring and improvement opportunities.
Gold: This recognition signifies that many elements of the company’s program, both field and documentation, meet minimum requirements and include average to above-average best practices.
Best in Class: This recognition signifies that most elements of the company’s program, both field and program documentation, exceed the minimum requirements, including exceptional best practices. This award is given to the top company in each category. There can only be one Best-in-Class winner for each category.
Newcomer of the Year: The “Newcomer of the Year” award recognizes contract companies that may participate for the first time or have not been nominated for at least the past three years. IBR staff selects the “Newcomer of the Year” award from participating finalists, identifying a company that excelled at a high level in one of the categories.
Most Nominations: The company with the most nominations receives this award. Undeniably, this company has a consistent safety culture and constantly demonstrates world-class safety excellence at a high level across multiple work sites, clients, and industries.
Award Categories
General Contractor
Construction and Maintenance
Specialty Contractor – Hard Crafts
Mechanical, I&E, HVAC
Specialty Contractor – Soft Crafts
Insulation, Painting, Scaffolding
Specialty Contractor Environmental
Hydro Blasting, Vacuum Trucks, Chemical Cleaning
Specialty Contractor – Technical Support
Engineering, Safety, Inspection
Crane & Rigging Support
*Categories may be modified slightly depending on the number and size of nominees.
Final Statistics
2022
| Category | Value |
| Finalists | 50 |
| Total Work Hours in USA | 210.3 M |
| Total Recordable Rate | 0.11 |
| Nominated Sites | 69 |
| Site Hours | 16.4 M |
| Ave Site Recordable Rate | 0.05 |
Best Practices
A unique feature of this award process is the requirement that the “Best-in-Class” Contractors present their “Best Practices” at the Best Practice Seminar. The audit teams identify the best practices as the reason for their excellent achievement. Other companies often return these best practices to their own companies to look for ways to improve their programs. The industry can improve and enhance its safety performance by sharing best practices. An attitude is prevalent among the owners and contractors where it is believed that outstanding safety programs are not proprietary and should be shared with others.
The IBR Safety and Health Resource Committee developed and maintained this award process. This committee meets monthly (3rd Thursday of each month).
Industry Business Roundtable and our members firmly believe that all the companies (Owner/Contractor) involved in this award process have produced and maintained world-class safety programs that are significantly better than any other in the world. The proof is in the results.
+ Best Practice Master Final Presentation
- Safety and Health Resource Committee
- Third Thursday of the Month at 8:00 AM
- 5213 Center Street, Pasadena – HASC Auditorium