In this Longshore Insider Podcast, AEU's Mike Jernigan and Matt Hockman speak with HSE and HR Manager of Gulf South Services, Raymond Hendry, about the importance of scaffolding safety and best practices within the maritime industry.
Announcer
Welcome to the "Longshore Insider Podcast" from the American Equity Underwriters. At AEU, we are passionate about helping waterfront employers protect their workers and their businesses. Join us as we explore practical strategies for improving workplace safety, effective claims management, and much more. So let's dive in. Welcome to the "Longshore Insider Podcast."
Mike Jernigan
Hello, and thank you for listening to the "AEU Longshore Insider Podcast." In this series, our focus is safety. Specifically, we're speaking with health and safety experts about what they do to develop and maintain a culture of safety among their teams and within their organizations. Hello, I'm Mike Jernigan with the American Equity Underwriters. I'm joined today by Loss Control Manager, Matt Hockman, who's here to provide his insight on a use approach to safety. And Raymond Hendry, HSE and HR Manager of Gulf South Services. It's nice to have you guys with us.
Matt Hockman
Thank you.
Raymond Hendry
Thank you.
Mike Jernigan
Raymond, can you tell me a little bit about what it is you do with Gulf South Services every day, specifically related to scaffolding?
Okay. So Gulf South Services is a provider of scaffolding, coatings, and insulation in a very wide variety of places within the United States. We do provide direct to the offshore drilling platforms, drill ships, but then we chase it through the midstream into the refining process. But we also do commercial scaffolding. We also do nuclear, pulp, paper. We've got a very large presence in the Gulf of Mexico. Myself, I'm the HSE slash HR that's health, safety, environmental, and human resources. So I touch a large aspect of everything to do on the scaffolding side. I've been with Gulf South for 14 years. I have 30 years in the scaffold business, and I still build scaffold today. If nothing else in training classes, I'll physically get out there and help build during the training process to make sure the employees understand the proper techniques. And when I go on the offshore visits with the clients, I'll actually help work with the crew. Now, I'm not gonna go out there and work 14 hours a day like they will, but I will get out there and show 'em that it's not that hard to do safely, right?
Mike Jernigan
Absolutely. Well, you know, we know in the maritime industry that scaffold incidents happen somewhat frequently. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Raymond Hendry
Yeah, so when you talk about frequency, a lot of the industry uses the TIR metrics-type stuff, incidents versus 200,000 man hours. And as a whole, in our industry, scaffolding runs an average of six, okay? So that's six employees hurt for every 200,000 man hours. And it's a tremendous challenge. And when you can go 14 years without a single lost time, and you can go 12 of 24 years with zero recordables, excuse me, that was 24 years with no lost times, 24 years, we've never had lost time. And 12 of the last 24 years we had zero recordables, including this year, we're running a zero. And it's not done without planning, preparation, and execution on the safety side.
Matt Hockman
I think the hard part with scaffolding injuries, too, when they do happen is they tend to be-
Raymond Hendry
They're usually a high severity.
Matt Hockman
Yeah. They're bad. They're not something that you're just gonna recover the next day and be back at work. So it changes the life of a lot of people and a lot of companies.
Raymond Hendry
Yeah. You know, I'm a numbers guy. This is not an exact number, but I did some research a few years ago. In 2015, there were 60,000 falls from scaffolds that resulted in lost time events. The average lost time was like 27.8 days per event, and this was over $50 million worth of workers' comp in one year.
Matt Hockman
And you think workers' comp, but you also think you've gotta find somebody to replace that man for those 30 days. And it just cost a lot of money and a lot of time and effort that.
Raymond Hendry
Well, and the downstream effect of that also, so you've got an employee who has a family who's dependent upon him. He's got bills to pay. He's got a wife and kids to take care of, and he's at whatever that, depending on his industry, this could be, you know, longshoreman where it's $35-a-day-plus care and maintenance. Or on the state side where it's 60% of your salary. 60% of your salary is not a whole bunch, right? And then how does that affect everything down the line? And then as an employer, you know, you're trying to do everything that you can to take care of this employee, but you still have to have another employee to supply that need to the client.
Yeah.
Right?
Matt Hockman
And most of 'em are completely preventable. I think that's the-
[Raymond] 100%.
- that's the hardest part about it is that we can prevent these things. We're just, it's a lack of responsibility and a lack of understanding scaffolding safety from a complete standpoint. And so, it's one of those things that we wanted to get you on here for is because you understand scaffolding and scaffolding safety beyond the average comprehension.
Raymond Hendry
Well, I've dove into it. I dove into it. When I first got into safety, when I moved from the builder to the supervisor, to the project manager guy, and I had this opportunity to get into safety, I went out and, you know, did the normal, got my CSST, my COSS, and then I went and did my OSHA #510, which were all really great classes, very educational of understanding how to read and understand OSHA rules. And then I went through a lot of advanced training classes with some partners like AEU and others where you get not just what's a rule, but really how do you apply that rule? How do you make the employee understand the value of that stuff? And so, I eventually got with the American Society of Safety Engineers and actually sit on a council that writes ANSI standards for scaffold and fall protection. And I found through this, the biggest problem that the scaffold industry has is not understanding what is a competent person, what is a qualified person, and the training that is mandated that every employee have. The biggest one that I find is the end user. A lot of times, these companies, they show a 15, 30 minute video, and they send a guy to work on a scaffold. Number one, he doesn't even know what to look for on this scaffold that he's fixing to access. And he's gonna be 60 feet up in air. He doesn't know how to report when he finds something that's deficient. He doesn't know how to use the fall protection systems, or he doesn't understand and overloads that scaffolding creates a failure.
Matt Hockman
Absolutely. That kind of draws me into my next question. So what are some key factors when you're erecting scaffolding on any site that that can prevent some of the incidents that you see?
Raymond Hendry
So the key things are, number one is you have to have a true, competent person that is overseeing all erection, modifying, and dismantling of scaffold. That's where it starts. You have to have an actual competent person. Then you have to have a culture where your employees will not accept substandard. It's gotta be an adequate foundation. It's gotta be properly braced. It's gotta have all of its components because there's so many different types of scaffold systems out there. You can have the old Frame and phrase scaffolding, the Baker Mill scaffolding, the System scaffolding. And there's a whole bunch of different types, you know, but they all have the same rules. Adequate foundation on mud seals, on jacks, level, square, plumb, braced. Those are phenomenal. You're not gonna build a house and not put enough studs, right? You're not gonna not brace the corners or what's gonna happen to the house?
[Matt] It's gonna collapse.
Same thing with the scaffold, square, level, plumb, braced. And then what's really scary, I see a lot of times, especially in the marine industry, they take out those X braces. That's the whole support of the scaffold. Yeah, I know you need to get to that area. But that's a major component of that scaffold. And then the biggest one is incomplete BoardEx. OSHA says, period, "Should be complete." "All working platforms are supposed to be complete from post to post," right? And if you're more than 14 inches away for work surface, you're supposed to have a guardrail system. And those are the big ones. That's what causes the falls. 'Cause you give a guy, you know, an 18, 24, 36-inch platform, but he's also got a two-foot hole he can step off in.
[Matt] Absolutely.
And when they're busy, they're working, they're focused on their job, and they step back to grab a tool. There they go, 30 feet, right? So that's some of the big ones. Having an actual competent person and making sure you create a culture where good enough's not good enough. It's gotta be done correctly, completely. And every manufacturer has the same requirements that OSHA does, Square, level, plumb, brace, complete guard rail system.
Matt Hockman
So scaffolding inspections are a key part to make sure that this doesn't happen and that there are no injuries. And so, how do you help to identify potential hazards when you're doing a scaffolding inspection? What are some things that employees can look for and focus on that's gonna keep them safe? And also, what should they, if they see something, how should they report it?
Raymond Hendry
So that's an excellent question. So what we found is there's no written criteria, okay? No governing body has a standard criteria that you have to follow. But we took apart from a campaign that AEU had a few years ago with the ladder inspection, little tag and stuff like that. So we've come up with both a written and a once over with a tag that, and it starts at the base and just the kinda the stuff that we talked about. And, but it's a checklist. Is it on adequate footing? Is it on mud seals? Is it level? Is it square? Is it plumb? Is it properly braced? Does it have a proper ladder access? Then a competent person has to access the deck, and there's a checklist across the deck to make sure that all the components in place falling object protection, fall protection, and these components on a written checkoff. And that creates accountability, right? Somebody's gotta be held accountable for this because you're putting your name saying, I'm saying this is okay.
[Matt] Absolutely.
Raymond Hendry
And so, but that's the end product that we are looking for. But you have to go backwards. You gotta have a training program. One of the greatest things that I've seen a lot of companies have started implementing is they're user, they're actually doing user training. And that's important because a lot of people don't know that. They think just a scaffold person's gotta be trained. But there's actually a component in scaffolding on under training, under 454. And the first one's not for the scaffold builder. The first one's actually for the user. 454-A says that, "Every person, each employee who performs work while on a scaffold," so that doesn't matter. Welder, fitter, electrician, electrician, whatever, painter, they gotta have scaffold training and it's very specific. Fall protection hazards, how to use them, modify 'em, load capacities, you know, electrical hazards, and these types of things. And that's the biggest gap. And that's also the biggest opportunity for improvement. If we can get everybody on board with saying, hey, y'all know you don't build this scaffold, you're just this guy, right? And they're all, all the crafts have to work together, right? We build scaffold, so that they can weld or do the electrical. But if we can get everybody on that same page when that electrician or that welder, or that fitter, or that painter walks up and he goes, well wait a minute, there's a great big hole in the deck. I'm not getting up there. Stop work authority. Silence is permission.
[Matt] He gives him an opportunity.
Right. It's an opportunity to say, I'm not getting up there. Call the scaffold guys, right? And then we get that fixed and then you've got a safe work deck and everybody goes, you know, makes money and goes home.
[Matt] And they may not be the ones that are injured by that, but they see that somebody else could be injured.
[Raymond] Most of them.
Matt Hockman
And you gotta look out for everybody. And that's what safety is. It's a culture. It's not just a, okay, we're gonna do this right because it's what, that said, the regulations say we have to do. It's, we're gonna do it right because it's the right thing to do and looking out for each other.
Raymond Hendry
100%. Well, if you think the very definition of safety, the condition of being free from incurring or creating hurt injury or loss. To create that condition, everybody has to participate to create that condition. 'Cause we can do everything perfect, but if you got another individual who's not bought in, he can create that change and the condition where we get hurt. And there's so many opportunities, having a true inspection program, those checkoff lists, a tagging system, and the end-user training to teach them how to recognize when a scaffold's not built right, you're gonna eliminate all your accidents.
Matt Hockman
So how often should a scaffold be inspected?
Raymond Hendry
That's actually not a should. That's a shall, right?
[Matt] Yeah, exactly.
Raymond Hendry
I mean that really is, that's a shall. Scaffolds have to be inspected before each shift, okay? Now, if nobody's working Saturday and Sunday, you don't have to send somebody inspect a scaffold if there's no work being performed. But if you've got a three shift work week where that's what you're doing there, everybody's working three shifts, you know, your morning, afternoon, and night shift, that scaffold's gotta be inspected three times, right? If you're doing the 12 and 12, it's gotta be inspected twice, right? So, but yeah, because I inspected this morning, but you come on a night shift, what happened during the day?
[Matt] Yeah. There could be a lot of changes.
Raymond Hendry
That could adversely affect that scaffold, right?
[Matt] Yeah.
A lot of things can change throughout the day. So it has to be inspected before the night shift, right? And that doesn't matter, 6:00 AM, Monday, when we get started back again, it's gotta be inspected again.
Matt Hockman
Well, in the gulf, it's where you specifically work. Our weather changes consistently. We.
[Raymond] Yeah, not just daily, by the hour.
[Matt] Yeah. It could change by the minute.
[Raymond] Right.
[Matt] So, I think inspections are a key to making sure that we continue to work safely-
[Raymond] Yes.
- day to day.
Mike Jernigan
You know, you mentioned the inspections and the competency and the things that it requires to work safely. And when you say competent person, can you talk about specifically what that means? What a competent person is when it comes to scaffold building and inspection?
Raymond Hendry
Yeah, I actually get to ask this a whole bunch. All right, how much training does my guy have to have? Or how many years experience does my guy have to have for me to deem him competent? And OSHA has zero written requirement to that. The person must be able, right? It's an ability to recognize existing or predictable hazards which are unsafe and can hurt employees and have the authority to take corrective action, okay? So competency's actually huge, right? And when you think about that overall, and it's not just with, now, competency is subject-specific, but it also encompasses the entire work area. So, right? I'm competent on scaffold, I'm not necessarily competent on electrical, right? But for me to be competent on scaffold, I have to also be aware of electrical hazards, right? Oh, yeah. Well, there's a trench over there, and they're working in this and so it's, yes, it's subject-specific, but you must have an overall awareness of safety, and that's not something you just get in a 40-hour class, right? You know, there's a lot of great ones out there, but it's an ability and no amount of training, equals no amount of experience, equals. And it has to be observed. It has to be recognized. And then once it's recognized and a lot of companies do it, the written documentation, testing program, and stuff like that, then that person becomes authorized and accountable.
Matt Hockman
But until you're in the field and you're actually doing it, it's so hard to just sit in a classroom, you go through a training, okay, I understand it. No, that's not the way it works. You gotta be in the field. You gotta understand, and you need to work with somebody who is competent for a period of time because that's how you're gonna really get that.
Raymond Hendry
That's the only way that you can ever prove competency is you have to have another person that is competent and/or qualified, observe that person actually in the field, because scaffolding has like so many different uses in, we actually go upside down a lot of times on offshore, you know, you think scaffold from the ground up, but there's times in scenarios in the offshore world where we start up top and build down. And if you've never been exposed to that kind of scenario or a situation, it's gonna be very foreign. And you may have to take a step back and look to the next guy and say, have you done this before as well, right? And it can be very, very complex, and you can get a lot of scenarios where a person could have 10 years experience in say, the commercial side building on high rises and residentials with its own little animal, right? I mean, those are very complex and technical and huge duty ratings and stuff on them. But you put 'em in a plant or a refinery scenario, and they're wondering where do I start, you know? Once you've learned that part of it, the rest of it's kind of the Lego system, right? You know, but with some rules.
Mike Jernigan
So as HSC and HR director, you know, you're out on job sites, and I'm sure you yourself are inspecting work that's being done and you're taking a look at these things, you know, just watching your employees do their thing. Have you yourself ever spotted an issue and had to call it out? And when that happens, what does that look like for you?
Raymond Hendry
So you have a lot of different types of scenarios that you're bundling into this, right? So, but anything that is an immediate risk, that's a stop on the spot. Get whoever's responsible over there. We red tag that scaffold, barricade that scaffold off and nobody gets on it until it gets fixed. Period. That's anything that's a fall potential or you know, what we call severe. Then you have what we call opportunity improvement. You could have done this better. You could have done better. I don't like that ladder access. There's probably some exposure. Somebody could hit their back, their head, or something like that. We, again, call that out, get over there. We might put a yellow tag on it. We might write some additional hazard recognition on the tag, might send somebody up to barricade that Bauer pipe, whatever's sticking out could be until we can come back and move that access. You know, it's levels, right? And then sometimes it's, well, we could have done this better, this better, this better. And that's a follow up at the end of the inspection with our opportunities to improve. But anything that's as severe, it's a stop work on the spot. You get somebody over here, we red tag, barricade off, and then we get this fixed. You can't leave it.
[Matt] And everybody should have the authority to do that.
Raymond Hendry
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, our company has a very, very, very strong culture of stop work authority. You do it in a professional manner, but you cannot be scared. And that also goes back to our motto of silence is permission. If you don't say anything, you're given permission for it to continue. But every employee has stop work authority that can walk up and say, hey, time out. I'm not comfortable. Let's talk about this. And maybe it's just I didn't understand, okay? Oh, well, that makes perfect sense now. But maybe it's like, hey, you brought up a legitimate point. Or maybe it's, look, I don't care if we've gotta go get the OIM or the head safety guy, or whatever, somebody's gonna lose a finger. But you've gotta be willing to step up, and you've got to support it from the management side, especially, even when the employee's wrong. Even when the employee's wrong, that's the hard one, right? But even when that employee's wrong, and we've had those scenarios, he was doing it for the right reason. We had conversations about it, everybody's on the same page, and we went on, and he was wrong, but we supported him, we thanked him, we appreciated him, did a little more education, right? You know, that's an important part of it. But you've got to support that employee when they use stop work authority, and it's gotta be real, right? And you gotta teach it also. That's not one of those common sense features. No, that's not built in. You gotta explain to employees that this is expected, it's encouraged, it's promoted, and you gotta be willing to do it.
Matt Hockman
And it's an opportunity, it's an opportunity for growth-
[Raymond] Yes.
[Matt] for them and for your team.
[Raymond] Without a doubt.
Mike Jernigan
You mentioned Gulf South Services, extraordinary safety record, and I can only imagine that everything that you're saying contributes to that. And it's funny, you know, we sit here, and I've got a list of questions to ask you and you answer 'em before I get to 'em, you know, and it's because I think your approach and your views are so thorough already, but can you just talk just a little bit more about what those employees that, you know, that ability to stop that work and to do that, how does that make them feel that empowerment? Do you see that reflected in their attitudes?
Raymond Hendry
Yeah. Well, so, it kind of starts out the whole culture of Gulf South. I have to throw a bone here, is because our owner is a safety professional. He worked in the field and fought that battle that we fight. Production versus safety, profitability versus safety. And so, Ryan started his business with the concept of employee safety will be first and it be above anything. And so, that culture's been driven from the owner down, right? And so, it made it really easy for me to come and partner with, and look, I'm not scared to ask, can I see your observation program? Can I see your behavior base? And if you've got something better, I'm gonna ask you, can I borrow, you know, certain things are copyrighted and you can't, but anything that I can. And so, we spent a few years trying to build a really good behavior-based program, then tie that in with a huge amount of employee training on the importance of stop work authority and tying it in non-punitive, non-punishable to the BBS program. And then recognizing we do all, and there's a lot of companies do different stuff. You don't buy safety, but you can reward good behavior and it can be a trinket program. You know, you give 'em hats. You give them cool, OSHA-approved safety glasses that they'll actually wear, you know? And, you know, and FRC shirt with their name on it. Safety observer. That goes, because the next guy goes, how did I get one of them?
[Matt] No, exactly.
[Raymond] You stop work for something. You stop work, protect somebody, do something right. You know, it's, we, yes, we get paid to do a job, but it's sure nice when somebody comes up and pats you on the back and says, good job doing the job I'm paying you to do. We're human, right? But then that promotes that peer-to-peer safety, and that's where it's effective.
Matt Hockman
It's using the tools in your toolbox and it's the partnerships like AEU and Gulf South have. We've worked together. We've done things and it continues. I mean, it's always a learning experience. Safety never stops-
[Raymond] No, it doesn't.
[Matt] from that standpoint.
Raymond Hendry
I was wondering if there'd be an opportunity for this message. So safety is like pushing a lead sled down the concrete highway. The moment you stop, it does, right? I was told that in 1994 and it's still true today, right? And you mentioned something that I didn't mention about an effective program. Partnering, not just using AEU and your broker for insurance. Truly partnering. Use your loss control managers, get them to come visit your job sites. Look, I've been in this business 30 years, but I brought one of the AEU loss managers and my account manager. He comes when he walks on a job site. And I walked by two things that he stopped and paused and said, "Hey, come look at this." And it was like, I'm like, "Good catch." I've been here so many times, I just walked past that.
[Matt] It's that outside perspective.
Right, a new set of eyes. A fresh set of eyes that hadn't been on that job site that hadn't watched those individual people working. And we made a really good, excuse me, made a really good day of it. We had some great conversation with the employees. Nothing was a police, right? Nothing was penalty, but a good opportunity to talk to the employees and me to be able to introduce him, what he does, how long he's been in the business, and that he was presenting just a fresh set of eyes, and we had opportunities to improve it, and it was well-received. And then the next time I go back to that job site, massive amount of improvement, right? So use those tools that AEU provides also, like our broker does the same thing. They have a loss guy that I can borrow and say, hey, come do a mock audit. Let's go walk a job. Just come look. We actually have invited OSHA to come and do assessments every three years because we, in Louisiana, we have the incumbent training worker program, and they'll send out a OSHA consultant to walk your site. And we've done it four times, and we've never had anything that they found was a writeup, right?
[Matt] That's incredible.
[Raymond] Yeah.
Matt Hockman
So, this is my big question that I ask everybody. What is one piece of safety advice that you would give your younger self?
Raymond Hendry
Do not compromise.
[Matt] I like it.
[Raymond] 'Cause once you do, you can't go back and change that.
[Matt] Yeah.
Raymond Hendry
Or if you go back, you go to twice the battle, right? You just cannot compromise when it comes to safety. You have to stand your ground, and you can't back down from it. You can't be scared of it. And you just have, that's what you have to do. You have to, 'cause we live by it, right?
[Matt] Yeah. And at the end of the day, you could save somebody's life.
[Raymond] And it could be yours.
[Matt] Yeah. Absolutely.
[Raymond] Yeah, without a doubt.
Mike Jernigan
Guys, I think that's a great message. And really that's a great place to stop. I just wanna say that throughout these conversations, the one thing that stands out to me are these partnerships.
[Raymond] Oh, yeah.
And people working together to push safety forward. I mean, we've said that before. And I'm saying it again because that just seems to be the theme here, working together toward a common goal. So anyway, I'm glad to be joined with you guys. And Raymond, I thank you so much for this very thorough and insightful and informative conversation. I appreciate it. Matt, thank you for everything that you've said. So it's been a pleasure having you guys with us today.
[Matt] Thank you, Mike.
[Raymond] Thank you.