It’s common knowledge that a large majority of jobsite accidents are caused by new employees, usually those within six months of starting on the job. At AEC firm Haskell, new employees receive comprehensive safety training and testing to minimize these types of incidents. The company, which is focused on commercial, industrial and civil infrastructure markets, had a Recordable Incident Rate last year of 0.36 for 2.7 million man-hours (compared with the industry RIR average of 2.8 for a comparable amount of hours). Nevertheless, the company’s training and safety managers are always looking for ways to improve, said Hamzah Shanbari, Haskell’s manager of Construction Technology and Innovation, during an interview with Construction Dive. “Our target is zero incidents,” he said. “We want to make sure that everybody who comes onto a jobsite goes home safely.” Shanbari said the company’s training tools, such as safety videos and online quizzes, are a good start in educating new employees, but leaders at the Jacksonville, Florida-based firm wanted to enhance existing safety training with interactive technology. The team looked to virtual reality simulation systems but found that none of the packages on the market fit Haskell’s needs. They didn’t provide overarching training for a variety of hazards and very few were focused on construction settings, Shanbari said. So company leaders decided to create a VR program through Haskell’s one-year-old corporate venture capital arm, Dysruptek. Founded to make direct and indirect investments in emerging AEC technologies, it is focused on research and development and other new construction solutions, he said READ HERE
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