Sundt’s innovative safety program wins first place at the 2024 AGC Autodesk Innovation Awards program, for an initiative that goes far beyond traditional rules-based compliance programs.
BY KATIE KUEHNER-HEBERT
STCKY stands for S#*! That Can Kill You – a mindset for all construction companies and their employees to pay attention to, said Paul Levin, Sundt Construction’s vice president and corporate director of health, safety and environment.
The construction industry – “an industry we’ve devoted our lives to” – has data showing that even though contractors have been successful in driving down the recordable injury rate, the fatality rate has not come down in more than 10 years, Levin said.
Indeed, the metrics used in traditional construction worksite safety programs – the recordable injury rate and the experience modification rate – just aren’t cutting it: Fatalities in the industry aren’t declining. Sundt is looking to close that gap through its STOP THE STCKY program.
“With STOP THE STCKY, we measure all information related to safety which gives you a whole new view of what success and improvement looks like within the construction safety landscape,” Levin said. Going beyond recordables, Sundt now tracks and classifies all incidents, which starts with all unplanned events, he said. Not all incidents are equal – they are either classified as STCKY (high-energy) or Non- STCKY releases of energy.
One unplanned event several years ago validated the concept of STCKY versus Non-STCKY framework, said Eric Cylwik, Sundt’s director of innovation. A worker had lowered himself down into a drilled shaft to work on some rebar, clipping his safety device onto the back of his truck. However, another worker then moved the truck to retrieve a piece of equipment, and as that person drove off, he pulled the first worker out of the shaft and dragged him for a short distance.
“Thankfully he wasn’t seriously injured – just some minor scrapes, but our safety team realized our strategy only focused on when the event results in an injury. We need to focus on all unplanned events, regardless of the outcome,” Cylwik said. “Historically all safety programs have focused on how to minimize injuries. But with this program, we’ve opened it up to include any unplanned near-miss reporting that could lead to safety incidents and potential STCKY injuries, otherwise known as SIF – severe injuries and fatalities.”
The company has also reframed assumptions about risk and safety, and its safety training now includes enhanced techniques for assessing jobsite high-energy (STCKY) hazards, and the direct controls and safeguards needed to control the energy that causes injuries, he said. From this process, Sundt has also created and instituted a new four-step causal analysis to more clearly understand how incidents happen – rather than assign blame.
“For example, in that unplanned event with the truck, we would now use this analysis to figure out how the situation was created and how those choices were made,” Cylwik said. “Did he not have another anchor to tie off to? This helps us better educate teams about hazard recognition and the direct controls and safeguards that need to be put in place to minimize incidents.”
STCKY Wheel, STCKY Walks and STCKY Tech
To improve high-energy (STCKY) hazard recognition, the company created the STCKY Wheel to help aid in identifying energy sources that most frequently are the source of severe injuries and fatalities, which Sundt calls STCKY energy. Wheel components include S#*! that lifts, S#*! that’s built at heights, S#*! that’s built underground, S#*! that’s built in confined spaces, S#*! that’s energized, S#*! that stores energy, S#*! that’s hazardous and S#*! that moves or crushes.
“The real power of STOP THE STCKY is that you are training people to look out for the things that can severely injure them, and doing so in a manner that they’re used to that engages with them,” Cylwik said. “That prompts them to think through the implications of the activities that they’re doing right now, which helps them make safer choices.”
To truly make an impact on jobsites, the company instituted STCKY walks, daily and weekly walks of the jobsite, to identify high-energy STCKY hazards, and then to remind workers about the proper protection – direct controls and safeguards, to prevent injuries and fatalities, Levin said.
Examples of direct controls include lockout tag-out, properly protected excavations and engineered fall protection systems. Safeguards include excavation perimeter protection, controlled access zones and use of a spotter.
“The way that we’re doing these STCKY walks and STCKY observations allows us to look at how somebody put themselves at risk when they were performing their work,” Cylwik said. “We review the way a particular safety task or system was designed to determine whether workers even knew there was a STCKY hazard there. Perhaps they didn’t have the materials or equipment they needed to stop that from being a STCKY hazard – or they did have all those things and they just didn’t utilize it the best way.”
Sundt’s safety team then uses the insight gleaned from the STCKY walks and observations to determine what kinds of improvements the company needs to make so workers on the frontline have everything they need to make the best possible decisions, he said.
For example, after examining data on multiple projects, the team may determine there is an issue around potential S#*! built at heights because workers aren’t even realizing it’s a problem, Cylwik said.
By taking a few moments to identify how the decision was made to work in a manner that was unsafe, it helps the company determine whether more education is needed – or whether they may need to invest in fall arrest systems with more clearly designated labels, he said.
Sundt has also leveraged the right type of tech to back it all up, Levin said. STOP THE STCKY uses modern solutions that make sure these new daily activities don’t slow down the action. Smart technologies make incident reporting and analysis seamless and convenient from the field to the office.
The company’s custom-built incident reporting process enables on-the-spot reporting and classification of all incidents, he said. It’s STCKY Walk feature enables the field to easily record all high-energy hazards observed on each STCKY walk, and whether the proper direct controls and safeguards are in place. Sundt’s Safety Dashboard enables the creation of transparent and intuitive reports that make it easy to track progress on the company’s mission to STOP THE STCKY.
STOP THE STCKY Success
Sundt’s team measures the program’s success by determining whether the company has the right controls and safeguards in place for all unplanned events to make sure that workers remain safe even in the rare chance a major incident happens, Cylwik said. The percentage of controls and safeguards in place is now significantly higher than before the program was implemented, “because before we were focused on other aspects of safety that weren’t as life-altering or life-ending.”
Over the last five years, STOP THE STCKY has evolved into a way of life at Sundt – a comprehensive framework encompassing innovative practices, safety engagement and proactive measures constructed to mitigate high-energy (STCKY) hazards, Levin said.
“Through ongoing evaluation, radical candor and feedback, we have refined our approach to safety, integrating industry best practices and leveraging advanced technologies,” he said. “But perhaps the most significant aspect of STOP THE STCKY is the people behind it – the dedicated employees who have embraced its principles, championed its initiatives and made safety a nonnegotiable aspect of their work ethos.”
Employees’ unwavering dedication, combined with the support of Sundt’s leadership team, has propelled STOP THE STCKY from a concept to a cornerstone of the company’s culture, Levin said.
“As we reflect on our journey thus far, we remain committed to advancing the cause of safety in the construction industry,” he said.
Sharing STOP THE STCKY
Sundt has developed a dedicated website to spread the word about STOP THE STCKY®, geared to encourage other construction companies to integrate the concepts of STOP THE STCKY into their program, Levin said.
The program can fit into any company regardless of size, experience or trade specialty, or whether the company self-performs work or manages the work of other companies.
“We’re all part of the construction industry safety journey,” he said. “This is designed to help any company, at any mile marker of that journey – whether it’s how you complete orientations, safety planning, inspection compliance or even better STCKY walks and incident management. Our program reflects this modern-day view of safety.
“So if you ask yourself, is the industry safer, how would you answer that? That’s the dilemma we are facing because we’ve all convinced ourselves that success is a lower recordable injury rate or experience modification rate, when there’s other metrics to be looking at,” he said. “And then from there, programs to drive better results of those new metrics.”
To learn more about Sundt’s STOP THE STCKY Program, please visit www. STOPTHESTCKY.com and register for the company’s STOP THE STCKY Academy.
AGC Autodesk Innovation Awards
Similar to AGC’s Construction Safety Excellence Awards, the AGC Autodesk Innovation Awards is another program that elevates best practices in the construction industry, Levin said. Both programs put safety on a national platform, providing much broader exposure that captures greater attention from c-suites.
“Safety is not proprietary,” he said. “We’re all dealing with the same challenges, so why not share the solutions that companies are having success with? We openly share information for the simple reason, to send everybody home safe every day – that’s what it’s all about.”
The AGC Autodesk Innovation Awards is an annual award program to incentivize and encourage free thinkers to provide pioneering solutions to industry challenges – whether the solutions are to improve jobsite safety, workforce shortage and lack of diversity, technology advancements, sustainability or project complexity – or any other challenge.
The AGC Autodesk Innovation award program is designed to allow contractors to come together and talk about how they’re solving challenges that impact every single person, every single day, Cylwik said. Contractors are able to share what they’ve learned and celebrate the successes they’ve had.
“You can have the world’s best idea on a job in Phoenix, and it might never make it to Austin, Texas,” he said. “But the AGC Autodesk Innovation Award program is a tool that is specifically designed to celebrate that idea in Phoenix and to take that information and share it with the job in Austin. It’s a great way to level the playing field and even though we are all over the world, to be able to make it feel like we’re a much smaller community and to be able to share really good ideas.”