Tilcon New Jersey attained a remarkable safety record in 2009, being ranked No. 1 among the 22 regions of parent company, Atlanta - based Oldcastle Materials Group. 

This ranking has led to Tilcon New Jersey being awarded the Oldcastle Materials Group World Class Safety Award for Best Safety Culture and Performance, 2009 and the Oldcastle Materials Group President's Award 2009, awarded to the top five regions of the company. Additionally Tilcon New Jersey received the Safety Excellence Award for zero incidents and the Fleet Excellence Award.

Working safely is a foundation of Tilcon’s philosophy and at the heart of the company’s day-to-day operations. In recent years the focus has shifted away from a purely management-led process towards placing the onus on employees to take ownership and be responsible for working safely in their daily work environment, backed up by strong management support.  

Says Bill Aspinall, Vice President of Operations, striving for 100% employee ownership of safety is Tilcon NJ’s vision. ‘We want all of our employees to be Personal Safety Directors. We are making the transition from our management personnel solely driving safety to all of us driving safety. It’s about working together as a TEAM.’ 

The company conducts extensive training with new employees and refresher training regularly, for all employees. This combines with monthly safety inspections at all plants, and close cooperation with government agencies such as MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration) and OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) who conduct inspections at quarries and asphalt plants.

In recent years employee based initiatives have been brought in, such as Safety Advocacy Groups in which employees form teams to conduct safety inspections and fix issues. The company has also created, as necessary, cross-functional teams of employees to look and resolve a specific issue.  For example, one team was created to look at how skid steers, small tracked vehicles used for clearing areas within quarries and asphalt plants, operated. The machines often work in spaces with low overhead clearance, restricted visibility and limited space. After inspecting a number of plants, the team’s solution was to create no access or restricted access areas, indicated by signage.  In some cases it was determined that only a skid steer with an extension could safely operate, in other places skid steers were not allowed to operate at all and clearing was accomplished with a hose or water truck instead.

If Tilcon New Jersey’s safety record in 2009 is anything to go by, creating an employee-led culture of safety appears to be bearing fruit.