Work-Related Injury Frequency Rates in the Navy Seabees.

Worker safety is a solemn responsibility of all leaders and managers. Understanding what safety statistics indicate is only the beginning of this responsibility. Leaders must be intimately familiar with the safety records of their organization and be able to identify the key areas that pose the most risk to their workers. Workers in the construction industry face significant hazards to their safety and well being. While making up only 6 of the U.S. domestic work force, construction workers account for 21 of worker fatalities and 11 of all serious injuries. Construction worker safety is not limited to the civilian world. The armed forces of the United States employ on active duty tens of thousands of construction workers. This paper will focus on a particular group of construction workers in the armed forces, the Navy Seabees. These men and women of the framed Seabees perform many of the same trades that are found in the civilian construction industry. A recent study addressed construction productivity among Naval Seabees. This survey of over 600 Seabees also gathered data on safety factors and injury frequencies. This paper will describe additional analysis of that data that was performed with the following four objectives in mind Determine average injury frequency rate for Seabees, Identify groups within the Seabees that have the highest injury rates, Identify other factors that most affect injury rates, Make recommendations based on these findings for inclusion in leadership and safety training.