Underground Construction - July 2020 - 18

2020 HDD Roundtable
three months at a crack. Some of them just
don't want to do the travel, so they'll end
up going to work for a smaller group that's
local. One of the issues we have is retention,
just keeping them interested in what we do.
Obviously, the pay is better when they're
traveling. They make a lot of money. But
again, we try to accommodate their family
life. There are times when clients will want
us to work through Christmas and New
Year's, but we typically won't unless there's
a true reason to do it. People need to have
that family time, and we value that very
much for our employees.

Moderator: Any thoughts
from other contractors in the
room? Where are you finding
good people?
Audience: We concentrate a lot on social
media. Like you say, what the younger generation's into, putting out that big job, that
impressive job, that everybody wants to be
a part of. We make sure it is advertised on
social media to draw them in to apply. But
it is a challenge. Legacy, with family and
friends coming up in the industry, is always
the best place to get people, but sometimes
it's hard to find that as well.

Audience: Another place we've had
success finding good people is through
the Helmets to Hardhats program. [www.
helmetstohardhats.org] We also check with
local recruiters and the VA. A lot of people
who get out of the service don't have a job
available when they get home. The veterans
we've had have been great. They bring a
strong work ethic and experience taking
on challenges and solving them, along with
general service skills that are absolutely
adaptable to this market.

Moderator: Even with the best of
training, safety is a major concern,
especially as so many of the
experienced workers we've relied
on to guide newcomers on job
sites in the past have been lost to
retirement. What have you been
doing in the way of safety?
Bosch: Over the past year, we've been rolling
out something that's called "Stuff That Kills
You." We're trying to get to the point where
people understand if you see something,
that's really, truly going to kill someone,
stop it. Everybody's got to speak up. And
we go through each shift in the morning, at

Dustin Brasher, ECI Drilling

Paul Bearden, HDR

Greg Bosch, Quanta/Mears

Grady Bell, Bell Trenchless

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JULY 2020 | UConOnline.com

midday and at the end of the day to make
sure everyone understands what we're doing.
If the game plan changes, if we go from
piloting to tripping back out to reaming, we
make sure everybody understands why we're
doing it. Then we get back to work. There's
a lot of things on a job site that will kill you.
You have to get the new guys understanding
what those things are. We want to make sure
everyone goes home.
Brasher: ECI is part of the JAG companies. We were just acquired a couple of years
ago, and we built an entire culture around
safety. Our leadership goes beyond standardized safety meetings. For instance, we
have winter safety meetings when the entire
company comes in, where we just build
this to the point where everything revolves
around safety prior to anything else.

Audience: Sometimes safety has
to do with having enough room to
actually create a safe situation. A
lot of the sites are very condensed.
Is there something you've been
doing that has worked successfully
to make sure you get enough
room to create a safe site?
Bearden: From an engineering design
perspective, it's important to communicate during all phases of design, where
you're representing your owner-operators
or whoever your client is to get them to
understand why your contractor needs that
workspace and that it's worth the additional cost or effort. I can't stress the need for
communication too much because some
folks just don't get it. They look at the
footprint of a piece of equipment and think
you don't need any more space than what
it takes up. Often times, it's just communication to help them understand that added
space is required to ultimately prevent a
situation created by not enough space, to
keep things safe for everyone.
It's also important for those of us who
are out there supporting our owner-operator clients to communicate with our own
workforce and help them understand when
we're on site to stay out of the way and let
the people who are pushing and pulling the
levers do their work. Teach them to keep
our stuff out of their way so that we're
not impacting operations or getting into a
scenario that could cause harm to anyone.
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Underground Construction - July 2020

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