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The Blueprint
Construction Safety Week focuses on preventing serious injuries and fatalities through training and awareness.
Industry leaders say suicide rates in construction remain significantly higher than occupational fatalities.
Contractors are increasingly using AI, robotics and prefab construction methods to improve worker safety.
Construction safety has been top-of-mind in Minnesota and beyond this week as the industry emphasizes the importance of staying healthy in both mind and body.
Between May 4 and 8, the industry observed Construction Safety Week, an annual event that highlights best practices, training opportunities, and other resources to prevent injuries and fatalities.
This year’s safety week comes on the heels of a report from the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, which shows that 84 fatal work injuries were recorded overall in Minnesota in 2024. That includes 18 in the private construction industry, up from 13 in 2023.
In the following interview, Stacy Arnold of the Associated General Contractors of Minnesota talks about the latest construction safety trends, the growing emphasis on mental health in the industry, and the role of technology in safety, among other topics.
Arnold has been AGC-Minnesota’s director of safety and CHASE since May 2024. Previously, she wore a number of hats with RJM Construction, including project manager, safety manager and safety director.
Arnold graduated from Minnesota State University, Moorhead, with a Bachelor of Science degree in construction management. She also holds an architectural construction technology degree from St. Cloud Technical College.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: The theme this year’s Construction Safety Week is “recognize, respond and respect,” and the focus is preventing serious injuries and fatalities. Tell us more about that.
A: Safety Week does tend to be the first week of May every year. Contractors all interpret it a little bit differently as to how they focus. There is a focus on fall prevention, but many contractors use it as an opportunity to just re-engage their workforce before the season gets really busy, to focus and prioritize on safety.
They will cover a variety of topics. A lot of contractors this time of year also do their annual safety trainings. But they really try and make it a fun, engaging week, with demonstrations on site that help educate on why safety is important. They do giveaways, things like that.
Q: I know that there’s been a growing emphasis not only on physical safety, but mental health as well. What can you tell me about that?
A: Ultimately, when we look at the suicide rates for industry, it’s five times higher on any given year than people having an occupational accident and unfortunately losing their life. So it is a huge issue in the industry.
AGC of Minnesota is a founding partner of the Minnesota Construction Mental Health Alliance, and that’s in partnership with the Minnesota Building Trades and Construction Trades and the Mercury Creative Group.
We were recently awarded a $450,000 grant from Minnesota Department of Labor to help elevate this focus in our industry, and that’ll include anything from expanding prevention trainings, developing curriculums for the unions and collaborating not only with contractor partners, but trying to get support and elevating the conversation with ownership partners, as well. Ultimately, it’s the conditions of bidding work and winning work and trying to get work done that put these pressures on contractors that trickle downhill to be demands of the workforce.
Q: How is technology being used to improve safety?
A: We are starting to see a lot more emergent technology that is really starting to solve some challenges for the workforce for tasks that are dull, dangerous or difficult. In this conversation [we often hear], “I don’t want a robot to take my job.” And that’s not really where the industry is focusing its efforts. The reality is, we do have a workforce shortage, but let’s focus our workforce on tasks that they actually enjoy, where they feel productive, and ultimately, we’re not putting them in dangerous situations.
So we’re seeing more robotic developments that help take some of those physically demanding tasks where you still have a skilled craft worker performing the work, but it takes that physicality out of it.
We’re seeing AI being used for basically documenting some of the paperwork. We’re having our pre-test plans. We’re having the collaborative conversation, but ultimately we’re utilizing AI to fill out the paperwork piece so the documentation is actually happening.
It has a coaching side, as well, where it will actually give feedback and track the growth or improvement or lack of improvement of a particular person’s ability to lead that conversation and dialogue with workers.
There’s starting to be some wearables for lone worker situations. We’re not seeing too much of that coming out in the contractors that I’m looking at and working with regularly, but that is starting to be something that’s out there, as far as tracking and monitoring for a medical event or being able to call for an emergency.
Q: I’ve heard about things like smart helmets and smart vests and even panic buttons that people can use to call for help in the event of an accident. Are you seeing any other trends on the equipment side?
A: Some autonomous equipment is starting to come out. We’re really only seeing cases for that in very large greenfield project situations where the equipment’s running very repetitive work. It is still controlled by an operator. So again, not looking to eliminate those jobs there, but we don’t have enough skilled qualified operators to be in the seats.
A lot of our contractors are moving more to prefabbing. They’re doing a lot more prefabbing in controlled environments. Going back to that worker well-being conversation, they have access to clean restrooms, running water, all these things while they’re still performing their work. It can improve the quality, and ultimately, it shortens the duration of the actual construction in the field, because they’re not having to assemble all these small pieces to build the project. They can bring in bigger sections at a time and get those installed. The actual in-the-field construction goes faster when they can do that on the front end. Again, the workforce is still there. They’re still needed, but it is a change to the job a little bit.
Q: Can you speak to what we’re seeing in the way of job-related fatalities and serious injuries? How are we doing in that respect?
A: It’s funny that you asked that question, because that’s actually been a really hot conversation in the industry. The Department of Labor recently published on their website that Minnesota incident rates are consistently trending down and reaching an all-time low. However, the fatality rate this year is on the rise.
That’s not unique to Minnesota. It’s actually an industry problem where we’re seeing our incident rates decline, but that fatality rate is actually a pretty flat line year over year. And so the conversation that’s trending with that is that the stuff that hurts people isn’t the same that kills people.
So [we’re focusing] on high energy hazards that have the potential to kill or very seriously injure our workforce, and having controls in place that ultimately protect the worker, even if somebody makes a mistake.
When we do have something that happens, but we’ve had the controls in place and everybody is okay and nothing has happened, we’re celebrating those successes, as well.
Q: Falls are always right there at the top of the list when it comes to leading causes of death in construction. What can companies do to prevent falls and protect their workers?
A: We really want fall protection to be super simple. The workforce seems to think that, ‘I’m connected, I’m good.’ But there’s a lot more complexity there as far as really understanding the equipment, understanding the compatibility of the equipment, the quality of the anchor points, and what those fall clearance requirements actually are for the configuration that you’re in.
It’s actually something that AGC did last week. We had a safety forum on fall protection where I talked about a lot of these limitations and why there does need to be more time and emphasis on training.