Associated Builders and Contractors has released its 2025 Health and Safety Performance Report, an annual guide to construction job-site health and safety best practices. As a proud sponsor, ABC published the report ahead of Construction Safety Week 2025, May 5-9, to support its industrywide call to action for safer job sites and a stronger safety culture.
The report shows the positive impacts of construction companies participating in ABC’s STEP Health and Safety Management System, which enables top-performing ABC members to achieve incident rates 658 percent safer than the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics construction industry average, reducing total recordable incident rates by 85 percent. Established in 1989, STEP provides contractors and suppliers with a robust, no-cost framework for measuring health and safety data and benchmarking with peers in the industry.
“Transforming the status quo to set the expectation that all incidents are preventable creates a culture where health and safety are elevated to core values, a moral obligation for employers and employees,” said Greg Sizemore, ABC vice president of health, safety, environment and workforce development. “Priorities change frequently, but values remain consistent. The tools in ABC’s safety report draw the blueprint for industry leaders and workers to create a culture of health and safety, win and deliver work to communities without incident and protect the construction industry’s most valuable resource: its workforce.”
ABC’s research on more than 1 billion work hours completed by participants in the construction, heavy construction, civil engineering and specialty trades in 2024 identified the following foundations of industry-leading safety best practices:
- New hire safety orientation: Companies that conduct an in-depth indoctrination of new employees into health and safety culture, systems and processes experience Total Recordable Incident Rates, or TRIR, 52 percent lower than companies that limit their orientations to basic health and safety compliance topics. Additionally, Days Away, Restricted or Transferred, or DART, rates are reduced by 56 percent.
- Substance abuse prevention programs: Robust substance abuse prevention programs and policies with provisions for drug and alcohol testing where permitted lead to a 52 percent reduction in TRIR and a 55 percent reduction in DART rates.
- Frequency of toolbox talks: Companies that conduct daily, 15-to-30-minute toolbox talks reduce TRIR rates by 78 percent and DART rates by 79 percent compared to companies that hold them monthly.
- Top management engagement: Employer involvement at the highest level of company management in safety best practices produces a 49 percent reduction in TRIR and a 52 percent reduction in DART rates.
- Leading indicators: Tracking and reviewing activities carried out to prevent and control injuries, such as safety training, new hire safety orientation and substance abuse prevention, leads to a 59 percent reduction in TRIR and a 60 percent reduction in DART rates.
“The 2025 Health and Safety Performance Report and STEP will help any contractor or supplier reinforce their commitment to the well-being of their workforce,” said Sizemore. “If we choose to lead, if we choose to commit and if we choose to transform, together we can ensure every construction worker goes home safer, happier, healthier and more fulfilled every single day.”
For eight years, ABC’s Health and Safety Performance Report has captured the results of ABC STEP member companies performing real work on real projects to identify what comprises an industry-leading health and safety program. ABC member firms participating in STEP measure their safety processes and policies on key components and the criteria for best practices through a detailed questionnaire, with the goal of implementing or enhancing safety programs that reduce jobsite incident rates.
ABC’s 2025 Health and Safety Performance Report is brought to you by DEWALT, a Stanley Black & Decker brand, celebrating 100 years in business by continuing to provide customers with total jobsite and landscaping equipment solutions.
Any company can participate in STEP. Visit abc.org/step to begin or continue your safety journey.
