I.D.I. to Participate in National Fall Prevention Stand-Down on 5/11/15!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees,

OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) is promoting to all construction companies to participate in a National Fall Prevention Safety Stand-Down.  The purpose of the Fall Prevention Safety Stand-Down is to raise awareness of preventing fall hazards in construction.  Fatalities caused by falls from elevation continue to be a leading cause of death for construction workers, accounting for 302 of the 828 construction workers that died at work in 2013.  Those deaths were preventable!

What is a Fall Prevention Safety Stand-Down?  A Safety Stand-Down is a voluntary event for employers to talk directly to employees about "Fall Hazards and to reinforce the importance of the "Fall Prevention."

OSHA is promoting this Fall Prevention Safety Stand-Down on billboards in the Chicago Area.

I.D.I. will be participating in this Safety Stand-Down and here is how: 

On Monday, 5/11/15 we are advising all Safety Coordinators to gather our crews and to all perform the same fall protection toolbox talk.  The toolbox talk that we want everyone to perform is in your Safety Coordinator Manuals.  It is under the Fall Protection tab of your manual, it is toolbox talk # FP8 and it is called:  What is Fall Protection?  After gathering your crews and performing the toolbox talk, have our employees, including yourself, sign the toolbox talk signature roster and turn that into our Safety Director as usual.  We in turn have to advise OSHA as to how many employees participated in the Stand-Down.  OSHA's goal is to have 1 million construction workers participate in the Stand-Down. 

Let's work as a team to make this Safety Stand-Down a success by getting everyone involved and participating.  We thank you in advance for your help and for being a leader of safety.  Your efforts help us to live up to our safety mission statement:  "Everyone Goes Home Alive And In The Same Condition As They Arrived; Your Loved Ones Count On It!"  Should you have any questions, please contact our Safety Director, Safety Pete at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

Ladder Safety - 6/6/15!!!!

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees, 

As most of you know, our next volunteer quarterly safety meeting is being held on Saturday, June 6th from 7:00am to 9:00am.  We have finalized our safety training topic and it is going to be on Ladder Safety.  We have had a few incidents over the past couple of months involving employees incorrectly using ladders, which fortunately did not lead to any injuries.  We will have representative from Werner Ladders at our meeting helping out with this safety training session. 

Ladder related fatalities are one of the number one killers in construction.  It is difficult to find current exact data on how many construction workers died involving a ladder, however, in 2011 there were a total of 34,500 employees of companies who sought medical care for ladder related injuries.  There were 15,460 employees of companies who had lost-time injuries involving ladders and 113 ladder related fatalities.  We don't want for our employees/family members to become one of these statistics. 

Please mark your calendar for June 6th at 7:00am. 

Final note - our last 2 volunteer quarterly safety meetings went way past 9:00am and that can be aggravating to those who expect to get out of there by 9:00am.  We understand this aggravation and we will ensure that our June 6th meeting is over by 9:00am.

We will advertise this meeting further as we get closer to the meeting date.  If you have any questions about this meeting or about safety in general, you are encouraged to contact our Safety Director, Safety Pete at (847) 417-1689. 

Have a Safe Day!

Da Hawks Win!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees,

In case you live under a rock and just crawled out from under it this morning, the Blackhawks won a triple overtime thriller last night that ended around 1:30am in the morning.  Many employees of I.D.I. are Blackhawk's fans and many of the diehards may have stayed up until the very end of the game.  We could have some fatigued employees this morning.  For everybody's safety, we need to ensure that our employees are "fit for duty."  We are asking everybody to keep an eye on eachother today.  If you notice an employee is overly fatigued, drowsy, etc., please talk to that employee about stopping work and going home safely.  If you observe an employee working unsafely due to the fatigue, it should be reported to your job site supervisor or superintendent for the safety of the fatigued employee so that he/she doesn't get injured or injure somebody else.  Please help out our family members by keeping an eye on eachother for everybody's well being.  If you have any questions, you are encouraged to call our Safety Director, Safety Pete at (847) 417-1689. 

Go Hawks - Have a Safe Day!







Online OSHA 30-Hour Course for $115.00

Good afternoon I.D.I. employees,

As you all know, as part of our 2015 Volunteer Safety Training Incentive Program, we offer 100 safety training incentive points per hour for safety training courses taken outside of our company.  If anyone is interested in taking the Construction OSHA 30-Hour course online over the internet, it is now being offered through the Lake County Contractors Association (LCCA) for $115.00.  The is the lowest price that we have found anywhere.  LCCA is now offering this to its members only at this low price.  I.D.I. is a member of LCCA. 

If any employees want to take this course or if you have any questions about this course, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham at pgraham@4idi.com.  Just send Safety Pete an e-mail and he will contact you. 

Unfortunately this course is not yet being offered in Spanish at this price. 

Have a Safe Day!

Green Tape on All 3-Pronged Electrical Tools & Extension Cords as of 4/1/15!

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:

We begin a new quarter on Wednesday, 4/1/15 for our Assured Grounding Program. We provided green tape for distribution to the Safety Coordinators at our volunteer quarterly safety meeting that was held on 2/28/15.  To all Safety Coordinators - please help keep our employees safe and help keep us OSHA compliant by following our assured grounding program. Please inspect, test and color-code with green tape all 3 pronged electrical tools and extension cords. All electrical tools and cords need to be visually inspected. If you see any defects in the cords such as bare wires, severe kinks, missing or damaged ground prong, the cord pulling away from the plug end-housing, etc., then that tool or cord would need to be immediately removed from service and reported to the lead person. If your tool/cord passes the visual inspection, your next step is to test the cord with a receptacle tester. First, you should test the oulet that you will be plugging your cord into to ensure that it is properly wired. You should see 2 yellow lights lit up on your tester and the red light should be off. This means the outlet is working appropriately. Next, plug your cord into the outlet and then test the cord with the receptacle tester. Again, you should see the same light pattern as mentioned above and this would mean the cord passed the test and it is good and safe to use. Any other light pattern means that there is a problem with the cord and the cord needs to be removed from service and reported to your lead person. If the cord passes the visual inspection and the cord tester test, you should then remove the previous quarter's white electrical tape and install the green electrical tape about 1" down from both plug ends. Your cord is now in compliance with our 2nd quarter's Assured Grounding Program. The green tape shall remain in place from 4/1/15 through 6/30/15. You are not quite done yet! All employees now need to visually inspect all electrical cords and tools on a daily basis and if any defects are found, the cord needs to be immediately removed from service.

Thank you for taking the time to ensure your electrical tools and cords are in safe working order. Your actions may prevent one of our family members from sustaining an electrical shock type injury or worse yet and electrocution. If you have any questions regarding our Assured Grounding Program, please call our Safety Director, Peter Graham, at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

Next Volunteer Quarterly Safety Meeting on Saturday, 6/6/15

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees,

Just getting the word out that our next Volunteer Quarterly Safety Meeting has been scheduled for Saturday, June 6th, 2015 at 7:00am at our Barrington office. 

We will advertise this further over the next few months including the safety training topic, etc. 

That is all!

Have a Safe Day!

Award Winning Safety at I.D.I.

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees,

As most of you know due to being in attendance at our company-wide volunteer quarterly safety meeting held in February, we recently received 2 safety awards.  We received a safety award from the Lake County Contractors Association for having the lowest lost workday ratio in the 100,001 - 500,000 hours worked division for the 2014 calendar year.  We actually had zero lost-time injuries during 2014 which is quite an accomplishment. 

The second safety award that we received was from our insurance broker, Willis Group, who is the largest broker in the United States for writing construction insurance.  The Willis Group presented International Decorators with their "Eagle Award" which was in recognition of I.D.I. working 610 consecutive days, which included 452,785 man hours worked without sustaining a lost-time injury.  The Willis Group advised that their Chicago Office gives out 1 Eagle Award a year to one construction company in the Chicagoland area and this year, International Decorators was the recipient of this award.  Dan Balles of the Willis Group (center of photo below) presented the Eagle Award to I.D.I. at our February 28th volunteer quarterly safety meeting. 

Receiving both of these awards says something about our employees and our safety culture.  It took a lot of team work and effort to achieve 610 consecutive days worked without sustaining a lost-time injury.  We can only accomplish this by having employees that care about themselves and about each other.  These awards are your (employees) awards and they are well deserved.  Congratulations to all I.D.I. employees!

Awesome job - Everyone! - on setting the standard, being the industry leader in safety and living up to our safety mission statement: "Everyone Goes Home Alive And In The Same Condition As They Arrived; Your Loved Ones Count On It."

Have a Safe Day!