4 Years of Construction Without a Serious Incident: The HSE Culture on the Phoenix Project

“Safety first” is a slogan we have all heard many times. Behind this appealing phrase, the reality in the construction industry is far more bitter. According to the Ministry of Labor, roughly half of all workplace accidents across Iran occur in the construction industry. In other words, workplace accidents in this sector exceed even those in industries such as petrochemicals and steel. Moreover, according to official statistics, 46% of accidents in Iran’s construction industry result in the death of workers and project engineers.

These figures were reported at a time when, over the four years of the Phoenix project’s execution, no serious incident has affected the health of its workers and engineers. The main reason, however, is not luck but the importance Nexa Group places on complying with HSE standards.

Many reputable companies around the world cite this as a source of pride and an achievement, placing it above many other things, such as meeting the project schedule or the high quality of the work delivered, when introducing an organization or a completed project. Next, we will have a short conversation with Eng. Momeni, Project Manager of the Phoenix project, about his experiences with the HSE practices on this project.

In your view, what is one of the most important achievements of the Phoenix project?

One of the biggest successes we had on the Phoenix project, in my opinion, is that from the beginning to the end of the project we did not experience any particularly serious incident, and Phoenix was completed without an accident. Unfortunately, in the construction of most building projects, even small ones of two or three floors, we see engineers and workers killed or suffering amputations. So I think having no serious incident on a 15-story project is one of the Phoenix project’s major achievements.

On the first day of this project, what concerns did you have about the workforce and about complying with HSE standards?

We faced a great many challenges in recruiting a workforce. My biggest concern was bringing in people who could work together as a team and collaborate with empathy. My personal view is that, beyond expertise and technical and engineering knowledge, the ability to do teamwork well matters enormously. Whether people have a team spirit and respect for the rules is one of the factors that most strongly affects compliance with project standards, HSE included.

How did you turn HSE into a culture on Phoenix?

We wrote the HSE Plan at the very start, before the project had actually begun, and we tried to use it at every stage of construction and to pay special attention to the health and safety of the site. I can say three factors were especially important to us. The first was the workforce. Regardless of position, from laborers and security guards to engineers, we tried to place great value on everyone working on Phoenix. The second was order and discipline, which we tried to make a priority both in HSE and in all other phases of execution. And finally, we did not compromise on even the smallest HSE standards, and this meant that not only did we have no incidents, but the approach spread to the other pillars of the project as well. In my opinion, taking HSE seriously helped us in terms of both the quality and the timing of the project’s progress.
The truth is that, on the surface, everyone thinks HSE raises the cost of a project and lengthens its execution time. I don’t believe in that view. Complying with HSE standards may impose some costs on the project, but when it prevents accidents and bad, dangerous events, it lowers the overall cost of the project and certainly helps shorten the time to complete it. It should also be noted that the order and discipline that HSE compliance brings to a project means all the parts of the project work in a more orderly way at every stage. For example, I can recall one memory. In building projects, the structural phase is one of the most accident-prone parts. I remember a day when we were close to starting one of Phoenix’s concrete pours, meaning the pour had to take place that night. The contractor and some of the colleagues, in order to move faster and keep to the schedule, insisted on not complying with some of the HSE standards and crossing some of the red lines. But as the manager of this project, I resisted and carried the work forward in compliance with all the standards. It is true that at that point we may have done the pour with a one-day delay, but this very insistence on following the standards is what made the safety culture prevail in the project and among our contractor. From that stage onward, everyone knew they had to anticipate the necessary prerequisites, and that is how we were able to build this culture.

In your view, what is the hardest part of implementing HSE standards in Iranian construction projects?

The hardest part is the human side. One group is the people at the bottom of the project’s execution pyramid, such as contractors and workers. Culture has to be built among them so that they accept that complying with HSE requirements on the project is, first of all, for their own health. Another challenge in implementing HSE lies with the senior managers and the organization’s main decision-makers. They have to let this culture flow down from the top and support the implementation of the standards, so that the whole team can work together to bring a project to completion well and with everyone’s full safety. In effect, the hardest part of implementing HSE standards is getting everyone involved in the project to share the same goal, from the CEO to the workers. The difficulty is that each of them has their own concerns. For example, the project’s finance unit cares about costs, management wants speed, and workers want to finish the job in the easiest way possible. Aligning these different concerns is the hardest part of the work.

If you were to pass on the Phoenix HSE experience to the managers of other construction projects, what would be your most important piece of advice?

My most important piece of advice is to take HSE seriously from day one, down to the smallest details of the project. That is what builds the culture. If you make allowances on the standards from the very beginning, you will no longer be able to enforce all of them through to the end of the project. Every contractor will come to you wanting a discount on HSE implementation, and because you did not take a firm stance at the start, you will not be able to insist on the principles of HSE. The other point I mentioned is attention to the smallest components. In my experience, many accidents happen because of neglected minor details, so these details deserve special attention. Finally, as I said, building this culture helps the project enormously in terms of quality, cost, and even schedule.

Summary

The Phoenix experience showed that when safety is taken seriously from a project’s very first day, it can become part of the working culture and a path to the project’s success.
The four years of the Phoenix project were a successful experience in building an HSE culture, one that took shape through planning from day one, selecting the right workforce, discipline in execution, and adherence to standards, and that continued through every stage of the project. This approach helped the Phoenix team make the health and safety of its people one of the main measures of success alongside advancing the project’s goals.
At Phoenix, HSE went beyond an operational instruction and became part of the way the team works, an approach that, according to Eng. Momeni, helped improve discipline, quality, and project progress in addition to maintaining safety.