Author: Laura Black
Twice this year, my home has gone dark in the middle of what used to be ordinary summer thunderstorms. Quite frankly, I am over it. Our nation’s infrastructure should be strong enough to withstand your typical Midwest thunderstorms. This isn’t the first time I have written about storms knocking my power out. Back in 2020, I wrote about a tornado that tore through my town, when entire neighborhoods were left without power for days. I have also written about being without power when a blizzard and sub-zero temperatures came through my region. This year alone, Chicagoland has already seen multiple…
It is the last day of June, and we are wrapping up our summer blog series for National Safety Month. We have already examined the importance of the underlying foundational culture, top construction hazards to prevent, the cost of ignoring safety, particularly in small businesses, the elements of a good toolbox talk, and the importance of near miss reporting. We can’t do a summer blog series without mentioning a big risk: summer heat. Heat-related illnesses can develop quickly, affect even experienced workers, and become life-threatening if warning signs are ignored. As temperatures continue rising across the country, heat safety has…
Have you joined us for our blog series this National Safety Month? We have already examined the importance of the underlying foundational culture, top construction hazards to prevent, the cost of ignoring safety, particularly in small businesses, and the elements of a good toolbox talk. Today, let’s turn our attention to one of the overlooked safety strategies in construction safety: near miss reporting. Many workers and supervisors focus only on incidents that result in injuries or property damage. But near misses—events that could have caused harm but did not—often provide the clearest warning signs that serious problems exist. Ignoring those…
June is National Safety Month, and we are embarking on a blog series looking at how to heighten safety in the construction industry. We have already examined the importance of the underlying foundational culture, top construction hazards to prevent, and the cost of ignoring safety, particularly in small businesses. Today, let’s turn our attention to one of the most effective safety strategies, which is also one of the simplest: toolbox talks. Everyone knows them. Everyone loves them. These short daily or weekly safety conversations may only last 10 minutes, but they can prevent serious injuries, improve communication, and strengthen safety…
June is National Safety Month—a moment to pause and recommit to making worker safety a 365‑day priority for every worker, on every job, every day. One of the biggest misconceptions in construction is that serious safety incidents only happen on large, high-profile projects. Let’s unpack this today. In reality, small construction projects can be just as dangerous—and sometimes even more dangerous—because safety procedures are often less formal, oversight may be limited, and crews can become overly comfortable in familiar environments. The financial costs alone can be overwhelming, especially for small construction businesses. A single injury can lead to medical expenses,…
June is National Safety Month, and today we continue our blog series looking at how to heighten safety in the construction industry. Construction remains one of the most hazardous industries in the country, and while technology continues to improve jobsite safety, many of the same risks continue to cause serious injury, and even death, each year. With that in mind, let’s take some time to look at the top construction jobsite hazards in 2026 and what we can do to prevent them. The top construction hazards are not necessarily new hazards. Rather, what has changed in recent years is how…
Summer is approaching. Those of us here in the United States just celebrated Memorial Day, which is often the unofficial kick off to summer and with June right around the corner, it is the perfect time to launch a summer safety blog series to help construction teams stay safe during the busy and risky months of the year. As many might already know, June is National Safety Month. In the next several weeks, we will cover some of the biggest safety challenges facing construction teams in 2026, from heat exposure to near-miss reporting and toolbox talks. But before we get…
I had an opportunity to attend my fifth grader’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) Day this year, and I have to say it was well put together, but there was something missing that I have rarely seen presented at the grade school level. Let me paint a picture. STEM Day is a district-wide event where fifth graders are bussed to the middle school and seventh graders run large experiments for the students, with parent and teacher help and involvement. There were different pods, so to speak, with similar experiments in each pod. It was very well run with some…
We are seeing an interesting paradox in the construction industry in 2026. Costs continue to rise, skilled trades are in short supply, and some segments of the market have softened while others like data centers and infrastructure are speeding up. Turner & Townsend’s latest U.S. construction outlook suggests national bid price escalation is forecast at 4.25% in 2026, well above historical norms, with tariffs and labor driving cost pressure. Add to all this, aging infrastructure and an aging workforce and it is the perfect storm of needing to modernize buildings and infrastructure, with limited people to do the work. This…
Welcome to Construction Safety Week 2026! We have reached an inflection point. A shift is underway when it comes to safety in the construction industry. Many companies in the industry are no longer just enforcing rules to maintain compliance. Rather, many are now completely rethinking how safety is achieved in the first place. Here at Constructech, we have been examining a trend in the past couple of years that is important to note. Process, culture, and strategy are all changing as it relates to safety. Many companies are taking a different approach. This foundation is perhaps more important than ever…