Five colleagues clapping at something offscreen

Safety Excellence Awards

Outstanding Record of On-the-Job Safety

Petrochemical recordable rates."

Final Statistics - 2023

Category Value
Finalists 55
Total Work Hours in USA 190.5M
Total Recordable Rate 0.21
Nominated Sites 117
Site Hours 22.7M
Ave Site Recordable Rate 0.08

Best Practices

Safety Excellence Awards 2025 Timeline


2024-2025 Presentations


2024-2025 Nominations


Safety Awards Program

Purpose

The Safety Excellence Awards (SEA) are presented annually to contractors or subcontractors in the Texas Gulf Coast Area who achieve outstanding on-the-job safety promotion and performance at an asset owner's site or business during the year completed. The true purpose of the award process is for the participants to learn through observing other programs and the sharing of best practices.

Background

The Industry Business Roundtable (IBR) SEA teams annually go through the process of selecting the best safety and health performers among contractors and subcontractors nominated by Asset Owner or Contractor companies. The nominees, finalists, and winners of each category are recognized during the annual Safety Excellence Awards Banquet, held in May of each year.

Team Leaders are asset owner/member representatives from the Health and Safety Committee. They volunteer their time to lead an audit team for nominees in each category. Each team leader along with the Mentors (winners’ previous year) has the task of selecting the finalists from all the nominated company's submittals for each category. Once the finalists are selected and announced at the HASC Tailgate Extravaganza, The Team Lead schedules the actual audits to select the best of the best. Each team ideally consists of the Team Lead and a mix of 8 to 10 asset owner and contractor peers who audit the finalists and select the best-performing contract companies.

Who Can Nominate?

Any asset owner or contractor who uses a contractor company or subcontractor.

You do not have to be a Member of IBR to nominate or to be nominated. Contractors and Subcontractors* must be nominated by a user of their services. It can be an asset owner company nominating their contractors or a contractor nominating their subcontractors.

*Self-nominations are not accepted.

*An administrative fee shall apply for the award application submissions by any contract/subcontract company that is not a current IBR partner-subscriber. This will only apply to the award submission.

Eligibility

All industrial, commercial, highway heavy, and utility contractors and subcontractors in the Texas Gulf Coast Area are eligible. Affiliation with Industry Business Roundtable (IBR) is not a requirement. Nominees will compete in the category they are nominated for.

Note: To maintain the credibility of the process and to promote fairness to the service providers/contract companies, vendors of products are not eligible for the awards process including audit teams.

Evaluation

This is a two-step process where the initial evaluation (submittal) will determine whether the contract company will be eligible as a finalist for the final field audit. This information must be thorough. This step is what allows you the ability to participate at the next level and should be detailed.

Safety data for the initial evaluation process will include the following:

  • IBR Contractor Safety Information Sheet
  • IBR Initial Evaluation Form
  • Incident Data
    • Fatalities
    • OSHA Incident Rate for Lost Workday Cases
    • OSHA Incident Rate for Total Recordable Injuries and Illnesses
    • Regulatory Agency Citations
  • Written Safety Program
    • Year to Year Improvement
    • Safety Goals
    • Accidental/Incident Investigation Procedure
    • Incident Lessons Learned
    • Internal Audit/Assessment Program
    • Contractor Orientation and HSE Training Program
    • Environmental Program
    • Industrial Hygiene Program
    • Short Service Employee Program
    • Behavioral Based Safety Program
    • Contractor Written Employee Workforce Development Program
    • Supervisor Training
    • Best Practices
  • Step 1 – Initial Submission

    The requested information and submissions of each nominee will be measured using a score times a weighted percentage system. The top 3 or 4 scores in each category are selected for field audits (Finalists). These will be announced at the HASC Tailgate Extravaganza event in February.

  • Step 2 – Category Winner Selection

    A site/field awards audit will be conducted on the finalists in each category as determined in Step 1. The site/field audit will be conducted by audit teams led by an asset owner representative. The field audit uses an unbiased but structured scoring system to verify the extent and effectiveness of the contract company’s safety program.

Mentor

  • The previous year's Best in Class winners of their respective category are Mentors for the present year's finalists. The mentor company is not eligible to compete for the present year’s award but rather assists the finalists with their awards audit preparation. Mentoring the next group of winners is a huge honor for the Mentor company.
  • Mentor companies are assigned to Mentor the current year’s finalist companies through the process. Mentors are not assigned to a company that would otherwise be considered within their own participating category.

Awards

All companies that participate in an audit will be recognized. Additionally, more than one Contractor may be recognized at various levels (Gold, Silver, and Bronze) except for "Best in Class." There is only one Best-in-Class Winner for each category. Nominees will be recognized on the IBR website.

The team leader will decide on the level based on team input and scores from the audit team.

Bronze: Companies that are nominated by their clients and submit entries to be considered for the finalist selection but are not selected as a finalist.

Silver: The minimum level of recognition that will be given to a company selected as a finalist. This recognition is based on audit scoring and improvement opportunities.

Gold: This recognition signifies that many elements of the company's program, both field and documentation, meet minimum requirements and include average to above-average best practices.

Best in Class: This recognition signifies that most elements of the company's program, both field and program documentation, exceed the minimum requirements including exceptional best practices. This award is given to the top company in each category. There can only be one Best in-Class winner for each category.

Newcomer of the Year: The IBR "Newcomer of the Year" award recognizes contract companies that may be participating for the first time or have not been nominated for at least the past three years. Selection of the “Newcomer of the Year” award comes from the Industry Business Roundtable staff and is awarded to a participating finalist who excelled at a high level in the process in one of the categories.

Most Nominations: This award is presented to the company with the most nominations within the IBR audit footprint. This award recognizes a company with a consistent safety culture that demonstrates world-class safety excellence at a high level across multiple work sites, clients, and industries. View SEA Audit Footprint

Award Categories

General Contractors
Construction and Maintenance

Specialty Contractor – Hard Crafts
Mechanical, I&E, HVAC

Specialty Contractor – Soft Crafts
Insulation, Painting, Scaffolding

Specialty Contractor Environmental
Hydro Blasting, Vacuum Trucks, Chemical Cleaning

Specialty Contractors – Technical Support
Engineering, Safety, Inspection

Crane & Rigging Support

*Categories may be modified slightly depending on number and size of nominees.

Best Practices

A unique feature of this award process is the requirement that the "Best-in-Class" Contractors present their "Best Practices" at the Best Practice Seminar. The best practices are identified by the audit teams as the reason for their excellent achievement. Other companies often take these best practices back to their own companies to look for ways to improve their own programs. Through the sharing of best practices, the entire industry can improve and/or enhance their safety performance. There is an attitude that is prevalent among the owners and contractors, where it is believed that outstanding safety programs are not proprietary and should be shared with others.

This award process was developed and maintained by the IBR Safety and Health Resource Committee. This committee meets that meets monthly (3rd Thursday of each month).

Industry Business Roundtable and our members firmly believe that all the companies (Owner/Contractor) involved in this award process have produced and maintained world-class safety programs that are significantly better than any other in the world. The proof is in the results.

+ Best Practice Master Final Presentation

  • Safety and Health Resource Committee
  • Third Thursday of the Month at 8:00 AM
  • 5213 Center Street, Pasadena – HASC Auditorium

Award Winners

The SEA Banquet

36th Annual SEA