ABC Report Reveals Construction Companies Nearly 7 Times Safer with Specific Best Practices

Associated Builders and Contractors released its 2026 Health and Safety Performance Report, an annual guide to health and safety best practices on construction jobsites. The 2026 report shows the positive effects of participating in ABC’s STEP Health and Safety Management System, which enables top-performing ABC members to achieve incident rates 686% safer than the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ construction industry average, reducing total recordable incident rates by 85%.

Established in 1989, STEP is a proven system that provides contractors and suppliers with a robust, no-cost framework for measuring health and safety data and benchmarking with peers in the industry. This self-assessment tool helps participants identify real opportunities for scalable growth in their health and safety programs to lower their total recordable incident rates and become an employer of choice in a competitive labor market.

ABC’s research on more than 1.3 billion hours of work completed by participants in the construction, heavy construction, civil engineering and specialty trades in 2025 identified the following foundations of industry-leading safety and health that reduce total recordable incident rates, or TRIR, and days away, restricted or transferred — DART rates:

• Frequency of toolbox talks: Companies that conduct daily toolbox talks reduce TRIR rates by 59% and DART rates by 61% compared to companies that hold them monthly.
• Substance abuse prevention programs: Robust substance abuse prevention programs and policies with provisions for drug and alcohol testing where permitted lead to a 55% reduction in TRIR and a 57% reduction in DART rates.
• Health and safety meetings: Clear, concise and consistent communication builds trust, culture and an understanding that every worker is empowered to keep jobsites safe. Companies that follow best practices for health and safety meetings lower TRIR by 52% and DART rates by 54%.
• Employee participation: Leaders must build strong relationships, listen actively and seek input from frontline workers on how to improve safety year after year. Companies that follow best practices on engaging the workforce reduce TRIR by 55% and DART rates by 57%.

Visit abc.org/step to learn more.