Curated News
By: NewsRamp Editorial Staff
January 16, 2026
Construction's Hidden Danger: Why Non-Routine Work Poses Major Safety Risks
TLDR
- Safety Systems Management's wireless notification systems give construction companies a competitive edge by reducing incident costs and improving emergency response during high-risk non-routine work.
- Safety Systems Management addresses non-routine work hazards through structured protocols like pause points, re-briefings, and wireless communication systems that adapt to changing site conditions.
- Focusing on non-routine work safety prevents injuries and saves lives, creating safer construction sites and better protecting workers and communities.
- Experienced construction workers face higher risks during non-routine tasks due to overconfidence, as familiar-looking work often conceals critical differences in conditions or schedules.
Impact - Why it Matters
This news matters because it addresses a pervasive but often ignored threat in an industry where safety is paramount. Construction workers, supervisors, and companies face increased risks during non-routine tasks like emergency repairs or schedule changes, which are becoming more frequent due to complex projects, labor shortages, and external disruptions like extreme weather. By highlighting the gap between static safety plans and dynamic job site realities, it underscores the need for proactive measures—such as improved communication and reassessment protocols—to prevent accidents. For readers, this impacts workplace safety, regulatory compliance, and project outcomes, emphasizing that adapting safety systems to handle unpredictability can save lives, reduce injuries, and avoid costly delays. It's a call to action for the industry to evolve beyond routine-focused practices.
Summary
Construction safety programs face a critical vulnerability when dealing with non-routine work, which has emerged as one of the most dangerous and overlooked risk factors on modern jobsites. According to industry experts, serious incidents often occur not during predictable operations but when something changes—such as during emergency repairs, schedule recovery efforts, night shifts, or equipment breakdowns. Cory Sherman, CEO of Safety Systems Management (SSM), emphasizes that "non-routine work isn't rare; it's inevitable," disrupting assumptions and forcing crews to adapt quickly under pressure. This aligns with OSHA's hazard identification guidance, which specifically notes that emergency and non-routine tasks pose distinct hazards that must be managed through careful planning.
The gap between safety plans and practice widens during non-routine scenarios, as static planning fails to keep pace with rapidly changing conditions. Sherman points out that crews may rush to recover lost time, supervisors become stretched thin, and communication channels fragment, leading even experienced workers to miss shifting risk profiles. Added pressure from deadlines or disruptions can cause critical safety steps to be skipped "just this once," with informal communication replacing structured briefings. On large or multi-employer sites, communication struggles to keep up, leaving subcontractors working under outdated assumptions and unaware of new hazards. Ironically, experienced workers are particularly vulnerable due to overconfidence, as non-routine work may appear familiar while concealing critical differences in schedules, crews, or equipment.
As construction projects grow more complex—with larger sites, tighter schedules, and factors like extreme weather and labor shortages—non-routine work is becoming more common, testing safety systems designed for predictability. Leading contractors are expanding their programs by emphasizing pause points when conditions change, re-briefings for shifts in scope, clear escalation protocols, and faster, site-wide communication loops across all trades. Sherman states that the goal is not to eliminate non-routine work but to recognize it as a high-risk phase demanding heightened attention, as "systems built for predictability collide with reality." SSM, founded by Sherman in 2016, specializes in wireless emergency notification systems to improve jobsite communications and safety, with more details available on the SSM website.
Source Statement
This curated news summary relied on content disributed by 24-7 Press Release. Read the original source here, Construction's Hidden Danger: Why Non-Routine Work Poses Major Safety Risks
