By Morgan Hammon, Safety Management Group
I hopped out of the truck in my FR and hard hat ready to facilitate a project safety expectations meeting to a group of linemen, operators, laborers, and owner representatives. Walking into the substation, I remind the project managers beside me to always touch the fence with the back of your hand first because if there is a fault and current is flowing through the grid then your hand won’t contract onto the fence and remain as part of the path to ground. After standing and talking with the group, we break off into smaller work areas and I target the familiar faces in the crowd – “how are your kids”, “did you adopt the cat your wife wanted”, “how was your vacation to Mexico”. Each conversation I have is why I work safely every day and reminds me that being the second set of eyes is important. As safety professionals, we don’t know everything, but when we pair our safety brains with those who are executing the work, we create a partnership that is built on mutual respect and trust – no matter if I’m in a pink Carhartt hat or not.
March marks Women in Construction Month, a time to celebrate the growing presence of women across the industry. While construction, utilities, and industrial environments have traditionally been male dominated, more women are entering the field – and not just in engineering or project management, but in safety leadership roles that shape how organizations operate and protect their people.
My path into construction safety wasn’t traditional. I started at Indiana University studying environmental management, drawn to sustainability and the idea of protecting both people and the environment, while also protecting business interests through the study of economics. Over time, that work expanded into broader Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) responsibilities, and today my role often places me in conversations with executives, project leaders, and field teams working to improve safety culture across organizations.
What I’ve learned along the way is that improving safety is rarely just about procedures or compliance. More often, it’s about people, communication, and organizational systems and those are areas where diverse perspectives can make a significant difference.
For women entering the industry, the question I often hear is: How do you succeed in a male dominated workplace?
The answer is not by trying to become someone you’re not.
It’s by recognizing the strengths you already bring to the jobsite.
Safety Culture Isn’t Built on Toughness Alone
Construction has long carried a reputation for toughness. Many people assume that success in the field requires being loud, aggressive, or unwilling to show vulnerability.
But the reality is that effective safety leadership looks very different.
The best safety professionals I’ve worked with—men and women alike—share a few common traits:
- They listen more than they talk
- They build trust with field teams
- They ask questions before assigning blame or giving orders
- They focus on learning rather than punishment
Those traits aren’t signs of weakness. They’re the foundation of a strong safety culture and employee relationships.
Empathy, curiosity, and emotional intelligence help safety professionals understand why work is happening the way it is. When workers feel heard and respected, they’re far more likely to speak up about hazards, near misses, and operational challenges.
And that’s when organizations can begin to improve.
The Real Challenge: It’s Often a System Problem, Not a People Problem
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned working with leadership teams is that safety issues are rarely caused by bad people. More often, they’re caused by systems that unintentionally create risk due to being unclear in how they were communicated or rolled out, unseen value by those executing, or the change agents failed to appeal to the emotional side of employees to achieve buy-in.
Executives will sometimes describe safety challenges as a “people problem” or state that people are “resistant to change,” which is largely untrue. Chalking it up to this results in a continuation of what they have seen previously, and a resulting confirmation bias by workers still not following procedures, supervisors not enforcing rules, or subcontractors continually not meeting expectations.
But when we step back and look at the bigger picture, the issue often lies in the environment and processes those people are working within.
For example:
- Production pressures may push crews to take shortcuts.
- Communication gaps may leave subcontractors unclear about expectations.
- Reporting systems may unintentionally discourage people from speaking up.
This is where safety professionals can create real value. Our job isn’t simply to enforce rules but rather to identify how organizational systems influence behavior and help leaders design safer ones.
And that work requires open conversations, honest feedback, trust, and a willingness to challenge assumptions.
Why Women Often Thrive in Safety Roles
Women are still underrepresented in construction and industrial safety, but those who enter the field often bring strengths that align closely with modern safety leadership.
Many successful women in EHS demonstrate four things:
- Strong communication skills
- Empathy and emotional awareness
- A collaborative leadership style
- A growth mindset
These qualities are increasingly recognized as essential for organizations that want to move beyond compliance and toward true safety culture improvement.
Advice I Share with Young Professionals Entering the Field
I frequently speak with younger professionals, especially women, who are interested in EHS careers but are unsure how they’ll fit into a male-dominated environment. My advice is simple: focus on credibility, curiosity, and confidence.
Here are five strategies that can help.
- Learn the Work – Spend time in the field. Ask questions about equipment, processes, and daily challenges. Don’t pretend that you know a work process when you don’t. Asking questions often receives more respect than you realize.
- Listen Before Leading – Field workers are often the best source of safety insight. Instead of starting with “this is wrong” start with a question such as “why are you doing it this way” which may lead you down a path that you would not have experienced without curiosity.
- Don’t Try to “Out-Tough” the Jobsite – Effective leadership often comes from calm, thoughtful conversations. The most powerful tool in your toolbelt is silence. Knowing when to speak and when not to is just as important as the depth of your compliance knowledge.
- Focus on Solutions, Not Blame – Approach incidents with curiosity rather than fault-finding. There are unsafe acts that should never be accepted, of course, but often individuals do not act unsafely on purpose.
- Build Relationships at Every Level – Safety professionals operate between leadership and the field. We can be their advocate, their company knowledge source, and the feedback channel direct to leaders’ ears.
A Changing Industry
The construction industry is evolving rapidly. Projects are becoming more complex, labor shortages are increasing pressure on crews, and organizations are recognizing that strong safety cultures directly impact productivity, quality, retention, and project success.
As the industry changes, leadership styles are changing with it.
The next generation of safety leaders – men and women alike – will succeed not by enforcing rules alone, but by building trust, improving systems, and being an agent for sustainable change. Women entering construction and safety today have an opportunity to contribute to that transformation and as more diverse voices join the conversation, the industry will continue moving toward a future where every worker goes home safe at the end of the day.
About the Author
Morgan Hammon, CSP
Manager, Assessment Strategy | Safety Management Group
Morgan Hammon is a Certified Safety Professional (CSP) with more than nine years of experience in environmental health and safety across the utility, construction, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing sectors. As Manager of Assessment Strategy at Safety Management Group, she blends field-based hazard recognition with high-level planning and stakeholder engagement. She supports clients in developing safety strategies, delivering OSHA-compliant training, and facilitating program assessments that drive both cultural and operational improvement. Her expertise spans safety policy development, incident investigations, stormwater program compliance, and contractor management, with a focus on building sustainable safety systems that create measurable results.
About Safety Management Group
Safety Management Group (SMG) has partnered with construction and industrial organizations to strengthen safety performance through leadership engagement, integrated safety systems, and practical field based solutions for over 35 years. With over 325 dedicated EHS professionals and deep experience supporting complex projects and multi employer worksites, SMG helps clients move beyond compliance to build safety operating systems that hold up when conditions change.
