Zero Tolerance

Zero Tolerance: The Standard Your People Deserve

Zero tolerance on a jobsite isn’t about being harsh or power hungry. It’s about accepting that every single thing you tolerate, you approve. The success, safety, and culture of any project are determined by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate. That means if something is happening out there in the field unsafe behavior, messy work areas, bad attitudes it’s because, at some level, leadership has allowed it. When a spouse sends their partner to work in the morning, they’re not hoping we “try our best” with safety. They’re trusting us to keep them safe and send them home. Zero tolerance is how we honor that trust.

What I Learned from Intel About Standards

One of my biggest awakenings around zero tolerance came while working at Intel in Chandler, Arizona. Their orientation was intense long, detailed, and crystal clear. Expectations were not vague. Everyone knew the rules. Everyone knew the consequences. If you violated certain safety standards, you lost your badge and were removed from the site sometimes for a year or more. And you know what? It worked. Thousands of workers on a huge site, and the level of cleanliness, order, and safety was remarkable. It was the first time I realized that all the excuses in construction “that’s just our industry,” “workers won’t get it,” “it’s too risky to be strict” were wrong. It can be done. It has been done. The only real question is: will we decide to do it?

Zero Tolerance on My Own Projects

On my own projects, after seeing what was possible, I stopped accepting the old pattern of endless reminders and “hey, be careful” conversations that never change anything. At one cancer center project, we implemented zero tolerance for safety, cleanliness, and deliveries. If someone violated a clear safety rule they already knew covered in OSHA 10, OSHA 30, or orientation they were sent home to a safe place. If the issue was training, distraction, or a bad attitude, we addressed the root cause. In two years, with up to 380 workers on site at the peak, we only had to send home 38 people. That’s it. And we ended up with one of the safest, cleanest, most organized jobs I’ve ever been a part of.

Respecting People Enough to Act

Zero tolerance is not about punishment. It’s about respect. If someone is violating fall protection, working unsafely, or cutting in front of scheduled deliveries, one of three things is happening: they don’t understand, their head isn’t in the game, or their attitude is off. In all three cases, the most respectful thing we can do is stop the work and address it. Letting unsafe behavior continue is not kindness it’s neglect. Letting one trade steal another trade’s delivery window isn’t clever logistics it’s stealing money from them. Letting messes pile up and make life hard for the next crew isn’t just sloppy it’s unethical. When we send someone home to get trained, to reset, or to correct their attitude, we’re honoring their life and everyone else’s.

Why “Little Things” Actually Matter Most

A lot of people want to skip the “small stuff” and just focus on big-ticket safety items. But how someone does one thing is how they do everything. If they won’t keep their safety glasses on, they won’t clip into fall protection consistently. If they shrug off JHAs, PTPs, or pre-task planning, they’ll shrug off the bigger hazards too. That’s why we start with basics: PPE, glasses, hard hats, vests, pre-task plans, and simple cleanliness. When people prove they can take care of the basics, you can trust them with more risk. Everything on a construction site is trying to hurt us if we’re not ready. We are literally going to war every day we step onto a project. You don’t go into battle in flip-flops.

Answering the Common Objections

There are a few objections I hear over and over again. “What if we lose too many people?” You won’t. That’s a fictional scenario. On real projects with real zero tolerance, we’ve only removed a few dozen people over years. “Isn’t it kind of mean?” No. What’s mean is letting someone continue working in a way that might get them killed. “What if other projects in the company don’t do this?” That’s okay. Every great system starts as a pilot somewhere. You don’t need every job to move at once. You just need one project to decide to lead. Another pushback is this: “Workers just can’t remember all this stuff; we have to keep reminding them.” That mindset is deeply disrespectful. Our workers are smart, capable adults. If I can follow the rules, they can follow the rules. We insult them when we act like they’re not capable.

Incentive, Survival, and Raising the Bar

Some leaders hope they can just “inspire” everyone into excellence. But it doesn’t work that way. Roughly 60% of people will naturally follow the rules and do what’s right. Another 10, 20% will chase excellence if you incentivize and support them. But there’s always a remaining group maybe 15–30% that will not move unless you raise the minimum standard for survival on that job. That’s what zero tolerance does. It raises the floor. It says, “This is the lowest behavior we will accept.” At that point, people either raise their game or step aside. And that’s okay. Not everyone belongs on every project. But everyone on the project must belong at that standard.

Zero Tolerance and Respect for People

All of this comes back to one simple Lean principle: respect for people. Respect for people is nice bathrooms, clean lunch areas, good communication, worker huddles, and barbecues. Respect for people is also sending someone home when they repeatedly violate safety, refuse to follow basic standards, or put others at risk. It’s not an apple in one hand and a whip in the other. It’s a single commitment: we care enough about you to hold the line. We care enough to tell you the truth. We care enough to make sure you live to see your family tonight.

Raising the Standard for Our Whole Industry

Construction is just as professional and just as important as law, medicine, or finance. In a courtroom, there are strict rules. In an operating room, there are strict rules. In a bank, there are strict rules. Why should construction be any different, especially when lives are on the line every day? Imagine an industry where every superintendent, foreman, and project leader refused to tolerate unsafe shortcuts, sloppy work, or low standards where zero tolerance was normal, and workers felt proud to be part of something that kept them safe and respected them as professionals. That’s the future we should be building.

Key Takeaway

Zero tolerance is not about punishment, it’s about respect. When we clearly define the standards and behavior, we prove that construction can be just as professional and high-standard as any other field.