OSHA calls them the Focus Four — falls, struck-by, caught-in-or-between, and electrocution — because year after year they account for most construction fatalities. A framing site concentrates the first three like almost no other scope on the job. After framing more than a thousand units across four states, we know exactly where these hazards live on our sites, and it's usually not where the poster in the jobsite trailer suggests.
Falls: leading edges, openings, and frost
Framing is leading-edge work by definition. The floor you're standing on didn't exist last week, and the guardrail doesn't exist until someone builds it. The real fall exposures on our sites are stair shafts and floor openings that get cut and left, deck edges during floor sheathing, and truss setting at the top of the building.
This time of year adds one more: frost. A sheathed deck on a February morning is a skating rink until the sun hits it. Our rule is simple — nobody works a frosted deck edge until it's cleared or dried off, period.
- Openings get covered, secured, and labeled the same day they're cut. A cover that isn't fastened and marked is a trapdoor.
- Stair guardrails go in as the stairs are built, not at punch list.
- Personal fall arrest during truss set and roof sheathing, with anchor points planned before the crew is up there.
Struck-by: everything on a crane and everything dropped
On a framing site, struck-by risk means crane and telehandler picks — trusses, panel bundles, lumber going to the deck — plus dropped hand tools from upper levels and forklift traffic in the laydown yard. The controls are unglamorous and they work: exclusion zones under every pick, taglines on every load, rigging inspected daily, and an absolute rule that nobody positions themselves under a suspended load to receive it. Hard hats stop being optional the moment a second level exists.
Caught-in-or-between: the bracing discipline
This is the one framing crews underestimate. A framed and sheathed wall is a sail, and a tall wall that hasn't been braced is a hazard to the crew standing next to it and everyone below. Every tall wall gets temporary bracing before the crew lets go of it — no exceptions, and more bracing when the wind is up. The other caught-between exposures are material stacks that shift and the pinch zone between a telehandler and the structure. Spotters and staging discipline cover most of it; complacency is what doesn't.
Electrocution: the one framers forget
It's the least frequent of the four for a framing crew, which is exactly why it deserves a line in every site plan. The exposures that matter: crane and boom equipment working near overhead service lines — keep the clearance and assign a dedicated spotter whenever a pick swings anywhere close — and temporary power cords that spend the winter buried in snow and slush, getting run over and nicked. Damaged cords come out of service the day they're found, and GFCI protection isn't negotiable.
What GCs should ask their framing sub
- A site-specific fall protection plan — not the generic company binder.
- A named competent person who is actually on the site daily.
- A wall bracing plan for tall and long walls, in writing.
- Documented toolbox talks and an EMR they'll show you without flinching.
Safety performance is part of scope, and it should be evaluated like scope. Our for GCs page covers how we run manpower and site coordination, and our services page details what we self-perform — because the fewer subs-of-subs on a frame, the tighter the safety control.
Want a framing sub that treats the Focus Four as a daily operating system instead of a poster? Get in touch and ask us anything about how we run our sites.