Site Safety Staffing
Site safety staffing, anywhere in the country
M Squared Safety places safety people on jobsites. A day, a phase, a full project, or a permanent hire. We staff concrete pours, steel erection, roofing, demolition and general construction nationwide, not just in the markets where our consulting team works. Call 949-954-6581 and describe the job.
Twenty years of placing safety people, not twenty years of offering to
M Squared Safety has been staffing site safety roles for more than twenty years, and the work has never been local. We have worked with some of the largest general contractors, subcontractors and direct clients in the country: hyperscale data center builds, distribution and fulfillment center construction, and multi-site programs run by large national general contractors.
That history is the reason we can do four things a general staffing agency usually cannot.
- Mobilize out of state without a learning curve. A safety manager who has only worked under Cal/OSHA is a liability on a federal job in another state. We place people who already know which rule set governs the site they are walking onto.
- Clear a prequalification packet. Large general contractors and owners vet the individual, not just the vendor. We know what that packet asks for because we have filled it out repeatedly, and we keep the documentation current rather than assembling it after the award.
- Work inside an owner's contractor safety program. On large projects the governing document is often not OSHA, it is the owner's own program layered on top. Someone who has never worked inside one will treat it as optional. It is not.
- Hold the role, not just fill the seat. On a federal contract the Site Safety and Health Officer is named in the contract and the qualifications are on file before mobilization. A body on site does not satisfy that. A qualified, documented person does.
If you are evaluating us against a staffing agency, that is the comparison to make. Ask both of us what happens when the owner's safety manager rejects your candidate two days before mobilization.
What this is for
The call almost always comes from the same three places. A general contractor writes a dedicated safety presence into the contract and you do not have that person on payroll. A project ramps faster than your safety department can absorb, and the coverage gap is measured in weeks, not months. Or an owner flags your EMR and you need experienced eyes on site right now while the underlying program gets fixed.
All three have the same shape: a real requirement with a short fuse and no good reason to create a permanent position for it.
What you actually get
- People screened by people who have done the job. We have hired and managed site safety staff for more than fifteen years. The screening question is not what is on the resume, it is whether someone can walk a deck, read a crew, and stop the wrong thing before it happens. Those are not the same skill.
- Matched to what your contract requires. Tell us what the owner or the general contractor has written into the requirement and we match the placement to it, including the documentation they will ask to see before the person badges in.
- A company behind the person. Our on-site staff can pull on M Squared's written programs, training material and senior consultants. A staffing agency sends you a body. We send you someone with somewhere to call when the question is above their pay grade at 6am.
- Coverage that scales down as well as up. Two weeks of pour coverage is a normal request. So is a year.
Roles we place
- Site safety manager, running the safety function on a single project.
- Site Safety and Health Officer for federal work under EM 385-1-1, where the contract names the role and the documentation has to be on file before mobilization.
- Safety coordinator or field safety technician for inspections, toolbox talks, documentation and daily walks.
- Short-term phase coverage: pours, steel, demolition, tilt-up, roofing, shutdowns.
- Direct hire, where we run the search and you make the offer.
What level of safety professional does your project need?
Depending on the needs of the project we can provide experienced site safety professionals ranging from officers with the OSHA 30-hour Construction card to Construction Health and Safety Technicians, and everything in between. The level is set by what the contract requires, not by who happens to be available.
On federal work the floor is written down. EM 385-1-1, the safety and occupational health requirements manual used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and NAVFAC, requires a Site Safety and Health Officer to hold OSHA 30-hour general industry or construction safety training. The current edition, effective 15 March 2024, also splits the role into three levels. A Level 1 SSHO is a designated employee with full-time safety and occupational health responsibility, and that person must have at least five years of cumulative safety experience within the last ten years, managing or implementing a safety program on projects similar in industry type, size and complexity to the one described in the contract scope of work, plus 24 hours of documented formal classroom or online training every three years for the duration of the contract. A Level 2 SSHO carries the duty collaterally. A Level 3 SSHO is a designated qualified person or competent person.
At the other end of the range is the Construction Health and Safety Technician, the CHST, issued by the Board of Certified Safety Professionals. It is an examined certification rather than a training card. BCSP requires three years of construction safety experience in which at least 35 percent of the duties call for technical safety, health and environmental skill and knowledge, a passing score on the CHST examination, and ongoing renewal and recertification to keep it current. When an owner or a general contractor writes a certification into a construction specification, the CHST is usually the one meant.
Most projects land somewhere between those two points, and the gap matters more than people expect. Two contracts can both ask for a safety officer and mean very different people. One is a full-time named SSHO with five years of documented program experience behind the name. The other is a working supervisor carrying the safety duty alongside production. Reading the specification before the resume is what keeps a placement from failing prequalification three weeks after mobilization.
Send us the safety section of the specification, the prequalification packet if there is one, the schedule, and whether the role is full time or collateral. We will tell you what level the contract language actually requires before anyone is proposed, and we will say so if the requirement is lighter than you assumed.
Out-of-state and multi-state projects
Staffing is not limited to the markets where our consulting team works. If the project is in another state, the placement still happens, and the person we put on it is matched to that state's requirements rather than California's.
That distinction matters more than most contractors expect. California runs its own state plan under Cal/OSHA with Title 8 requirements that have no federal equivalent, and roughly half the states run their own plans as well, each with its own additions. A safety manager who has only ever worked under one of those regimes will not automatically know what the next one asks for. We screen against the requirements of the state the work is in.
Federal work adds another layer again. Under EM 385-1-1 the Site Safety and Health Officer is named in the contract and the documentation has to be accepted before mobilization, wherever in the country the project sits.
Staffing, consulting or fractional
These solve different problems and contractors mix them up regularly.
Staffing puts a person on your site under your direction, because the contract or the schedule requires a body there, and it runs nationwide. Fractional EHS runs your safety function as a whole on a retainer, without the site presence being the point. Consulting solves a defined problem and ends. Those last two are Southern California services, because they depend on our team being able to get to your sites.
If your requirement is a warm, qualified body on a deck for the duration of a phase, that is staffing, and location is not the constraint. If your requirement is that someone owns the program and the paperwork, that is fractional. If you are not sure, call and describe what the general contractor asked for.
Frequently asked questions
What is site safety staffing?
Placing a safety professional on a jobsite for a defined period, working under the contractor's direction. It covers a contractual requirement for a dedicated safety presence without the contractor creating a permanent position.
What areas do you staff?
Anywhere in the country. Staffing is not limited to our Southern California consulting footprint. Tell us where the project is and what the contract requires, and we match the placement to that state's requirements.
How is safety staffing different from safety consulting?
Staffing puts a person on your site for the duration, because the schedule or the contract requires someone there, and it runs nationwide. Consulting solves a defined problem, such as writing a program or running an audit, and then ends. A retainer under Fractional EHS sits between the two: ongoing ownership of the safety function without the daily site presence being the point.
How quickly can you place someone?
It depends on the role and what the contract requires the person to hold. Phase coverage moves fastest. A federal Site Safety and Health Officer takes longer, because the documentation has to be accepted before mobilization. Call 949-954-6581 with the start date and the location and we will tell you straight whether it is realistic.
Can you staff a short project or just a single phase?
Yes. Two weeks of coverage over a pour or a steel erection sequence is a normal request, not an exception.
Do you place Site Safety and Health Officers for federal work?
Yes, nationwide. Federal work under EM 385-1-1 names the role in the contract and expects the officer's documentation on file before mobilization. Contractors moving from private commercial work routinely underestimate that lead time, so call early.
Can you staff a project outside California?
Yes. About half the states run their own OSHA state plans with their own additions on top of the federal standards, so we screen the placement against the requirements of the state the work is in rather than assuming California's apply.
Can you help us hire a full-time safety manager instead?
Yes. We run direct-hire searches as well as placements. We have been hiring for these roles for over fifteen years, which is the part most contractors are missing when they try to screen for it themselves.
What credentials do the safety professionals you place hold?
The range runs from officers holding the OSHA 30-hour Construction card to Construction Health and Safety Technicians, and everything in between. We match the level to what the contract requires. On federal work EM 385-1-1 sets the floor at OSHA 30-hour general industry or construction safety training and, for a full-time Level 1 Site Safety and Health Officer, at least five years of cumulative safety experience within the last ten years. The CHST is an examined certification from the Board of Certified Safety Professionals that requires three years of construction safety experience before the exam.
What is the difference between a safety officer and a CHST?
A safety officer is a role on a project. The CHST is a certification a person holds. The OSHA 30-hour Construction card records completion of a training course. The Construction Health and Safety Technician credential is awarded by the Board of Certified Safety Professionals after documented construction safety experience and a passing examination score, and it has to be maintained through renewal and recertification. A project can require the role without requiring the certification, and many do, so read the specification before assuming which one applies.
Book a call or phone 949-954-6581 and tell us about the project.