GLEN ALLEN, Va., Aug. 19, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Field1st, an AI-native safety management software platform built for high-hazard field work, today announced the release of The Field Safety Benchmark for Utilities, a practical five-dimension maturity model designed to help utility leaders assess how consistently fatal-hazard prevention practices reach the point of work.
The report focuses on a persistent gap in utility safety management: leadership may know that a tailboard or job briefing was completed, but not whether the crew identified the specific hazards, energy sources, controls and changing conditions that determine whether work proceeds safely. The benchmark shifts the question from whether a form was signed to whether the safety conversation happened with enough quality to guide the job.
Grounded in U.S. utility-safety requirements and guidance, including OSHA 29 CFR 1910.269 and 1926 Subpart V, the model scores an organization from Level 1 to Level 4 across five dimensions:
- Tailboard and job-briefing capture — how reliably crews complete an operationally relevant briefing at the point of work.
- Energy-source and approach rigor — how consistently crews identify electrical hazards and apply the correct controls.
- Contractor and mutual-aid reach — how much of the external workforce participates in the host utility’s daily safety-data process.
- Field leading indicators — whether leaders can detect deteriorating planning quality and compounding risk before an incident.
- Closeout and knowledge transfer — how quickly field-identified hazards, corrective actions and lessons reach the people who need them.
OSHA requires electric-power job briefings to address hazards, work procedures, special precautions, energy-source controls and personal protective equipment. Its construction standard also requires host and contract employers to exchange safety-related installation and hazard information and coordinate worker-protection procedures. The Field1st benchmark gives utility teams a structured way to examine whether those requirements translate into dependable daily field practice.
“Utilities do not need another completion-rate dashboard that says 98% of forms were signed,” said Eric Fishman, Head of Growth Strategy and Operations at Field1st. “They need to know whether crews recognized the conditions that could change the job, selected the right controls and shared what they learned. This benchmark is designed to make that discussion specific, measurable and useful.”
The report recommends using the benchmark as a collaborative diagnostic rather than an audit. Utility operations directors, line supervisors, safety representatives and contractor foremen score each dimension, isolate the weakest field-facing link, select one or two trusted leading indicators and reassess after a 90-day improvement cycle. Storm-restoration and mutual-aid deployments provide a particularly demanding test because external crews, unfamiliar conditions and operational urgency converge at once.
Field1st’s platform is designed around the same point-of-work challenges. Crews can use voice, photos and mobile workflows to capture safety information, including in offline environments. Field1st converts those inputs into structured records and helps safety and operations leaders identify hazards, track workflows and act on field intelligence. AI-assisted guidance supports human review and decision-making rather than replacing crew or supervisor judgment.
The Field Safety Benchmark for Utilities is available at: https://field1st.com/white-paper/the-field-safety-benchmark-for-utilities/
Utility teams can download the report, score their organization across the five dimensions, or book a 20-minute walkthrough with Field1st to apply the model to one of their existing field forms.
About Field1st
Field1st is an AI-native safety management software platform for high-hazard field work. It helps frontline crews capture safety information through voice, photos and mobile workflows, while giving safety and operations leaders structured records, real-time visibility and actionable field intelligence. Field1st supports organizations in utilities, oil and gas, industrial operations and other distributed field environments. Learn more at https://field1st.com/.
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