At heart, United Rentals is about helping our customers build the future – safely. Safety for our employees and our customers is paramount in everything we do. Ours is a “safety first and always” culture. It’s among our most significant differentiators.

We’ve implemented a holistic safety program that looks at every step at worksites to ensure that workers are trained properly and that injuries and accidents are prevented. We’re constantly improving our processes and procedures to remain ahead of the curve and to try to prevent accidents before they happen.

Our safety efforts are rooted in our Safe Work Practices and Life Safety Rules, which serve as our standard operating procedures, and are monitored by the dedicated safety professionals in the field and at headquarters. All of our employees are empowered with stop-work authority if they observe an unsafe or potentially hazardous working condition or behavior, regardless of whether it involves an employee, customer or third party.

Branches have a Safety Champion, who works with employees to promote safe practices and perform monthly inspections. This includes daily huddles and regular discussions on a safety topic. We keep the focus on safety by tracking and reviewing observations and near misses and through monthly performance updates and safety newsletters. We also recognize outstanding safety behaviors through our annual awards program.

Motivating all United Rentals employees to be proactive about safety awareness and incident prevention is key to ongoing progress. Our Master Safety Training courses create repeatable habits that cultivate an inherently safer environment. Our continuous innovation mindset means we will keep refining our existing programs and developing new ways to further our leadership position on safety.

Safety in Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) is enabling United Rentals to enhance safety training and give users a realistic, hands-on experience in the digital world. United Academy is using VR to train workers on forklifts and mobile elevated work platforms without the risks of real-world errors. The use of VR also enables us to train several operators simultaneously without delays due to inclement weather. We can use VR technology to train people on most pieces of equipment.

We’re constantly thinking about the worksite of the future and how our training offerings can best support it

Safety in Management System

Our comprehensive safety management system incorporates both electronic and written tracking components. We use our electronic system to track relevant leading and lagging metrics, while our written system, which is part of our Injury Illness Prevention Plan, provides standards from a safety perspective. This system covers all employees.

Performance Results

United Rentals was ranked in the top quartile for safety across all industry sectors in 2020 and continues to lead the industry in safety performance. In 2020, we had a total recordable incident rate (TRIR) of 0.95, toward a goal of zero.

Protecting Our Team During the Pandemic

COVID-19 health and safety precautions were at the forefront of our safety efforts in 2020. The cross-functional Emergency Operations Center deployed a full safety plan for all of our branches in accordance with guidance from the CDC.

Promoting Wellness 

Our Live Well, Safe & Healthy program is a comprehensive approach to wellness that encourages healthy lifestyle behaviors and helps to raise the morale, productivity and overall engagement of our employees. The program includes biometric screening at work or off-site, a health assessment, a paid wellness day off, tobacco cessation support and participation incentives. Additionally, employees and family members can participate in virtual health challenges to encourage daily activity. 

Due to COVID-19 restrictions during 2020, we adapted the program to provide more virtual offerings, enable remote participation. 

Through our Employee Assistance Program (EAP), we provide a variety of free and confidential services to help employees manage day-to-day stress and responsibilities of balancing work and personal lives. These services include childcare resources and mental health counseling. 

Maintaining Open Communication

Open communication among employees at all levels fosters respect, accountability, engagement and a strong sense of belonging. We utilize Workplace by Facebook as a virtual community to connect our team in a collaborative setting, no matter where they are physically located.

Other communication channels we use include quarterly all-employee calls, town hall meetings, engagement surveys and UR Ideas, which encourages grassroots suggestions from employees. Listening to our team is one of the most important aspects of our culture, and the feedback we receive allows us to continuously improve

Recognizing Excellence

Our award and recognition programs provide a way for us to applaud team members who go above and beyond to contribute to the company’s success and to reinforce our priorities and culture. In addition to informal, day-to-day recognitions and posts on our social media site, we have annual awards that recognize outstanding performance at the regional, district, branch and individual levels in areas such as safety, customer service, quality, human capital and continuous improvement.

United Rentals also has a program for employees to nominate other employees as part of our 1UR program. The process includes a coin to recognize efforts in Our Customers, Our Fleet and Our Team.

Customer Service

Our intense focus on the customer and delivering an exceptional experience is embedded in our culture. Our customer-first approach, 1UR, provides the overarching framework. Launched in 2017 with continued deployment and training, 1UR has permeated our culture and enabled our branch teams to deliver measurable improvements in customer service.

1UR: Working Together to Deliver Our Commitment to Service and Safety

1UR enables a distributed company such as ours to operate as a unified team, connecting employees across the company in achieving our objectives. This shared commitment helps us solve challenges for customers by working together, and keeps our employees focused on leveraging their collective strengths. The success of this teamwork is evident in our 1UR peer recognition program. In 2019, our team members celebrated over 16,000 moments of exceptional service.

The progress and ongoing advancement of 1UR is led by a guiding coalition, which meets several times a year to discuss opportunities to elevate customer service further. Developments in 2019 include hosting two 1UR Customer Days, events at which our team members meet with a selected customer directly at our branch. Attendees tour the location and provide feedback on their decisions and experience with United Rentals, enabling greater dialogue and understanding.

Helping Our UR Family

The strong sense of family and purpose at United Rentals supports a compassionate and caring workplace. The United Compassion Fund is an employee-funded 501(c)(3) charity that provides financial assistance to fellow employees in need.

In 2020, $1,407,506 in donations to the fund were voluntarily made by our employees and our Board members. Employees received 195grants totaling $754,704.

Funds are distributed through a five-member board made up of employee volunteers who meet weekly to review applications. Recipients have ranged from those affected by Hurricane Harvey and subsequent flooding to the spouse of an employee who went through significant health issues.

Since the program began in 2013, more than $3.6 million has been distributed to employees in need.