Despite advances in safety tech and practices, construction remains one of the most dangerous professions in the United Kingdom. The combination of extreme heights, heavy machinery and the potential for falling objects makes construction sites especially hazardous working environments. However, dangerous worksites don't mean accidents are inevitable. Most construction accidents are falls, which can be prevented.
Construction
Maintaining a safe work environment is crucial for construction companies and site supervisors. Construction companies can do many things to create a culture of safety on their construction sites. Learn why the intentional creation of a safety culture is so important to upholding site safety — plus actionable tips for how construction businesses can build safety cultures.
Why Safety Culture Is Essential in Construction
Without a culture of safety at a worksite, supervisors and workers may not take standard safety procedures seriously. Regular safety training, practices and maintenance checks may be skipped in favour of speeding up or simplifying work.
By making time and space for safe operations, you can ensure that construction proceeds as safely as possible.
Failing to maintain workplace safety can have devastating consequences for construction companies. Even the occasional unsafe practice can lead to accidents that cause work stoppages, injuries or even death. Employers in the UK lost £15 billion to workplace injuries and ill health in 2017 and 2018. With good safety practices and a safety culture that encourages workers to follow those measures, it's possible to avoid those costs.
How Construction Companies Can Build Their Safety Culture
Safety, even when built into company policies and practices, doesn't maintain itself. If you want site workers to work safely, you and your site supervisors will need to lead the charge on making safety a top priority.
Fortunately, building a culture of safety isn't usually a complex process. With the right management practices, you can quickly start fostering safe work environments.
Make Safety Your Top Priority
If you want your workers to take safety seriously, it should come before everything else — including deadlines, expenses and productivity. Stressing that safety is your top priority will help you build trust with your workers. Even if additional safety measures slow down a project at first, safe practices can save your business both time and money in the long term.
No amount of time or money saved by cutting corners on safety can make up for the costs of an accident. These accidents are massively expensive, cause delays and make insuring your business more costly.
Involve Workers in Safety Planning
Your workers will always be the closest to the actual risks on the job site, and often that means they'll also be the most knowledgeable. Regularly soliciting feedback from workers and involving them in safety training and the development of safety courses or learning material can ensure your management team is fully aware of worksite risks.
Involving workers in safety planning can also further build their trust in your company. If you actively seek and implement safety recommendations from employees, they'll be much more likely to voice their concerns and believe you're invested in their well-being.
Noise, for example, is one serious and often overlooked construction risk that can cause major health issues over time. In a company with a strong safety culture, workers may be quicker to voice concerns about noise severity and request protective gear, including earplugs or noise-cancelling devices.
Consider Unique Safety Risks
Research shows the most popular site safety rules are those that are highly specific to their working environment. Broad policies that attempt to account for the risks of many construction sites, which may have wildly different working conditions, can result in ineffective or difficult-to-follow safety guidelines. They can also lead workers to believe these safety rules weren't built with their specific working environment in mind.
When developing site safety policies, be sure to consider the unique risks of a given site. For example, one location may require the use of heavy lifting equipment near power lines. Safety procedures for this workplace should consider the potential dangers of using such equipment and practices workers can employ to improve their security.
Enforce the Rules Consistently
Ultimately, all workers on-site are responsible for the workplace's safety — not just supervisors tasked with maintaining effective practices. This means that any time there is a safety violation, it should be noted and dealt with appropriately.
You and your supervisors should also be sure to make consequences for safety violations explicit during training. Workers should fully understand the rules they need to follow and know what will happen if they fail to take proper safety precautions.
Every Construction Company Should Build a Culture of Safety
Construction is an inherently dangerous profession — but building a culture of safety can go a long way in preventing accidents and injuries. Construction companies that want to foster a safe working environment should make safety a top priority. They should also regularly solicit input from workers on construction site safety and build policies that account for unique site risks.
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