Positive Safety Culture in the Construction Industry - Essay Example

POSITIVE SAFETY CULTURE IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY Student Name Course Name Date Contents Contents 1 Introduction 2 Positive Safety Culture in the Construction Industry 2 Conclusion 6 Bibliography 7 Introduction Safety culture is a comprehensive term for the attitudes, beliefs and values withheld by individual employees towards the collective safety of a construction worksite. The dedications by individuals to eliminate hazards that may mar the effective completion of an assigned project determine the percentage of incidences that are likely to be incurred on a site. The trend in the construction industry indicates that the executive managements are actively engaged in strategies that may aid in achievement of a positive work safety culture. A random search for texts on “work safety culture” gives thousands of results just as a preamble for the commitment that the general public has developed towards this vital matter. Advocating for a positive safety culture goes a long way in resolving unforeseen safety constraints as each and every member of an organisation stands to be counted. This is however incurred by challenges such as high worker turnover for fixed duration projects, aging workforce, subcontracting of tasks at site, safety breaches arising from violations, gender related constraints and negative attitude towards overall site safety in form of criticism. As a strategic management approach, a positive safety culture is intended for maximization of organisational profits through zero tolerance for health risks attribute negatively to effective human resource utilization. The main objectives of this report is to delve into the current safety culture trends in the construction industry, determining the purpose of a positive safety culture, to investigate how an excellent safety culture may be achieved, to look into the benefits or importance of a positive safety culture and factors considered with regard to its implementation and application within a construction organisation setup. Positive Safety Culture in the Construction Industry Achieving a positive safety culture within the construction industry poses a challenge to the construction executives due to the fact that safety culture cannot be engineered easily. According to Cooper (2000), the safety culture depends on the manipulation of various organisational parameters that are considered to be paramount towards general safety management procedures. Achieving safety culture within the construction industry requires radical changes in the ways of thinking amongst the workers through revising of the core values and assumptions towards these goals (Roughton and Mercurio 2002). The desire by an organisation to develop positive safety culture is thought to be largely affected by the goal setting theory which specifically aids ion outlining the cultural definitions that should be utilized to herd employees towards it. Some of the ideas identified by the Construction Confederation (2008) towards the achievement of a positive safety culture are listed as follows. First the top management should embrace continuous improvement of safety in order to encourage commitment to zero incidence at construction sites. Adoption of new philosophies may come in handy in disseminating this kind of information while ensuring low dependence of inspection as a way of achieving feedback. Subcontracting organisations should not be judged based on the issue of price alone but also the level of safety performance and commitment of their managers towards the same. On job safety training should be introduced as a compulsory process for ergonomics and job hazard identification through proactive analysis. Project leadership should be adopted based on individual safety attitudes. Employees should be trained to eliminate fear from their peer so as to encourage incidence reporting as minor as they might be. Employees must be taught on focusing their minds beyond the safety signs when it comes to keeping themselves safe. This shall go a long way in breaking communication barriers that exist between the executive management and subordinate employees. Eliminating unrealistic goals within the construction industry is also another point that should be embraced in organisations that actively seek their employees to recognize the safety culture. This should also be done by instilling the responsibility attitude through vigorous employee education from time to time (Construction Confederation 2008). The current conditions in the construction industry show that there are several challenges that are preventing the achievement of positive safety cultures within construction organisations. The apathy that is displayed by employees when it comes to safety is extreme as peer demands that one be macho especially in males. This factor has bred dire consequences as incidences go unreported thereby escalating to bigger safety issues. The construction industry has been found to practice unethical reward systems that are based on unrealistic production targets. The top organisational executives are reluctant when it comes to safety issues touching the core business objectives. Safety is seen as secondary with most site management teams focusing on financial objectives. Senior managers tend to distance themselves from the issue of cultural safety as they employee specialised personnel for this purpose. Finally construction organisations today focus on reactive prevention of accidents as opposed to complying with proactive management (Construction Confederation 2008). The objective of a positive safety culture is to identify the background of the industry in a bid to fix the identified problems. This is carried out through a systematic identification of the challenges that are faced from time to time during the engineering practice. Secondly the safety culture is aimed at committing the entire organisation towards continuous improvement of the existing guidelines for adoption in all its aspects of operation. A positive culture is driven by the urge to win hearts and minds for the sake of zeroing down the accidents onsite and offsite. This is not however meant to challenge the profit making objectives of the organisation but aimed at making the working environment better for the sake of avoiding delays in running projects. A safety culture should deal with problems that are considered to be long standing such as those arising from poor site supervision, vague method statements, and rampant breakage of law within a site due to ignorance. Positive safety cultures are also practiced with a major objective of identifying the key stakeholders in a bid to incorporate them within the organisation with ease. Lastly, the objectives attached to this essence of an organisation is to focus on the effective leadership in order to counter the perception of the subordinate staff as a means of encouraging involvement from the organisation at large (Misnan and Mohammed n.d.). In order to create a positive work safety culture it is important for organisational leadership to keep in mind that safety and health are not costs but investments. This way, improvement of safety is likely to be nurtured as a positive culture that contributes towards a building organisation's budget. Achieving good safety culture is also encouraged by commitment of all levels of organisational workforce towards realizing of this important goal. The organisation's leadership should be envisioned to integrating health and safety aspects to every task that is carried out by projects teams as a way of seamless integration of this important aspect in the lives of each employee (Jin and Chen 2013). A good safety culture is dedicated to continuous improvement as a means of weakness identification and strategy development. This should come along with provision of training information to create mindfulness of employees towards those actions since they may affect them in a negative manner. This arises from the fact that proper on job training makes individual employees aware of company policies and the roles that are associated with them. A good safety culture is achieved through incessant work place analysis for establishment of job hazards in order to control them from causing further damage. It is also important for the administration to develop a disciplinary committee that is not biased on its employees but seeks to hold all levels accountable of mishaps. Finally a good safety culture celebrates its achievements through reward, incentives and feedback as means of employee acknowledgement (Jin and Chen 2013). Laying of a strong foundation for safety culture within an organisation has been found to result to myriad benefits. The visions and missions of a positive culture are meant to point out the safety responsibilities that are worth pursuing on a daily basis in a construction organisation. These policies give a helping hand to identification of hazardous safety conditions or personal behaviours thereby intervening in a bid to correct them. This in turn stands out to strengthen the corporate culture which in turn aids the organisation in a march towards achieving its financial objectives. Dedication of employees towards one form of positive safety culture or the other brings them together as an ultimate goal for the achievement of a productive environment that is free of injuries. A positive safety culture is thus observed as an imperative for ultimate goal determination for production rewards (Construction Confederation 2008). In order to ensure successful implementation of a safety culture within a construction organisation it is important to consider various factors that may hinder or encourage its seamless incorporation. Communication channels must first of all be kept open by encouraging suggestion schemes meant to raise issues regarding safety for example through team, strategic, safety and healthy meetings or committees. Secondly the corporate culture should be thoroughly scrutinized as part of the argument since an issue such as employee absenteeism may affect the safety culture adversely. Incidence rates and number of reported catastrophes should also be enumerated as a determinant of organisational safety standards. All in all, past experience is worth revisiting when coming up with organisational safety culture. Supporting structures and programmes for occupational safety and health within an organisation is also important to establish or streamline prior to implementation or application of a developed strategy. A work safety plan is worth developing for the purpose of ensuring desirable management practices for continuous improvement based of weaknesses and strengths (Jin and Chen 2013). Conclusion Safety culture stands to improve the safety standards if embraced positively within a construction organisation. The main objective of this article has been to establish various parameters of cultural implementation with regard to safety in construction industries. The current trends of the construction industry have been identified as wildly filled with the negative attitude amongst subordinate employees and executives. Specifically, the corporate culture aims at profiting financially from the resources while thwarting the safety culture. However, it emerges that a positive culture should be looked at with a positive mind i.e. as an investment as opposed to being a liability and as an achievable deliverable that cannot affect the productivity of employees. Reduced accident levels attribute to higher safety levels hence increase in production. This is achieved through realistic goal setting for the employees while awarding safety as a paramount objective of a project team. The implementation procedure of a positive safety culture should not be overlooked as constraints in way of success are numerous. The incorporation of safety cultures within construction companies should however not affect the business objectives or else they shall be considered obsolete. Lastly encouraging team work and responsibility in all levels of an organisation go a long way in achieving positive safety culture without compromising the productivity of employees. Bibliography Construction Confederation. House Builders Health and Safety Manual 2008. Northampton: Construction Industry Pubs., 2008. Cooper, M. D. "Towards a model of safety culture." Safety Science Volume 36, Issue 2, 2000: 111–136. Jin, Ruoyu, and Qian Chen. "Safety Culture: Effects of Environment, Behavior & Person." Professional Safety , 2013: 60 - 70. Misnan, Mohd Saidin, and Abdul Hakim Mohammed. Development of Safety Culture in the Construction Industry: A conceptual Framework. Johor, n.d. Roughton, James, and James Mercurio. Developing an Effective Safety Culture: A Leadership Approach. Massachusetts: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002. Read More