Managing Health, Safety, and Environment in Construction - Research Paper Example

MANAGING HEALTH, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT IN CONSTRUCTION by Student’s name Professor’s name University name City, State Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to take this golden opportunity to thank my professor for patience and proof reading and his reliable and credible advice during writing of this paper. I am also grateful to the study guide he has offered me during this course. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the permission that was granted by authors of the books that I have used in this paper. The authors include Hughes, Ferrett, Chaturvedi, Hislop, Rowlinson, and India’s Quality Control Councils etc. My gratitude should also pass to my entire family for its support during preparation of this paper. Finally, I would also like to thank all people who helped directly and indirectly in the writing of this paper. ABBREVIATIONS E.g. means for example etc (etcetera) means other things n.b. (nota bene) means note well or take notice TABLE OF CONTENTS Section 1.................................................................................................6 Sub-section 1.1.........................................................................................6 Subsection 1.2..........................................................................................6 Section 2....................................................................................................6 Section 3.....................................................................................................7 Section 4......................................................................................................8 Subsection 4.1.............................................................................................8 Subsection 4.2.............................................................................................11 Subsection 4.3..............................................................................................12 Section 5.......................................................................................................12 Section 6........................................................................................................12 Section 7.........................................................................................................13 Subsection 7.1.................................................................................................13 Subsection 7.2.................................................................................................13 1.........................................................................................................................6 1.1......................................................................................................................6 1.2......................................................................................................................6 2.........................................................................................................................6 3.........................................................................................................................7 4..........................................................................................................................8 4.1.....................................................................................................................10 4.2.....................................................................................................................11 4.3.....................................................................................................................12 5........................................................................................................................12 6.........................................................................................................................12 7.........................................................................................................................13 7.1......................................................................................................................13 7.2......................................................................................................................13 Title Page.............................................................................................................1 Acknowledgment..................................................................................................2 Abbreviations........................................................................................................3 Introduction............................................................................................................6 Objective of the Study............................................................................................6 Significance of the Study........................................................................................6 Review of Literature................................................................................................6 Methodology.............................................................................................................7 Presentation of data, results and analysis................................................................8 Results....................................................................................................................10 Discussion...............................................................................................................11 Conclusion...............................................................................................................12 Recommendation and future scope..........................................................................12 Bibliography..............................................................................................................12 Appendices...............................................................................................................13 Questions on Managing Health Safety & Environment in Construction....................13 Questions on Interviewees........................................................................................13 1. INTRODUCTION As a matter of fact, construction turns to be broadly considered as an industry that is vulnerable to accidents (Hughes & Ferret 2012). There are several reasons as to why construction turns to be risky and susceptible to both safety and health risks which includes; the construction work processes temperament, the work’s physical environment, heavy equipment utilised, construction materials, construction methods, and the project itself construction’s physical properties. Also, many societies never place high premium on safety and health of construction employees on the sites. On the other side, injury’s compensation is frequently at the contractor’s discretion though combined bargaining concord between employers and Labour unions lay down responsibilities for contractors when an injury happens to any of the workers. Importantly in several developed countries, there are legislative and frameworks and statutory instruments for governing the construction processes on place and assist in lessening wellbeing and safety risks e.g. The Construction and (Management and Design) Regulations 2007 (S.I. 2007/No. 320) Guideline on Safety and Health within the United Kingdom construction dealing (Griffith & Howarth 2014). Nevertheless, the features of construction within developing countries turn to be dissimilar to the features of construction within developed nations. Therefore, procedures and policies of Safety and Health might vary and requires being contextualized. In point of fact, the major safety and health obligations within construction correlate to decent wellbeing and tidy sites, height falls’, transportation on site and manual handling. It is the duty of site operatives to organise and plan their activities, make sure that they possess the essential training and competency and acknowledges themselves of special hazards of their dealing and inform their safety representatives or supervisors of any problems that arises in the construction sites (Chaturvedi, Safety and Quality Forum & Quality Council of India 2007). The major personal protection equipment (PPE) within construction, whose intention of wearing by employees is guarding them against a single or multiple risks to their safety or health should be provided. 1.1 Objective of the Study The objective of this study is the investigation of the state of safety, health and environment on construction sites which is orientated on studies of particular scenarios (construction sites). 1.2 Significance of the Study The significance of this study is pointing out the safety, health and environmental practices and standards together with recommendations that should be implemented by construction industries on earth. 2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE As asserted by (Hislop 2000), safety turns to be much more than wearing of hard hats by craftsmen on their sites of construction. In fact, it turns to be the philosophy which recognizes and eradicates hazards of job site all through the work project’s lifecycle. Additionally, it is the philosophy which daunts practices of work which put people at harm’s hazard. Moreover, safety is the incorporation of safety within the process of everyday work. Further, it turns to be an environmental promotion where every individual within the construction of the project hierarchy possess a responsibility and role for safety (Hislop 2000). Statistics of accident reveal that construction turn to be one of the most risky industries on earth. In point of fact, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reports show that, on the mean, between 1980 and 1993, 1079 construction employees lost their lives every year while working (Hislop 2000). In spite of the attention offered to injuries of construction sites in multiple countries, the statistics go on being shockingly (Rowlinson 2004). For example, reports of deadly accidental rates of injury within Japan and the United States turn to be higher by four times in comparison to the industries of construction. When comparison are done to the manufacturing industries, construction turn to be categorised as a high-dangerous industry as it has in history been with extra and inadmissible injury rates in comparison to the other industries. In fact, construction site safety issue has involved both researchers and practitioners for ages. As such, investigations between the connection between attitudes of individual workers and individual workers safety performance have been executed (Rowlinson 2004). According to (Singh, Hinze & Coble 2000), construction safety comprise of facility’s safety to be constructed and safety within the procedure of facility construction. In point of fact, structure’s safety to be constructed turn to be normally handled during the design and planning step of that facility, whereas construction process safety turn to be mostly the general contractor’s responsibility. Safety might comprise of human error avoidance, advanced control of quality, structure’s robustness, facilities’ temporary design, and the construction procedure against unanticipated calamity in addition to operations’ safe site. For the major portion, construction safety turns to be re-actively managed and turns to be the sole task of the contractor (Singh, Hinze & Coble 2000). For ages, construction industry has been beset by pitiable safety records which portray figures which are high in comparison to other businesses. Improving site safety and health in construction remains a terrible difficulty as a result of increased SMEs numbers functioning within the construction sector, as well as the little resources existing to execute inspections as well as to offer guidance and advice (Fang, et al 2006). As such, the SMEs total numbers makes follow up and inspection a very discouraging task. 3. METHODOLOGY Ten (10) construction sites in different countries were visited in the years 2013 and 2014 for helping to answer the questions of research. At every site that was visited, there was full examination of the activities of the workers together with the construction site itself. The collection of data was done using a field note book a pen and a portable laptop. Site employees were interviewed to offer elucidation on the observed things at different sites that were visited. The people interviewed included artisans, general workers, foremen and site engineers. The operatives and site engineers were interviewed with unrestricted questions for the purposes of establishing the degree of surveillance and to discover in huge extent the reasons triggering the surveillance. Interestingly, within most of the cases, the supervisors of the sites turned to be having information of the hypothetical needs for Safety and Health on the site. However, majority of the requirements were never offered for on the sites due to the enforcement absence. The interviewees were told that they were participating in that interview on voluntary basis. As such, the interviewees could withdraw from the interview anytime they wished. Therefore, no personal information was to be revealed to avoid any victimisation. The study included all people without discrimination of sex, colour, age, status, and race among others. 4. PRESENTATION OF DATA, RESULTS AND ANALYSIS The table below presents the results and analysis in correlation to fieldwork intended to assist in finding out the state of health and safety on various construction sites in the world. H & S indi Ca tors Construction sites surveyed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Data analysis (√) (-) (x) Works execution by trained personnel √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ - √ 10 1 0 Helmets √ X √ - √ - X X √ - √ 5 3 3 Safety boots wearing X X √ √ √ - √ - √ √ √ 7 4 2 Protective clothing X X - - √ - X √ √ √ X 4 3 3 Gloves X X X - - - X X - - - 0 6 5 Eye protection X X X X X X X X - - X 0 2 9 High visibility test X X X X X X X X X X X 0 0 11 First aid √ X √ √ √ √ X X - - - 5 3 3 First aider (s) √ X X X X X X X X √ √ 3 0 8 Safety officer X X X X X X - - X X X 0 2 9 H&S induction on site X X X X - - - - - X X 0 5 6 Hazards & site rules √ X X X X X - - X X X 1 2 8 Standard site rules display X X X - - - - - - √ √ 2 6 3 Hazard signs √ √ √ √ - - X X X √ √ 6 2 3 H & S Equipment √ x x x x x - - - - x 1 4 6 Do control bodies do patrol checks √ √ √ - - - - √ √ √ - 6 5 0 Waste disposal & environment - - - - - - - - - √ √ 2 9 0 Site tideness - - - - - √ √ √ - √ - 4 7 0 Holes protection √ X √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ 10 0 1 Alcohol and Drugs check X X X X X X X X X X X 0 0 11 Site risk evaluations X X X X X X X X X X X 0 0 11 Working-at-height precaution - - - - X X X X - X X 0 5 6 Manual handling - - - - - - X X - - - 0 9 2 (√) 9 3 7 5 6 4 4 5 6 9 8 (-) 4 4 5 9 8 10 7 7 10 7 5 X 10 15 11 9 9 9 12 11 7 7 10 TOTAL/AVG 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 23 N.b: (-) = sometimes, (√) = Yes, and (X) = No. The data was gathered from various civil engineering and building sites across the globe. 4.1 Results As a matter of fact, the study portrays huge shortcoming in correlation to global concurred principles on health and wellbeing on sites’ of construction. In general, the analysis displays that out of the eleven sites scrutinized, there turns to be a mere mean of two (2) within which standard health and protection practices and policies have been implemented. Additionally, a mean of three (3) places sometimes possess standard safety and health practices within place. Moreover, a mean of six sites from the eleven sites provided no proof of standard safety and health practices being in place. Areas where the scrutinized construction sites reported in excess of 50% relative to standard safety and safety processes are; safety boots wearing, holes’ protection and execution of work by the proficient trained personnel. That result shockingly portrays only 3 sites out of 23 sites that were measured. Sites within which construction sites inspected sometimes and possess standard safety and health procedures within place in excess of 50% of that time comprise of; manual handling, site tidiness and ecology and waste disposal. Areas within which standard safety and health procedures are never put in place in excess of 50% of the moment are; hazard signs, eye protection, visibility test, site risk evaluations, alcohol and drugs check, hazard and site rules, safety officer, eye protection and first aiders. 4.2 Discussion Apparently, those outcomes signify that grave steps need to be taken for the purposes of addressing problems associated to poor safety and health procedures and policies on various constructions in the world. In one developing country on utilisation of proficient trained employee for executing construction tasks, the site Engineer in one of the sites pointed out that, carpenters and masons go through a trade test in their country’s Department of Labour. Artisans are also trained in the National Vocational Training Institute where they are offered trade certificates from the institute upon successful training completion. Additionally, the Department of Labour registers and classifies tradesmen as Grade 1 and Grade 2 among others. On the other hand, there are a number of employees who get trained as apprentices, on-the-job and subsequent to obtaining enough skill, they proceed to the Labour to be awarded a competency certificate. For the purposes of ensuring that they employ proficient qualified tradesmen, the Site Engineer pointed out that when any artisan goes to look for employment on their site, they make sure that the employees possess the required competence and skills. The inspector added that they investigate the tools that such employees take to the site (e.g. masons and carpenters). Provided that the person being inspected turn to be a mason, the engineer said they interview him by asking them the places that they previously worked for together with demanding to know the number of blocks they are capable of lying in a single day. At the end, such a mason is tested by making them perform some work for the purposes of proving their skills. On the other side, the literature review never offered a lot of information in direct correlation to safety and health in relation to several construction activities. Importantly, an investigation of the Health and Safety strategy of a certain civil engineering company in a developed country unearthed proof of certain type of framework for guaranteeing safety and health on the site. However, the information in literature review discloses a huge gap between statements within policy with what in reality takes place practically. In point of fact, majority of the things mentioned within the policy are never implemented by the contractors on site. Surprisingly, one of the key reasons of not implementing turn to be in order realise maximum profits. And lack of implementation turn to be facilitated by feeble health and wellbeing legislation and absence of grave penalties for health and wellbeing violations and accidents in many countries of the world. Apparently, there exist no construction safety and health standards or laws in both several developed and developing countries of the world. The policy contents connected to safety and health responsibility and accountability, storage, maintenance, instruction, training and information loss and issue, individual protective equipment, site assessment of risk and defects reporting are more often than not, ignored by owners and contractors of construction industry. 4.3 Conclusions As a matter of fact, this study that has been carried out on the contemporary condition of safety and health on construction in several countries, unearths a grave absence of procedures and structures at the entire levels of the chain of construction. First, powerful and suitable health and protection legislation for administering operations of site as well as construction work turn to be absent. In many countries, there is the presence of acts for instance, the Labour act which offers some kind of instruments of regulation for guaranteeing safety and health on the sites of construction. However, those acts are never enforced strongly and majority of the contractors are unaware of their Safety and Health obligations under those acts. In addition, regulatory bodies mandated with guaranteeing conformance turn to be not suitably resourced to execute their statutory duties under the subsisting legislations. Thus, a huge difficulty with safety and health is present in construction. Majority of the employees interviewed during the study shown that accidents and injuries turn to be frequent on sites and frequently they are forced to undergo long pleading and frustration period begging with employers ahead of being offered some sort of reimbursement for accidents and injuries. In point of fact, the parties that are responsible for guaranteeing globally admissible standards of safety and health on sites of construction turn to be the civil society, contractors, clients, workers, consultants and the government. 5. RECOMMENDATIONS AND FUTURE SCOPE As a matter of fact, in order to ensure health and safety within construction, the government should be in the forefront in ratifying suitable legislation and impose this by resourcing the proper Ministries, Government Departments and Agencies in order to execute their duties appropriately. In addition, consultants, contractors and clients of construction sectors ought to make sure that all construction contracts take inclusive account of safety and health requisite for the employees, environment and the project itself. Moreover, civil society and workers have a responsibility of ensuring and demanding the offering of suitable safety and health policies, provisions and procedures for administering construction activities. On the other hand, government institutions ought to be reinforced. As such, institutions which are mandated to guarantee healthy and safety ecology for carrying out work and promoting measures which would safeguard the welfare and health of workers ought to be empowered and enabled. In fact, this study requires further research on causes of accidents in construction in order to come up with proper legislation of establishing the preventative measures to contractors and owners of construction industries. In addition to this, proper legislation would provide common grounds of compensation for both the employees and employer. The other further research required is on how other industries implement their health and safety measures in their business operations. This would offer comparison to the other industries and determine the techniques to adopt in construction. Last and not least, there is need for further research on the effects of construction to the environment. 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY Chaturvedi, P, Safety and Quality Forum & Quality Council of India 2007, Occupational Safety, Health & Environment and Sustainable Economic Development: Proceedings of the Safety Convention – 2006, New Delhi, India, Concept Publishing. Fang, et al 2006, Proceedings of CIB International Conference on Global Unity for Safety & Health in Construction, 28-30 June 2006, Beijing, China, Beijing: Tshingua University Press. Griffith, A & Howarth, T 2014, Construction Health and Safety Management, Oxford, Routledge. Hislop, RD 2000, Construction Site Safety: A Guide for Managing Contractors, New York, CRC Press. Hughes P & Ferrett, Ed 2012, Introduction to Health and Safety in Construction, New York, Routledge. Rowlinson, S 2004, Construction Safety Management Systems, Leicester, Routledge. Singh, A, Hinze, J, & Coble, R, J 2000, Implementation of Safety and Health on Construction Sites, Oxford, CRC Press. 7. APPENDICES 7.1. Questions on Managing Health Safety & Environment in Construction 1. Does construction sites have sufficient first aid and first aiders? 2. Is job on construction sites performed by proficient personnel? 3. Do construction workers in construction wear protective equipment i.e. PPE? 4. Are benchmark hazards signs and site rules portrayed on construction sites? 5. Are there apparent guidelines to the contractors on construction sites? 6. Do contractors in construction make sure tidiness is present/ 7. Are transparent working-at-height safety measures offered to the construction workers? 8. Are the mechanisms for guaranteeing essential hygiene present in construction? 9. Are holes together with other risky areas on sites of construction protected? 10. Is the essential safety and health equipment availed on the construction sites? 7.2 Questions on Interviewees 1. Do you wear protective equipment during working? 2. Are you given first aid when you whenever you get injured? 3. What qualifications have made you to be in your current position at wiork? 4. Do you like being tested on drugs and alcohol at work? 5. Are you provided guidelines on how to perform duties? 6. Do you believe the current hygiene is up to standard at your workplace? 7. Where does your company damp waste materials? 8. How many times have regulatory bodies visited your construction site? 9. Do you have a safety officer at your work place? 10. Does your company offer on-job training? Read More