Investigating Effects of Site Level Commitment on Construction Site Safety-A Field Study

摘要

This paper presents the results of a field study on how site level commitment of management, observers and operatives effects the implementation of a safety intervention in construction site environments. The research was planned to put together a reliable measure of safety at construction projects in five categories: personal protective equipment; housekeeping; access to heights; plant & equipment; and scaffolding. An intervention was introduced to investigate its effects. To keep the intervention more practical, company personnel were involved with implementing the intervention with the assistance of the researcher. Necessary training was provided to the observers. Baseline measurements of safety performance were taken and goal-setting meetings were held, to set acceptable goals for improvement. The intervention was implemented on three mega construction projects where safety performance was measured, the progress levels were reported and regularly updated on feedback charts. A clear increase in safety scores was achieved across all categories of safety performance. The results of the intervention demonstrated a large decrease in unsafe behaviors and significant increase in safe behaviors. The commitment of both observers and project site management was measured by using a variety of pre-determined criteria, over the duration of the research period. A behavior check for goal setting sessions was measured for its effectiveness on five different scales. Operative's awareness was measured using a variety of criteria including their knowledge of, and response to the intervention on a construction site. The commitment of site management was measured in implementing the intervention. The first author stayed on site full time for more than two months to complete this research. The results revealed that improvement in safety performance levels were higher where the site management team was committed to implementing the intervention and believed that higher levels of safety performance could be possible. This research concludes that there may be several factors for successful intervention: however, management commitment is vital to the success of a behavior-based safety intervention.