Enhancing Construction Safety Through Workplace Surveillance and Systematic Follow-Ups

Abstract

Background: Globally, construction jobs are associated with serious occupational safety and health (OSH) risks. In large construction projects, managing OSH risks is challenging due to a multitude of factors, and it is important to have sound management strategies and innovative solutions to tackle these ever-evolving OSH risks. Safety surveillance plays a pivotal role in accident prevention in the construction industry. We evaluated the effectiveness of ongoing surveillance coupled with proactive management follow-up in a cross-section of 26 large construction workplaces.

Methods: Trained safety observers were deployed using a digital platform to record and report risk conditions, along with the details such as category, potential risk, responsible persons, and so forth. At the same time a predictive tool to calculate the possibility of severe adverse outcomes such as "Lost Time Incident" (LTI) or fatality was introduced. The outcomes were followed up and reviewed by the leadership teams on a regular basis.

Results: Enhanced efforts from worksite safety observers resulted in capturing of higher number of safety lapses, which necessitated additional efforts from the line managers to take prompt corrective and preventive actions to mitigate OSH-related risks. Over the study period, the rate of risk conditions being recorded showed a gradual downward trend, as did the associated rates of recorded injuries.

Conclusion: This study affirms the hypothesis that a structured proactive approach with active leadership involvement and prompt remedial actions can aid in significant improvement of working conditions and safety performance at construction projects.

Keywords: construction; leading indicators; safety and health; safety surveillance; worksite observations.