What Pro-Actively Can People In The Construction Industry Do To Improve Health And Safety?

by Denny F. My Opinion

The construction industry can be a little tricky in terms of health and safety as there are a lot of hazards around that could put the employees and others around them at risk.  It is, therefore, important that any business in the construction industry thinks about this very seriously and ensures that they put in preventative measures to avoid any accident. The outcome of an accident in this industry could be very serious and could even lead to death.  Here are some of the pro-active things that could be completed to reduce the risks.

 

Health and Safety Courses

There are lots of different health and safety courses that employers can look at to take their employees through that give them the knowledge and understanding of things that could go wrong within their industry.  A health and safety awareness course goes a long way to make bring employees together and educate them on things such as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the laws and regulations within their industry but also what to do if there is an accident.  These courses are run by external bodies who are experts in this field and will support in giving employees the assurance they need.  It is important that employees keep records of registration around this so that they know who has had this training and who has not.  They should consider not putting any employees on the ground who has not attended one of the courses as this presents its own risks.

 

Risk Assessments

The construction industry is very complex and doing a risk assessment takes a lot of thought and effort.  If you think of risk assessments that you would see in an office environment, these would be pretty simple and would not take much actions or money to put preventative measures in place to reduce the risk but the ones contained within this industry will be far more complex. Doing a risk assessment competently involves some time and effort to review the area that will be occupied, tools used and environmental conditions. This will identify risk that you should look to eliminate.  If risks cannot be 100% eliminated, then actions should be put in place to seriously reduce it (this could include things such as PPE).

 

Protective Equipment

It is the responsibility of the employer to ensure that all employees have the appropriate protective equipment to work safely. In the construction industry, this will include things such as hard hats, steel toe footwear and coveralls.   Depending on the outcome of risk assessments, there will be mandates for employees to wear this sort of equipment in defined areas.  This should be communicated clearly, and the employers may use things like signs and posters to support the communication of this.

 

Summary

Thinking about how to prevent accidents before they happen needs to be the mindset.  Using the three tools above will support any company on this endeavour to have zero accidents and zero near misses.

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Created on Jan 5th 2021 17:33. Viewed 316 times.

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