Using safety culture to overcome market force influence on construction site safety

The Australian Construction Industry’s safety performance is less than optimal (Cole Royal Commission, 2003). A common perception within the industry is that the current level of safety performance reflects the heavy production demands placed on organisations and their workforce. As a consequence, real improvements in safety cannot be easily made because it is very difficult to modify contractually determined completion times required of the industry. It is argued that safety can be improved within this demanding context by improving the level of safety understanding of those people who hold safety critical positions and roles. Preliminary results of focus groups conducted revealed that: the behaviour and actions of 11 key roles were seen as the most critical to driving a safety culture; as well as general, anecdotal support for the argument that improving safety skilling and understanding within these key positions could minimise the influence of market factors. Based on these findings, a survey was undertaken to identify the tasks that people in these roles think are important to reducing injury and incidents on site. Using this data, a framework is presented that articulates the tasks those safety critical role holders must be competent to complete in order to develop and maintain a positive site safety culture.