The role of health and safety culture in construction

People are frequently cited as the most important resource in construction. Despite people being the most important resource, many construction practitioners believe that: construction is inherently dangerous; accidents are part of the job, and the goal of zero accidents and/or fatalities is impossible to achieve. Other beliefs include that H&S costs money and that the majority of accidents are attributable to unsafe acts and consequently the fault of workers. H&S culture is at the upstream end of the upstream-downstream sequence: culture - management system -?exposure -?incidents, and consequently influences and plays a major role in H&S. H&S culture is comprised of values, purpose, mission, vision, goals and assumptions, which individually and collectively are pre-requisites for the optimum H&S culture. However, relative to inadequate or the lack of H&S, management and workers knowingly take risks, management 'turns a blind eye', workers work in an environment created by management, people often blame others and/or provide excuses for their actions or omissions, and incompetence is frequently the cause thereof. Conversely, management commitment is both a pre-requisite and the catalyst for H&S. Given the aforementioned, an exploratory descriptive survey was conducted in a selected South African 'H&S best practice' general contractor (GC), cited in, inter alia, the 'Egan' Report, the objective being to assess the H&S culture. The salient findings include: generally, a healthy H&S culture exists in the GC concerned; management and supervision appreciate their influence on H&S performance, the findings reinforcing the role and importance of management commitment; generally, management and supervision believe that accidents and fatalities can be prevented, however, the mistaken belief that construction is inherently dangerous, exists, and various macro issues impact on H&S performance in a contracting organization and the industry.