Assessing the level of resilience in construction safety management systems in the Ghanaian construction industry

The traditional safety management approach is a control-oriented approach that seeks to direct and control workers to complete the expected company safety standards and regulations. This approach to safety management is partially compatible with the growing complexity of contemporary organisations. Therefore, a more comprehensive and modern approach to safety management is necessary, hence, the resilience management system. This study is part of a PhD programme. The study’s objective was to establish the level of resilience capabilities of construction safety management systems (SMSs) in Ghana’s construction industry. The targeted respondents were health and safety (HS) managers, managing directors, project managers, site engineers and construction managers of D1K1, D2K2, D3K3 and D4K4 construction companies. The list of 144 construction companies surveyed in this study was obtained from the Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors Ghana and deemed to be in good standing. The study used purposive sampling techniques to reach out to the respondents. Descriptive statistics, a one-sample t-test, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and its post hoc test and the resilience analysis grid (RAG) were employed. The results revealed that out of the seven SMSs assessed, only “policy” measured up to the acceptable level of resilience, thus establishing that the entire safety management system (SMS) is not resilient. These findings have empirically established that SMSs in the Ghanaian construction industry are not resilient. The results further highlight the necessity for contractors and stakeholders to switch from a conventional safety management strategy to a more proactive safety management approach and to establish a customised method to a more robust safety management system.