Factors that affect construction safety equilibrium: Nakhon Ratchasima construction crews perspective

Mostly construction workers' behaviours are shaped by task objective constraints and their capability during operating the task. Their behaviours seem to be a systematic migration toward to the boundary of functionally acceptable performance. It is forced by management pressure and an effort gradient of worker. This circumstance brings those workforces to the error margin and finally ends up with the accident. This research presents the Construction Safety Equilibrium Model (CSEM) which provides a balance between task demand (TD) and capability (C). The author investigated the factors that affect task demand and capability via Delphi process. The sample group was represented by 18 employees from various construction projects in the north-east province of Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, holding positions of civil engineer, safety officer and foreman. Results of the analysis showed that 1) the most significant factors of task demand were tools factor, work quality strictness factor and work pacing factor. The least significant factor was the physical site condition factor; 2) for capability; the highest significant factors were foreman communication ability factor, worker health condition factor and foreman work experience factor. Apart from that, the job training factor was the lowest significant factor. Regarding these results, both of the lowest significant factors from task demand and capability occupied the median value over 1.5 which meant that all 35 proposed factors remained.