3 Safety Commandments On Construction Sites
Anyone who has seen a construction project go from the small acorn of its early stages to the great oak that is its finished product, will know how magical the process can look from the outside. For those who have worked on the project, it’s anything but magic – it takes hard work, heavy materials and a lot of coordination. It also takes a lot of oversight, as project managers focus on what needs to be done when, and how, and a key aspect of this management is safety.
Anyone who has seen a construction project go from the small acorn of its early stages to the great oak that is its finished product, will know how magical the process can look from the outside. For those who have worked on the project, it’s anything but magic – it takes hard work, heavy materials and a lot of coordination. It also takes a lot of oversight, as project managers focus on what needs to be done when, and how, and a key aspect of this management is safety.
A project will not be signed off these days without reaching rigorous safety standards, and for good reason. When you’re dealing with a large construction project, it’s essential to remember that the building will have to deal with a range of forces over a number of years, from all the extremes of weather to potentially tens of thousands of people each year. The building needs to be safe; and to have confidence that it is, the whole project needs to be overseen in safety. That includes living up to safety standards on the building site, including the following:
1. Employing Only Fully-Trained Workpeople
A building site can be noisy, fast-moving and busy at the best of times, and there’s no room in that picture for someone who doesn’t know what they are doing. Proper training for construction workers includes knowing how to conduct themselves on the site from clock-in to clock-out. Securing instruction from the likes of Kallibr construction training will allow you to only put people you can trust into the field. A safer building site is a more efficient site, and well-trained workers will speed the job significantly.
2. Operate A “Report Everything” Policy
Even on a safe building site there is scope for near-misses and accidents; that’s just the way the world works. It is essential on a building site to be aware of any incidents with the potential to cause harm, because highlighting these incidents will be fundamental to preventing them in future. It cannot be overstated that if an incident occurs, it should be recorded in an incident book and looked at for what can be learned. This way you can identify blind spots and patterns that will help you tighten up safety on the site.
3. Keep Your Site Clean And Tidy
As we’ve noted, a building site can be very kinetic, with a lot going on at once, and it’s not uncommon for this to lead to absent-mindedness. It’s very easy to leave tools lying around, or appliances plugged in when they shouldn’t be, while your attention is distracted. Just one oversight in this regard can set off a chain of events which ends badly, so it is vital to consistently monitor all areas of work – by remote camera if necessary – to ensure that hazards are spotted and corrected.
There is no more important consideration on a construction site than safety. It takes precedence over everything else, including time, so make sure your working teams are always aware of their responsibilities in this regard.