Safety Myths and Wrongheaded Beliefs Prevalent in the Construction Industry

Safety Programs Ensure Job Site/Worker Safety and Meet Legal Obligations

This generally results in a large binder (or binders) with multiple sections dealing with a variety of subjects (typically regurgitating the OSHA standards), which in many cases ends up sitting on a shelf gathering dust. Some of the legal requirements are satisfied, but safety results are hardly achieved. Programs are written guidelines and not much else. First, the program has to be designed to address the operational risks unique to that organization and to function harmoniously and effectively within the prevailing organizational systems. For the program to deliver safe operations, it has to be implemented and actively managed.

Safety Is Common Sense

That safety is common sense is another one of the myths. The individual making that statement assumes that everyone thinks and feels the same way. That is pure nonsense! What one person perceives as "risky," another may think of as quite safe. Some people skydive, others bungee jump, some race automobiles, others rock climb. Many people would never dream of doing any of those things under any circumstances. Others may view what may seem exciting to some people as total insanity. Taking risk is a very personal matter. It is based on one's appetite for risk, personal life experience, belief in one's capability, and/or one's ability to identify and assess exposure. To effectively manage risk, the organization must clearly define what is acceptable and what is not and then actively manage it.

OSHA Compliance Creates Safe Work Environments

Another myth is that compliance with the OSHA standards will result in the creation of a safe work environment. That is really not true in all cases. All one has to do is look at falls from heights and how they are dealt with in the standards. For many construction trades, OSHA requires fall protection when the fall exposure exceeds 6 feet. That includes dry wall installers, painters, electricians, plumbers, etc. The trigger for scaffold erectors is 10 feet. For metal deck installers, carpenters working on purlins, etc., the trigger is 15 feet, and roofers can be exposed to a fall up to 20 feet. Connectors (iron workers) need fall protection when they are exposed to a fall greater than 30 feet. Just what underlying scientific logic justifies this?

Simple physics will tell you that the kinetic energy resulting from a fall increases with distance. The laws of physics do not make allowance for different trades; gravity treats them all equally! An iron worker falling from 29 feet is bound to be badly injured unless that person can somehow fly. So, since buying workers compensation insurance is required, as a business, it just does not make much sense to allow workers to be exposed to falls; should they occur, such falls virtually guarantee serious life-changing injuries and potentially have serious financial consequences.

Incentive Programs Cause Workers To Work Safely

This is another one of the myths that seems to have many proponents. The awards given by these programs are generally based on not having a recordable incident, which creates a number of problems. One is the potential for underreporting of accidents. But, of greater concern is the fact that a worker can do nothing differently from before the program's inception but, because he or she has not had a recordable injury, get a reward. Workers may engage in at-risk behavior or not follow safe work practices and, due to good luck, not have a recordable incident and thus earn a reward. In these cases, workers are rewarded for being lucky and nothing else. Such systems do not do much to foster safe behavior, and, more importantly, they do not provide management with information that will assist them in identifying unsafe behavior or deploying appropriate interventions that result in changing existing practices.

Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) Fosters and Sustains Safe Behavior

This myth ignores the role of management's and management systems' influence on the choices workers make or their behavior. It also assumes that the worker has total control over the work environment. In organizations where there is misalignment in systems, practices, and procedures, workers may be put into situations where they have to make a choice between staying employed and doing something that has some level of risk attached. In such cases, the worker will more than likely engage in an at-risk behavior to keep his or her job. So for BBS to work effectively, there needs to be an assessment of systems and management's influence on the choices the workers make that may be contrary to behavioral program expectations.

Progressive Punishment Ensures Safety Compliance

Punishing a worker for noncompliance does not necessarily improve that worker's or other workers' behavior. The best that punishment accomplishes is achieving temporary compliance. Policing is an inefficient mechanism for achieving compliance or ensuring desirable behavior. For policing to work, it has to be virtually continuous, the consequences immediate, certain, and robust. This fact makes it inefficient and impractical. Punishment should be an option of last resort. The most effective way to achieve compliance or promote desired behavior is for it to be self-directed by the worker, which means by way of intrinsic motivation.

Firing Noncomplying Workers Solves Safety Problems

It only removes the offending worker, and not much else is gained from that action long term. This approach is like trying to cure the disease by treating the symptom. The only way to truly resolve this problem is to find the operational or organizational system or procedure that allowed or facilitated the offending worker to engage in the unacceptable behavior and change it. Otherwise, the underlying system will cause the next worker to do what the fired worker did and be the next candidate for dismissal.

Safety Training Is a Leading Safety Indicator

Safety training in fact leads nowhere in particular! The training sign-in sheet provides proof of the number of people who attended and not much else. The underlying assumption is that if workers are given the appropriate training, they will use this to work safely. For training to be effective, an evaluation has to be made as to what knowledge, if any, a particular worker is deficient in. Then there needs to be an assessment of what the content of the training material ought to be, selection of the method of presentation, a confirmation of the understanding of the material, and a verification that the information was relevant to the work being done and that the trainees are utilizing the information and using it effectively in their work practices.

Workers Need Refresher Training To Keep the Focus on Safe Work Practices

This is another one of the myths that seems to have support from both safety practitioners and management. If we think about this one rationally, it is hard to accept that a reasonably intelligent person forgets the few salient points that relate to the subject of the refresher training. Ladder use is an example. There are only a half dozen or so elements to remember to accomplish proper ladder setup. Assuming that the workforce is reasonably intelligent, how is it possible that they would forget these few salient points? So, the reason for improper ladder setup might be something other than knowledge deficiency. Therefore, much of refresher training is an ineffective use of finite resources and does not address the underlying problem.

Inspections and Audits Will Uncover Most Hazards and Risks of Injury

Inspections are usually snapshots of conditions or situations and are not comprehensive representation of the ongoing operations or activities. Inspections tend to cover a small fraction of the time during which work activity is occurring at the location. Another shortcoming of inspections may be that they are not thorough. By their very nature, site inspections are focused on identifying hazardous physical conditions. Operational, management, and organizational systems may create a multitude of risks that are not readily apparent during a physical walk around. These latent risks are immune to traditional interventions.