Tag Archives: Safety First

Construction companies can’t afford to compromise on safety

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The construction industry is one of those industries that do not have any chance of facing a downfall in the near future. This is because of the constantly growing demand of new buildings, offices, residential complexes and so on and so forth, for the growing population all across the globe. However, despite this constantly growing demand, there is always a scarcity of skilled labours or workers in these construction companies. One of the primary reasons behind this is the lack of safety or security for the workers.

Importance of safety in construction companies:

Safety is a major concern not only for the construction businesses, but also for every single business that you run. If there are too many people working together and using tools and machineries, there is always a chance for accidents. When it is a construction business, the chances or exposure to accidents is even higher. This is because, the construction companies use –

  • Heavy equipment and machineries
  • Electronic or power tools
  • Use of fire ad gas cutters
  • Working with concrete
  • Working at an elevated site with great height.

Hence, there is always the possibility that accidents may occur. Hence, it is a must that proper safety measures are taken. Otherwise, this will lead to severe fatal damages or cause lifelong difficulties for the workers.

Safety measures that need to be taken:

As already mentioned, there are so many accident possibilities and health hazards possible in a construction site or for construction industries, they simply cannot afford to compromise on the safety matter. There are a number of things that need to be ensured. These include –

  • Following the rules and regulations:

 

Every state and country has specific safety measure rules and regulations that the construction companies need to follow. Otherwise, conducting the business is an absolutely illegal act. Hence, know the safety rules for construction businesses of your state and country and follow them.

  • Use railings:

 

This is a very basic safety measure that needs to be taken, when your workers are working at a site. Regardless of how elevated the construction site is, using railings is a must. This will prevent a number of falls that are possible to occur at any point of time.

  • Fall prevention tools and measures:

 

Apart from the railings, there are many other fall prevention tools and machines that need to be used by the workers. From using the fall prevention nets to the use of harnesses, there are various tools that can be used and should be used.

  • Presence or water supply and fire extinguishers:

 

Fire hazards can occur at any time and in a construction site, there can be electrical lines, supplies and materials that can spread the fire fast. Hence, having adequate extinguishers and water supply is a must.

  • Proper training:

 

Be it working on an elevated platform or the use of heavy construction equipment, proper training is a must. With proper safety training, a number of accidents can be prevented.

For the wellbeing of the construction workers and also for the successful functionality of the business, following good safety measures is a must.

 

Highway Construction Safety

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Safety on a construction site is perhaps the most neglected part and stress should be put on the company to ensure that they follow the safety parameters at all times. When we talk about safety on construction site, we restrict ourselves to the safety of the employees and workers who work on the jobsite. But when we talk about safety on highway construction, it should not restrict us to the safety of the employees but should extend it to the safety of the people around the site. When you are working on the highway, you have vehicles moving on the road and it becomes the responsibility of the construction company to ensure that the vehicles passing by move safely and do not become a victim of an accident. The fact however suggests something else. It has been noted that a number of accidents and casualties that happen on the highways are because of not following the highways safety parameters. Though efforts are been made to reduce such incidents but the figures are alarming.

Need to have adequate signals:-

Most of the accidents that happen on the highway are due to inadequate availability of signals. The workers are busy doing their work and there is no one to give signals to the vehicles. For instance, when the construction work is happening on the end of a curve, it is crucial that the workers put some sort of impediments to slow down the vehicles or else they might not even see the construction happening because of the steep curve. For a second, they fall in the blind spot from where they can’t even anticipate anything happening on the other side of the curve. So when the vehicles are at full speed and they do not see any signals, they are bound to dash and that may cause severe casualty. In situation like this, the construction company should ensure that the workers deploy men who constantly provide signals to the vehicles alerting them of the work happening on the other side of the curve.

Workers manning the flow of vehicles:-

While the construction on the highway is in its full swing, the workers should man the flow of vehicles. They can close one part of the highway temporarily and ask drivers to use diversions. You only need few men who can control the traffic and show the diversion route. You can also put big blocks of impediments to block the way and use arrow signs to give appropriate signals to the drivers. There should be proper arrangement in place to control the movement on vehicles while the construction on the highway is in full swing. One must ensure that in no terms the vehicles should be passing close to the construction area.

Workers should be vigilant to oncoming traffic:-

It is crucial for the workers to remain vigilant at all times to oncoming traffic. They should make sure that none of the vehicles should pass close to them. During moments of high traffic, proper arrangement should be made to make sure that the vehicles move from a distance from the workers causing no accidents and eventually no casualties.

How to implement a safety program

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Forming rules is to a larger extent a simple job. What is rather difficult is to implement the rules on the ground level. It takes a lot of hardships on the part of the people who are been assigned the job to execute a program. They have to work hard to explain the folks the reason why the change has been brought and what good it is for them. You will also find few guys who will not agree with the new program and will be reluctant to participate. These challenges need to be addressed and sorted out as well. When a construction company comes up with a safety program, it means that the overall employees working in the company have to now follow some extra rules which they are not used to. Bringing something all of a sudden can be a little difficult for people to accept and therefore they might not take it sportingly even if the program is for their good.

A construction company while trying to implement a safety program needs to keep certain facts into perspective and then gradually try to bring in the change.

Make it a part of their habit:-

The reason why many construction workers do not want to wear those extra safety belts is because they have never worn one and when they are asked to attach extra load on their body they might not be comfortable with the idea. Therefore, one can primarily deal with this by bringing in the change gradually and make them used to it. You can ask them to wear a bit of extra accessories but you inform them well in advance that the company is intending to provide the workers with additional safety gadgets and people should be wearing them so that they can work safely. This will bring in a sort of excitement amongst the people and they will welcome the decision.

Provide proper training before they actually start using it:-

Training your workers on following a safety program is quite essential. You may form certain safety guidelines but as long as the workers are not informed about it in advance it will not be fair enough to ask them to follow it the day you want them to follow. They just do not know what the safety program is all about and why you want them to follow it. Proper training of the safety program should be given to the workers and all their questions need to be answered so that they take the program positively and apply it on the jobsite.

Monitoring the implementation of the safety program:-

Once you have trained the workers about the importance of the safety program and have also asked them to follow, the next important thing will be to monitor if all the workers are correctly following the safety norms. In the initial stage, it might be a bit difficult for the guys to be in sync with the norms and therefore proper monitoring is required so that whenever someone is having a hard time to follow, he should be assisted and shown the correct method.

Heavy equipment safety meeting topics

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Safety of human resources as well as the assets of the company should be given due importance in every industry. This is perhaps one such thing that can’t be ever taken for granted because if you do so then it will always hit you back and it will hit you hard. This is the reason why many companies across several industries spend good amount of money on safety trainings and explaining its employees the importance of following those safety measures.

Industries that are considered to be risky on part of the employees should take special care towards the implementation of the safety trainings and the outcome of those trainings. Construction sector is one such business where employees are prone to accidents if they do not follow what they have been trained on the jobsite. It has been observed that the number of accidents have fallen considerably after people started taking things seriously. You have to make few things mandatory. Not everybody will like when you compel them to follow a certain routine but if it is for their good then you got to do it.

Another important part that we usually take for granted is the safety of heavy equipment. These machines are an integral part of the construction industry and their role in this sector can’t be seen to be minuscule. Therefore it is equally important for the business owner to ensure that the machines are safe both in terms of maintenance and also not falling in the hand of thieves.

It is crucial that the top notch of the companies sit for a while in a month and check the current status of heavy equipment. Are they in good order, what measures have been taken to ensure that the machines do not break down in middle of an important project and if it does is there an alternative available? These topics should be discussed in a meeting and the team present in the meeting should also come up with some form of a solution to an existing problem.

Machines are really old:-

When heavy equipment become very old they tend to have a lot of technical and maintenance issues. In a heavy equipment safety meeting, this topic should be raised. If you have heavy equipment that is being used for the last many years and if you see getting converted into a liability rather than an asset due to increase in maintenance, it should be highlighted because old machines with technical problems are in many ways not safe to use. They may stop following the instructions given by the operator and the chances of an accident thereby increase manifolds.

How frequently heavy equipment are serviced:-

This is another important topic that should be a part of the meeting. Pull the record of the last time when all the heavy equipment were serviced. Check the gaps from that date till today and raise a question if you find the gaps to be more than it should be. A clear instruction should be given to the hierarchy that heavy equipment by all means should follow regular maintenance and any deviation will be strictly dealt with.

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Tool box safety talk

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Over the last few decades, safety of the employees has been on the forefront. Construction companies want their men to be safe at work because any accident can cost the employee as well as the employer dearly which can also lead to closure of work for some days. Now the owners of construction companies can’t afford to remain closed for a single day and therefore they want their men to go safe and sound while they are in the construction site. Now there is something known as “Tool Box Talks” where the employees talk about different kinds of hazards and how to work safely and not fall prey to those hazards. So at the beginning of the shift, they can go through a small session of Tool box safety talk where someone will speak on a particular topic, will explain the reason why the safety tips should be followed and how that will help them to remain vigilant and safe all the time while they are at work.

Things are better understood when they are explained by giving few examples. So a tool box talk will kind of have some examples for the trainees. So they will be given a situation where the person in the example will be a victim to some hazard and then questions will be asked like what are the potential threats that were present in the zone. What could have been done to avoid the danger and taken an approach that is considered as safe. Also if someone already meets such a form of an accident what should be done to save his life? All the employees should remember the emergency contact numbers so that it can be dialed whenever deemed necessary.

Tool box safety talks can consist of any topic irrespective of how small or big one may find it to be. The intensity of the problem is completely dependent on the situation that the person is in and therefore having a tool box safety once every day before the beginning of the shift sounds to be a good idea. The employees who attend such talks on a daily basis have indeed learnt a lot and remain cautious from any potential perils. They have learnt to work safe and more and more construction companies are following this trend. The things that come under tool box safety talk can be anything and everything under the sun. Right from the battery of a construction equipment to learn to give signals to the operators, it consists of just everything.

There are different ways to conduct tool box safety talks. Some does it by way of examples. Some prefer giving live demos. It seems people learn faster when they see demos. But demos can be expensive and therefore some companies strictly stick to examples given in the notes. It also speaks about the do’s and don’ts about every topic that has some peril attached to it. Basically it is all about being safe and tool box talks teaches you exactly how you can be safe while working in a construction site that is often termed as an unsafe zone.

 

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Safety First In Construction Sites

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The construction business is not an easy one. There are a lot of aspects that are to be considered when it comes to successfully executing a project. Among several aspects, the most important thing to be concerned with is the safety. It is to be made sure that no harm is cased to the workers or the environment at the time of the construction. At the same time, it is also to be ensured that the people who are going stay inside the building are safe. Therefore, a construction must be done with adherence to the guidelines of the government. Otherwise, legal hassles can leave a construction company completely devastated.

There have been many instances where people in charge have been slapped with extreme cases by the government due to negligence in this regard. An American project manager was sued by the government with charges of manslaughter when. He had ignored order to stop working. As a result, the construction site saw the death of an employee in the trenches. Another company had received orders to make payments of about one million dollars for the charges of terminating a foreman wrongfully along with two drivers as they raised their concerns regarding the fatigue of the drivers.

These actions taken against the company representatives have been done justly. The worker who had been fired had been compensated. However, the family of the deceased will hardly be ever able to compensate for their loss. The injustice done is not only affecting the deceased but also the friends and the family of the sufferer. Therefore, such damages are compensated easily with monetary penalties. Therefore, it is only natural to penalize the people responsible with stringent punishments for their negligence and lack of responsibility. That is why all companies are expected and ordered to stick to the construction rules stipulated by the corporation.

The occupational safety and health administration has been vested with the responsibility of inspecting the job sites, the unsafe practices in the city. They also levy fines for such activities and can also shut down projects. Some may have complaints about the apparent oversight. However, the devastating incidents are far more significant and prominent than the trivial inconveniences. Supervisors and construction workers who do not pay heed to the unsafe conditions are forced to acknowledge the responsibility by the governing body for their as well as other’s safety.

The operators of tower crane have been given the authority to get a project shut down if they feel that the safe lifts are being jeopardized by the wind speeds. In this way many visible accidents can be prevented. There has been the creation of a new group known as the Construction Equipment Safety. This group has mainly three goals. The first goal is to get all accidents highlighted due to the construction equipment so that others can avoid such unfortunate incidents. The second goal is to encourage discussion regarding the improvement of the safety in the construction sites, the finally goal is to share experiences and strategies so that new ideas could be developed.

 

 

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