Factors affecting construction safety management in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Safety at work is an important fact at construction sites. The subject of safety attitudes and safety performance of both management and workers in the construction industry is even more so. In general, accidents at work occur either due to lack of knowledge or training, lack of supervision, lack of means to carry out the task safely or alternatively, due to an error of judgment, carelessness, laziness or total irresponsibility. The standards on quality of physical working conditions were developed based on the lessons accumulated on past accidents and are still based on the investigations and follow-up measures taken after accidents occurred at site. Thus the purpose of this paper is to explore the key factors affecting to Construction Safety Management and utilize the data to enhance the involvement of management to construction safety. The literature survey identifies the key factors affecting to the Construction Safety Management as a whole. To achieve the degree of significance of each factor affecting to the Construction Safety Management in Sri Lanka, a questionnaire was developed and sent to a random sample of top Sri Lankan construction companies. Relative Importance and the Mean Score were calculated to rank the key factors according to their importance. Through this method, it has been identified that the following factors like Management Commitment, implementation of Safety Supervision, Management Measures (Safety Meetings and Safety Training etc.), Project Nature, Individual Involvement, and Economic Investment on Safety are mainly affecting to the Construction Safety Management. The final results enable how to enhance the safety performance of the management with greater involvement.