A Construction Safety Competency Framework

IntroductionIndustry contextOn-site employees, arguably those at greatest risk of injury, have not been receiving a consistent and clear message from alllevels of management that safety is important. This inconsistency has in part been due to: the ongoing movement of the sub-contractors and workforce between construction companies, projects and sitesmaking it difficult for any one company to consistently influence the attitudes and behaviours of this mobile workforce the lack of a consistent industry-wide understanding of the meaning of safety competency, with the sector traditionallynot recognising behaviours such as communication and leadership as integral to safety competency.Recognition of the need to further improve occupational health and safety (OH&S) performance within the Australianconstruction industry has led some companies to adopt the safety culture concept to change safety behaviours. However, theprinciples of safety culture are challenging to apply in practice.Purpose of the competency frameworkA Construction Safety Competency Framework: Improving OH&S performance by creating and maintaining a safety culturepresents a clear way forward for the construction industry by promoting a consistent national standard to improve OH&Scompetency for key safety positions.A Construction Safety Competency Framework provides the information required particularly for senior safety managers, seniormanagers and executives to implement the safety culture approach and to adapt it to suit their organisational requirements.It does this by identifying “who needs to be able to do what”. In the terminology of the framework, this means identifying the“safety critical position holders” and the “safety management tasks” that those occupying the safety critical positions need toperform competently and effectively. Once customised, the framework should then be linked to existing business and OH&Smanagement plans to achieve an improvement in culture and performance.By having a standardised competency framework (founded on safety culture principles) that is consistently applied throughoutthe industry, it is possible for the industry as a whole to be more proactive in improving the behaviours and attitudes of thosemost at risk of disease, injury and death. This would significantly reduce the difficulties that companies face when managingthe OH&S performance of a mobile labour pool and sub-contracting workforce.The framework structureThe five sections of A Construction Safety Competency Framework and a brief explanation of their content is provided below.1. Developing a positive safety culture — a definition of safety culture and the particular principal contractor staff actionsthat lead to a positive safety culture.2. Identifying safety management tasks (SMTs) and safety critical positions — a definition of key staff competencyrequirements, based on identifying the safety management tasks that safety critical position holders must be able tocomplete effectively.3. Defining competency requirements: The Tasks and Position Competency Matrix — the allocation of competencyrequirements for the identified principal contractor’s safety critical positions, that is, “who needs to be able to do whatactivities”.4. Integrating the framework — guidelines for implementing the competency framework outlined in this document.5. SMT competency specifications and culture outcomes to be achieved — elements for each of the 39 identifiedsafety management tasks, including:1. the process that should be followed when performing the task2. the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to complete the task safely and effectively3. the major safety culture outcomes that should be achieved with the effective completion of the task.1A Construction Safety Competency FrameworkIntroduction

1Developing a positive safety cultureThe concept of safety culture is a very useful and relevant way of understanding how an organisation influences the safetybehaviour of its employees and contractors. Safety culture is used to characterise the safety beliefs, values, and attitudes thatare held by an organisation. These are created and maintained principally by management (principal contractor staff) throughtheir words and actions in regard to safety. From this behaviour, employees learn what actions will be rewarded, tolerated orpunished. This in turn influences what actions and behaviour employees initiate and maintain, which directly relates to safetyperformance.A positive safety culture leads to both improved OH&S and organisational performance. Nationwide interviews, focus groupsand surveys conducted with the industry identified nine broad staff behaviours (referred to as culture actions) as vital tothe development of a positive safety culture. As a consequence, safety competency is characterised as an ability toundertake the nine identified culture actions as part of the effective completion of relevant OH&S managementtasks. The competency requirements for each task (presented in section 5) reflect this focus on achieving safety cultureoutcomes. These culture actions are:1. Communicate company values2. Demonstrate leadership3. Clarify required and expected behaviours4. Personalise safety outcomes5. Develop positive safety attitudes6. Engage and own safety responsibilities and accountabilities7. Increase hazard/risk awareness and preventive behaviours8. Improve understanding and effective implementation of safety management systems9. Monitor, review and reflect on personal effectiveness.Table 1 defines each of these actions and indicates how they positively influence the safety behaviour of staff (referred to asbehaviour change mechanism).Table 1 The culture actions which lead to a positive safety culture2Culture actionMechanism for improving safety culture and behaviour1. Communicate company values — relatethe behaviours, decisions and attitudes thatare expected, supported and valued by thecompany.By indicating what is rewarded and supported, company values serve tobroadly direct management, employees and sub-contractors towards saferbehaviours, actions and decision-making.2. Demonstrate leadership — act tomotivate and inspire others to work towardsachieving a particular goal or outcome bysending clear and consistent messagesabout the importance of OH&S.Effective exhibited leader behaviours will increase the likelihood of copiedand reciprocated safety behaviours.3. Clarify required and expectedbehaviours — clarify to immediateemployees the specific behaviours whichare required and expected of them.Effectively undertaking this action ensures that people understandspecifically what behaviours their direct supervisor wants them to pursue.Staff should ensure that their communication and behaviour consistentlysend a message that safety is embedded as a core value.Staff should ensure that they gain involvement from their workforce andbehave in a manner that builds positive relationships within the workforce.Staff should ensure that they give consistent and clear messages to theirdirect employees about the specific behaviours that they expect. Thisexpectation can be achieved by displaying the behaviours through clearcommunication and by reinforcement and recognition of desired behavioursby others.A Construction Safety Competency Framework

Culture actionMechanism for improving safety culture and behaviour4. Personalise safety outcomes — makeThe understanding of OH&S risks at a personal and emotional level willOH&S more obvious, relevant and emotional serve to change attitudes and behaviour.for the individual to personalise their roleStaff should ensure that they communicate to the workforce:in preventing and eliminating risks and the personal impact of the risks of a process or a distinct taskhazards. why it is important to the individual and the project what behaviours the individual is expected to consistently adopt.5. Develop positive safety attitudes —foster the development of attitudes andbeliefs that support safe behaviour.6. Engage and own safety responsibilitiesand accountabilities — increase input,actions and involvement in the safetymanagement process by individuals.Attitudes that value health and safety will help to drive positive behaviours.Staff should take any opportunity to encourage the workforce to gain insightinto their attitudes by having open conversations about safe and unsafebehaviour. Staff should also challenge unsafe behaviours and attitudes inothers, and recognise and encourage those who have shown a positiveattitude towards safety.This involvement, input and participation leads to empowerment, which inturn should result in a conviction that the organisation’s safety managementplan, decisions and procedures are driven by shared interests and purpose.Staff should ensure that they take every opportunity to gain involvement andcollaboration in the completion of safety management tasks. Staff should: ask for input from people who are directly impacted by decisions andactions take on board the comments of the workforce undertake collaborative goal setting which clearly identifies the requiredbehaviours.7. Increase hazard/risk awareness andpreventive behaviours — increasethe individual’s (site and office-based)understanding of the OH&S outcomesassociated with their decisions, behaviours,and actions.This increased awareness will lead to greater engagement with theworkforce in behaviours that reduce hazards and risks including activitiessuch as talking to their colleagues about their own behaviours and actions.8. Improve understanding and effectiveimplementation of safety managementsystems — enable individuals to increasetheir knowledge of the specific ways inwhich hazards are managed, as well as theirability to apply and implement the actualOH&S processes.A greater understanding will increase a person’s ability to solve problemsand to develop safe work processes to further improve safety performance.It will also increase uniformity and predictability of safety managementbehaviour and provide a greater understanding of what each systemelement is designed to achieve.9. Monitor, review and reflect on personaleffectiveness — frequently use varioussources of information to gain feedbackon the effectiveness of culture actions andother safety-related behaviours.This action enables the individual to fine tune and continually improve theirability and effectiveness in completing the other, listed culture actions.Staff should ensure that the workforce understands that there are identifiedand as yet unidentified hazards on site. Increased awareness can beachieved via regular oral and written communication, inspections andenforcement of safety requirements. Staff should ensure that hazard-specifictraining is given to their workforce and that a collaborative approach is takento undertaking hazard/risk assessment and control.Staff should seek to understand the company’s systems and values andcommunicate the requirements and the purpose of the requirements to theirown workforce.Staff should seek an

A Construction Safety Competency Framework: Improving OH&S performance by creating and maintaining a safety culture by Dr Donald P. Dingsdag, Dr Herbert C. Biggs, Vaughn L. Sheahan, and Dean J. Cipolla is based on the outcomes of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Construction Innovation research project “Construction Site Safety .