How to Ensure Safety in Construction

January 2 2023 - Despite recent and sweeping challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic and worldwide supply chain issues, the global construction market has gone from strength to strength through 2022.

According to a new report (entitled Global Construction 2030), this trend is set to continue too, with the volume of construction output forecast to grow by 85% to $15.5 trillion by the year 2030.

While this growth will be led by China, India and the US, the UK will also play a key role in driving global demand. But how can developers and construction firms guarantee safety on-site, especially when scaling their operations in line with demand?

Understand the Value of Training

Training is key to creating safer working environments, especially if you want to make employee safety a key focus over a prolonged period of time.

As a fundamental rule, your training should provide a full and comprehensive briefing to both employees and visitors about the proper safety measures in place on-site, before they even set foot in the workplace.

This should involve the key tenant’s of protecting both yourself and others, which is key to sustaining construction site safety over time and ensuring that every employee retains a sense of accountability.

Regular Checks Materials and Equipment

If you’re going to further ensure the safety of your site, it’s crucial that you also check the validity of your materials and equipment.

Such checks should be frequent and scheduled too, so that you can make any necessary repairs proactively or discard materials that are no longer fit for purpose. This particularly applies to materials such as plywood, which can warp or incur damage if they’re not stored properly.

Storage is definitely a key consideration here, as materials and equipment that aren’t being used should always be kept in a place in a way that best preserves their integrity while ensuring that you can reduce the risk of damage or accidents.

Try to store materials and equipment with their relevant safety manuals where applicable too, as this also makes it easy to refer to correct and proper handling guidelines at all times.

Tidy the Space and Make Use of PPE

Ultimately, maintaining a clean and tidy construction site also key to helping minimise injuries and the damage done to tools and materials.

This means frequently clearing away debris and keeping the workspace as clear as possible, while also reinforcing the importance of a clean and tidy building site to your employees as part of their training. This should also make employees more accountable for their wellbeing and the safety of others when maintaining their site.

On a similar note, the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) can also help to lessen injuries on construction sites. The key is to ensure that you have the key items of PPE on site at all times, namely hard hats, high visibility jackets and specialist footwear.

You’ll need to have a constant supply of PPE to ensure that you don’t run short, while you should add items as and when required by your employees.

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