Managing Health and Safety on the building site: a study on communication issues between the involved actors

Kolokotronis, Ioakeim ; Hansen, Ana Claudia Schneider

4. term

Management in the Building Industry, Master

2020

2020-06-10

129 pages

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to investigate how safety communication can affect safetyon the building industry. The construction industry as a whole is one of the most injury industrieswhere productivity is a priority rather than safety.The methodology used in this report is Pragmatism with deductive approach. By using interviewsas a qualitative method, where two interviews were conducted with people from the Danishconstruction industry. The use of quantitative method can be seen where numerical data is usedin the tables and statistics.The interviews were semi-structured which allowed the interviewer to explore other topics thatsurfaced on the interviews.Communication is a factor that contributes positively in safety on the building sites.A literature review created the foundation for the research. The systematic literature review wasthe basis for exploration of what safety communication, safety culture, risk management, safetyclimate, accidents, safety management, ICT and BIM tools are and what barriers exist currentlyin the construction building sites that are hindrance for effective communication, as well the effectof COVID-19 as an actual health issue on the building sites.The thematic analysis was used to analyse the interviews, since it is an effective method toextract data from the interviews.At the same time, the managers and the foreman should prioritize safety communication with theparticipation of the construction crew during meetings or briefings.In the discussion, the notions from the literature review are converged with the findings from thedata analysis served as the basis for the development of a framework for construction safety onthe building sites that was proposed together with overall recommendations for the constructionindustry. Safety on the building sites can be achieved by following a checklist developed inconnection with the construction safety framework in a form of a flowchart

Barriers ; Building site ; Construction safety ; Communication ; Digitalization ; Health and Safety ; Safety communication ; Safety management

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