Stakeholder's attitude towards construction worker's safety and health

Abstract

The construction industry in Malaysia as in many other countries is considered one of the riskiest industries due to the high rate of accidents and their devastating consequences. The construction safety has been debated for centuries with numerous research on the methods, techniques and interventions in order to minimize accidents occurred on site. Safety and health performance is influenced by among other things, stakeholder's attitude towards the safety of the construction workers. The main objective of this research is to identify the attitude of the main stakeholders towards the duties and obligation of the designer, contractor and client in terms of safety and health. The respondents of this research are the designers, architects and civil engineers, contractors and others. A questionnaire was used as the main instrument on a Likert-type scale with a total of 97 respondents received. The research found positive results gain on the attitudes of the stakeholders towards the duties and obligation of the designers, contractors and clients. However, this does not diminish the importance of increasing the awareness on the duties and obligation of these stakeholders in terms of safety and health of the construction workers. Thus, the research suggests three recommendations for the future direction of implementing design safety in Malaysia, approach curricula in the universities, additional training programmes and awareness in terms of safety and health of the construction workers.