Awareness of contractors on occupational safety and health management system at construction site

Abstract

Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSHMS) is part of the management system of the Occupational Safety and Health risks integrated with the organization at construction site. OSHMS includes six elements which are policy, organizing, planning and implementing, measuring performance, audit and initial and periodic status. The aim of this study is to evaluate awareness level of the contractors on Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSHMS) implemented in construction industry specifically focusing on construction site. Out of 50 questionnaires distributed, a total of 34 questionnaires were returned successfully, collected from contractors in civil engineering projects in Perak. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires. The research findings that most of the contractors in Perak are concerned to cooperated in the event of any accident occurred on site. They also agreed that the implementation of safety culture at construction site is the most effective solution to overcome the issues and challenges of awareness in safety and health for management and employees. Nonetheless, many issues have been found in safety practices, employees’ ignorance of work procedures, lack of staff knowledge, and language barriers between supervisors and workers. Some approaches have been proposed to overcome the problems, such as delivering successful safety training, allocating security management budgets, full commitment from top management, and providing security booklets in different languages. Several strategies have been suggested to address issues such as providing effective safety training, allocating budgets for safety management, full commitment from top management, and providing security booklets in different language. The suggestions cover three aspects to implement safety practices, i.e. employee awareness, top management commitment and resource allocation. The results of this research will minimize the understanding gap on the dimension of security practices at the Malaysian construction site and can be used as a reference source in site security management.