Page 94 - Occupational Health & Safety, July 2018

CONSTRUCTION SAFETY
Facing the Future: How Innovative Software is Changing the Face of EHS Systems
Empowering employees to take responsibility and to get onboard with the safety journey is a proven method of increasing engagement levels.
BY MATTHEW ELSON
They’re frequently referred to as the “Fatal Four”—the leading causes of deaths in the construction industry in the United States— and the Occupational Safety and Health Ad- ministration’s statistics on the number of such inci- dents make for chilling reading.
Construction consistently accounts for the largest number of total fatalities of any industrial sector: Re- cent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that, in 2016, one in five of the workers killed in the United States were employed in the construction industry. Of those deaths, the Fatal Four—falls, struck by objects, electrocution, and caught-in/between— were responsible for more than half.
Worryingly, figures also show an increasing trend in certain areas: The numbers of fatal work injuries from falls, slips, or trips continued a general upward trend that began in 2011, increasing by more than 25 percent since that time.
BLS estimates that eliminating the Fatal Four would save the lives of more than 600 workers in America every year, as well as saving the industry around $11.5 billion in direct and indirect costs.
Following an industry-wide review, the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA)’s Construc- tion Sector Council has identified several areas of improvement that could help to increase the safety of construction workers and potentially reduce the number of fatal and non-fatal incidents in the sec- tor. These include improved surveillance of hazards and outcomes; enhanced education and training; improved understanding of organizational factors in causing injury and illness; and, most critically, the implementation of improved environmental health and safety health management systems (EHSMS) and reporting tools.
However, construction faces many specific chal- lenges when it comes to protecting workers’ safety and health. Factors such as working at height or in excavations, or in remote environments and extremes of temperature, as well as other considerations—such as working at a fast pace on multiple sites on relatively short or episodic contracts—make the documentation of construction jobs and hazardous exposures complex.
Furthermore, in many instances, the management of EHS in construction is subject to some unique is- sues, particularly when it comes to on-site reporting. The nature of a site environment makes paper-based information collation difficult and impractical—at- tempting to fill in multiple incident forms in wet weather or a blizzard is practically impossible. As such, it’s easy to understand how many incidents— especially minor ones or near misses—may well be chronically underreported. Compliance officers have a common, if rather rueful, saying: “If it’s not docu- mented, then it didn’t happen.”
Even if relevant data is captured, it is often hard to access—think of paper reports lost in filing cabi- nets—and even those organizations that effectively store data rarely have the tools available to turn it into actionable decisions that can improve safety in the workplace. This in itself creates a serious business risk. But to compound the challenge, this “black hole” is bound to negatively affect employee engagement, which is widely recognized as fundamental to deliver- ing a safe workplace.
Indeed, employee engagement was the most press- ing safety concern for environmental, health, and safety professionals surveyed for the 2017 Annual Safety Report published by the website EHS Daily Ad- visor. The report quizzed almost 700 organizations, of which more than half said employee engagement was their most common safety challenge.
Given the potentially highly damaging financial, reputational, and legal repercussions of a health and safety event, construction industry experts recognize that the widespread adoption and use of practical, effective EHSMS and reporting tools is vital when it comes to reducing, or even eliminating, the “Fa- tal Four.” Accordingly, many organizations are now considering the introduction of innovative solutions to support effective EHS management, particularly regarding how technology can assist and encourage construction managers and employees in reporting, investigating, and sharing lesson learned.
Using Cloud-Based and Mobile Technologies
Recent innovations in cloud-based and mobile tech-
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