Faculty of Health & Social Sciences Assessment Answer

Introduction

Background Information

The construction industry is an essential and booming industry in any economy. There has been a great need for the construction industry with an increasing number of buildings, both commercial and personal properties, in the UK. The sector employs individuals with varying backgrounds, including engineers, designers, architects and surveyors. Most construction employees are blue-collar workers who work as construction workers, often temporarily. The construction industry is well spread throughout the UK, with government policies set up to guide the industry's work processes.

Construction involves handling heavy machinery and other construction equipment. It also requires exposure to harmful chemicals, such as paint, used in construction. Therefore, to protect the Health and safety of the employees, construction companies are forced to implement policies and procedures to reduce the risk of injury and health issues to control the job and organizational, physical, psychological and control factors (Shourav et al., 2022). Depending on the company, the health and safety officers or the project manager/site coordinator often implement this. This often includes training on handling equipment and providing safety gear to protect them from physical harm and inhaling harmful fumes (Ajayi et al., 2021). Traffic management also reduces construction chaos and ensures a smooth workflow.

Total Construction Limited is one of the construction companies working in the UK, offering varying construction services since 1999. In over 20 years of operation, it has efficiently refurbished old buildings, constructed new buildings and fit-out services. Total has an internal workplace initiative called 'Targeting Zero Accidents' for employees, contractors, and visitors. They pride themselves in caring for their employees by offering Employee Insurance Cover of £10 million, Public Liability Insurance Cover of £10 million and Professional Indemnity Insurance Cover of £ 5 million. They also have well-established policies on promoting health and safety measures. This project will evaluate their implementation of traffic management alongside other measures to protect their employees while working. The project will include analyzing existing company documents and interview responses from the company’s workers.

Objectives

The following represents the aim of conducting the project. This will be evaluated based on a deep analysis of the implementation of protocols by the Total Construction Company.

1. To determine the importance of proper health and safety protocols in a construction business
2. To determine whether Total Construction has a working policy that includes proper traffic management
3. To determine whether the traffic management systems affect the delivery of projects
4. To determine whether the employees of Total Construction feel safe while working on the projects
5. To determine the company's compliance with UK's safety protocol for construction companies and what recommendations can be made.

Literature Review

The construction industry has in the past been faced with controversy concerning the health and safety measures put in place to protect employees from harm. Their work requires them to be protected from physical and psychological harm. It is not uncommon for construction workers to encounter health and safety hazards such as communicable diseases, driving and machine operating fatalities, and workplace violence. The employees handle harmful materials such as electricity, heavy machinery and paint. Most notable hazards include slipping and tripping, falling, airborne & material exposure, excessive noise, scaffold injuries, and electric accidents. Fang et al. (2020) say these hazards significantly contribute to accidents and fatalities. The manual work and intense project deadlines also expose the employees to mental health issues. The nature of their jobs also prevents them from having a proper work-life balance, further contributing to mental health problems. Rouhanizadeh and Kermanshachi (2021) support this in their research, noting that work pressure and emotional and physical demands are the three causes of mental health issues in the construction industry. Therefore, Companies are expected to offer proper health care to their employees, consequently increasing production.

The UK government has played a vital role in setting up policies for construction companies and workers to ensure they are safe from harm. The health and safety policy in the UK helps identify hazards and control risks, and it helps the stakeholders plan and monitor the health and safety measures in a project. The policy protects construction workers, clients, contractors and designers (Miers et al., 2021). The laws define the worker's and employers' roles in ensuring safety and are enforced by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) government agency. For example, construction workers, who are in a better position to identify risks, can help develop strategies that can allow them to work safely without health risks. The contractor's role is to ensure that health and safety standards are understood and followed during construction. The laws outline over 30 regulations giving clear guidelines. One of the notable regulations is the monitoring of traffic routes. The guidelines highlight that the traffic routes should be indicated by suitable signs, regularly checked and properly maintained.

Traffic management is an essential aspect of a construction site's health and safety measures. Construction is characterized by handling heavy machinery in moving dangerous equipment around the construction sites. The contractor/site manager needs to ensure the traffic is well managed to avoid accidents of having any equipment falling on an unsuspecting worker. Traffic management also helps keep pedestrians and vehicles apart. This can be done by minimizing vehicle movements, using signs and instructions, and ensuring proper visibility. Varying methods have been used to control traffic, including CCTVs, highway advisory radios and automatic vehicle detection. Road constructions heavily rely on detecting traffic congestion to do their work at minimum health and safety risk, especially by setting up temporary surveillance (Syahbana & Yokota, 2021). Traffic management laws state that the construction site should also be organized to ensure vehicles and pedestrians can move freely and safely.

Methodology

The study objectives will be evaluated by data collection, which will be done in two separate stages. The data collected will be evaluated to determine whether they collaborate towards better health and safety practices for the company.

Primary Data

The organizational documents for health and safety are used to collect primary data. It includes data collection regarding policies, structures and procedures that are in practice to ensure employee safety during construction. The collected data will be analyzed using specific measures such as clarify in policies for traffic management, average complaints for an employee regarding traffic management, individual's participation in policy-making and flaw rate of the current traffic management practices. Individual roles and responsibilities will be assessed to rate how a particular policy or procedure meets the construction business's requirements.

Microsoft Excel is used to rate each primary document for the defined measures. The average of the analysis will be used to determine whether the overall policies and procedures favour effective traffic management. However, there is also the use of theoretical assessment of the policies to determine their clarity and emphasize traffic management. It is also added as a score or rating in primary data analysis.

Secondary Data

Follow-up interviews with an average of 10 questions will be done on consenting respondents to measure the effectiveness of traffic management practices set up by the company in ensuring their 'zero accidents initiative'. The target respondents will include three contractors expected to oversee traffic control and 12 construction employees, including the traffic operator. There is a stratified sampling technique to select the participants for an interview, while there is no classification on years of service in the business. The interview will take about 10 minutes and focus on the implementation and effectiveness of traffic control measures and identify whether they know their role. The interview will also seek recommendations from the respondents on better managing the traffic during construction. The respondents' anonymity will be maintained, and the interviewer will ensure them of data security and will require consent to publish the responses given.

Each participant's recorded interview responses will be further analyzed in parallel to organizational policy and procedures. The adherence of their practices to traffic management will be evaluated, and on that basis, each response will be scored out of 5. The total score of an individual and an entire group of participants will help to determine the requirement for reinforcement of policies.

Results

It is evaluated that the company has a well-documented Health and Safety policy which explains its approach to the wellness of the employees and their clients. They are keen on promoting a safe work environment for all stakeholders involved. Considering the primary data analysis measures, it is identified that the policy outlines clear guidelines on managing electricity, fire, work equipment, lifting operations, and first aid, among others. They also have a section on site traffic management. Traffic management policies focus on reducing the risk associated with vehicle movements, especially reversing vehicles. Vehicle movements will be managed by operatives who will be required to wear conspicuous and clean clothing.

However, there are several measures on which no satisfactory results are obtained. For instance, traffic management will also involve risk assessment for deliveries and collections that will be made on the road to determine the risk of moving vehicles. Further, the policy on traffic management is not extensive and lacks adequate adherence to UK policies defined for construction. However, the company also offers training and education on Health and Safety measures on their policy where hopefully the employees are further trained on traffic management.

From the policy evaluation, a pattern to enforce the policies through the role and responsibilities of the employees and awareness of the individual at construction is identified. The individual is identified as having accountability for outcomes and understands how to manage construction risks and traffic at the site. There is a trend that individuals minimize the risk through active participation in training and development sessions and working according to the defined standards. The company encourages employees to 'zero incident risk' through reward and recognition. However, there are some potential areas to ensure improvement. For example, the policies need more clarity and direct association with UK's policies and regulations. It is essential to reduce legal complications and ensure standardization of the practices to minimize the risks.

The interviews proved that the company is keen on enforcing traffic management rules during construction. The contractors' responses aligned, noting that, as per their policy, they always have an operative on site with reflector PPEs for visibility to control the traffic. The construction workers also noted that they are trained on the importance of traffic management for their safety and operations per the traffic operator's instructions. The training is covered by experienced training instructors from commercial training providers, and they are often followed up by annual refresher training. The traffic operator's responsibilities align with UK traffic management guidelines more than the company's. Their primary responsibilities are to keep the pedestrians and the vehicles away from each other, ensure the entry and exit points are used appropriately and that the company vehicles comply with traffic rules and weight limits. The operators are also responsible for doing the risk assessment for moving vehicles and constantly communicating and reporting to the contractor.

It is evaluated that the organization provides the right tools, training and authority to the employees and seeks their active participation for informed decisions and improved processes. The organization encourages the employees to report the incidents immediately so that immediate actions can be taken to minimize the impact of the risks and hazards. Senior executives and supervisors regularly interact with the workers to understand their perspective on the potential risks and hazards and reach a standard solution for improvement. It rewards the employees having their direct and indirect contributions to business decisions and processes to achieve improvement through their opinions. The line manager and supervisors are keen to interact with workers and induce new ideas in operations.

It is evaluated that the organization has a focus on continuous improvement. It collects employee feedback at least once a year to determine effective policies and procedures. Meeting and indirect contribution of employees for policies and procedures help the organization understand the potential practice changes. It focuses on involving new data and changing circumstances to reduce the overall risk to the employees and others at the workplace.

Recommendation

Based on the interviews, the respondents noted that there had been no 'traffic-related accidents' in Total Construction sites in the past years. This is mainly attributed to the company's efforts in promoting Health and safety. However, the following recommendations were made to improve traffic management better:

1. Policy- The company should have a more detailed traffic management guideline defining what is expected of everyone on the construction site. While the training is practical, the policy can be a go-to guideline for construction workers, and they, therefore, can rely on something other than the annual training. The policy should also align with UK's guidelines which clearly define the rules concerning entry and exit points, vehicle weight limits, and risk assessment. This will include a clear job description for the traffic controller and his role in ensuring proper safety measures.
2. Equipment- The traffic operator uses obvious PPE to control the traffic. These are often reflector jackets, caps and flags. While these are effective, the company can invest in providing the traffic controller with more technological equipment to do their duties. These may include CCTV monitoring, GPS tracking, smart cameras and weather information systems. Other practical measures the company can provide the operator include cones, speed bumps, warning signs, walkie-talkies, mirrors and alarms. Access to this equipment can make work easier and communication efficient.

• Risk Assessment Reports- Due to improper traffic management, many possible risks can occur on construction sites. The risks can occur to either employees, drivers or pedestrians. This can result from improper lighting, vehicle reverse and weight limits. The company should provide proper risk assessment reports to be evaluated for proper traffic management.

Conclusion

In summary, construction companies face the risk of health and safety concerns for employees and clients. This is attributed to handling heavy machinery, equipment, and toxic chemicals. The UK government has laws to protect these employees from hazardous working conditions. The construction companies also have working policies to ensure that health and safety measures are achieved. One of the primary measures includes traffic management. Traffic management is essential in ensuring that heavy machinery does not cause accidents for pedestrians and workers on the construction site. The site coordinator often controls this, using traffic and company rules to control vehicle movements.

Total Construction Company has been one of the UK's leading companies for over 20 years. It has a zero accidents initiative which is implemented by a comprehensive policy on health and safety guidelines. The site coordinator is in charge of ensuring the safety of relevant stakeholders. The employees go through intensive training from nationally recognized training companies. The training equips the right skills to ensure their safety and that f others on the construction sites. This is also supported by the company's policies on the site, which are accessible to the employees.

The company has appointed a traffic controller in charge of the traffic at the construction site. The traffic controller is equipped with visible gear to conduct his duties. The controller does risk assessments on the vehicle movements in and out of the site. However, the company can do more to ensure proper traffic control by providing better equipment such as CCTV monitoring, alarms, mirrors and well-defined risk assessment guidelines. The company can also have a more intensive traffic management policy that aligns with the government's guidelines. The policy can be accessible by any employees outlining their specific duties. This will contribute to a healthier and safer work environment in the Total Construction sites, leading to their zero accidents initiative.

References

Ajayi, S. O., Adegbenro, O. O., Alaka, H. A., Oyegoke, A. S., & Manu, P. A. (2021). Addressing behavioural safety concerns on Qatari Megaprojects. Journal of Building Engineering , 41 , 102398.

Fang, W., Ma, L., Love, P. E., Luo, H., Ding, L., & Zhou, A. O. (2020). Knowledge graph for identifying hazards on construction sites: Integrating computer vision with ontology. Automation in Construction , 119 , 103310.

Miers, C., Edwards, M., & Newbury, F. (2021). Construction legislation in England and Wales. In Architect’s Legal Handbook (pp. 79-104). Routledge.

Rouhanizadeh, B., & Kermanshachi, S. (2021). Causes of the mental health challenges in construction workers and their impact on labour productivity. In Tran-SET 2021 (pp. 16-26). Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers.

Shourav, M. S. A., Zhang, R., & Lingard, H. (2022, November). Impact of job Quality on construction worker's Health and well-being in a developing country context. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 1101, No. 4, p. 042009). IOP Publishing.

Syahbana, Y. A., & Yokota, Y. (2021). Detection of Congested Traffic Flow during Road Construction using Improved Background Subtraction with Two Levels RoI Definition. International ABEC , 71-76.

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