Cut construction accident rates with leadership in safety

Of course, a large part of ensuring that New York construction crews are safe at all times involves providing them with the proper equipment, resources and training they need to do their job right. Interestingly, though, another factor that may play a role in determining how construction workers regard safety concerns and perform their duties is how supervisors conduct themselves. The findings of a new study suggest that construction accident rates can actually be affected by the relationship between supervisors and workers, and how they prioritize safety on a work site.

While construction companies often encourage safety by offering employees incentives and rewards for every day they go without an incident, some studies have shown that such practices may only encourage workers to underreport accidents. Instead, managers can implement leadership techniques to effectively promote safety and cut down on construction accident incidents. Transformational leadership identifies a specific goal for workers to meet together, and transactional leadership unifies the interests of the organization with those of employees.

In a recent study involving close to 1200 subjects, it was determined that transformational leadership techniques were particularly effective in encouraging workers to prioritize safety on the job. While transactional leadership also wielded positive results, workers that respected and admired their managers’ safety-related decisions were more prone to emulate them.

Given that safety should always be top priority for construction foremen and their crews, it makes sense that encouraging responsible behavior and actions would have a positive effect on workers and the workplace environment.

Source: ehstoday.com, “Leading Safety by Example: Walking the Walk Saves Lives,” Sandy Smith, March 5, 2014