Barriers and Strategies for Better Safety Practices: The Case of Construction SMEs in Malaysia

Abstract

Despite the various efforts that have been made by the government and construction authorities to strengthen safety practices among SMEs in Malaysia, the construction SMEs are still unable to demonstrate good safety practices. As part of a wider intervention study to improve the safety practices of the SMEs, this study has taken the first step in identifying the barriers and strategies to improve the safety practices at construction sites in Malaysia. The study has been conducted using various approaches (workshops, site observation and questionnaire survey) that have enabled the triangulation of information. The findings highlighted that the main barriers to good safety practices are the implementation costs, poor safety culture and lack of safety commitment from the client. The proposed solutions include introducing safety as one of the construction KPIs, creating more safety-conscious culture and establishing a funding mechanism to support the cost of safety training. Subsequently, several recommendations have been provided by collating inputs based on the barriers, strategies and drivers through three-party collaboration (authorities, industry and academia) in creating a collaborative movement towards enhancing safety practices among the SMEs. The fresh insights from this study would enable authorities and SMEs to be more proactive, rather than reactive in improving safety practices in the construction industry.

Health and Safety Management on Construction Projects: The View of Construction Tradespeople

“…The result of this section supports the submissions of (D. O. Belayutham & Ibrahim, 2019;Sunindijo, 2015;Williams et al, 2019).…”

“…Companies with existing training programmes need to be assessed for effectiveness and to ensure that the practices are not neglected. Belayutham and Ibrahim (2019) include; safety being considered as criteria during tendering, construction organisations should provide a suitable platform for exchanges of knowledge and experiences that will promote best practices, funding of OHS training to be taken over by the government, making safety one of the Key Performance Indicators, strict enforcement of safety regulation, creating more safety-conscious culture, rewards, and penalties for defaulters, effective communication system on-site, and health and safety training programmes. Hasle and Limborg (2006) opined that the government should effectively monitor and ensure the enforcement of safety regulations by organisations.…”

“…There are a lot of extant studies on health and safety on construction projects that sampled construction professionals, consultants, clients, or contractors (Abas et al, 2020;Agyekum et al, 2018;Belayutham & Ibrahim, 2019;Chen et al, 2020;Mohammed et al, 2015;Williams et al, 2019). While only a limited number of them sampled construction tradespeople (artisans, craftsmen, operatives), who are the set of workers carrying out the actual building production work (Kukoyi & Smallwood, 2017;Okoye, 2018;Tanko et al, 2020).…”

4D visualization to bridge the knowing-doing gap in megaprojects: an Australian case study

“…There is a need for improving safety management practices in construction projects (Belayutham & Ibrahim, 2019). In this case study, as the review of the program was done in conjunction with the visualization model it became clearer that careful coordination and additional safety awareness were necessary to rotate crews between the three shafts of the vent facility.…”

4D-BIM-Based Workspace Planning for Temporary Safety Facilities in Construction SMEs

“…Additionally, the legal regulation for construction safety focuses mainly on large enterprises, and managerial responsibilities are often simplified for SMEs. Although several papers have considered the barriers to safety implementation in SMEs [24], none of them have provided practical solutions for such problems. Besides, temporary facilities of different price ranges and intended for different purposes are commonly used in construction sites of various sizes.…”