Proceedings of the CIB World Building Congress 2016

Efforts to improving safety in the construction industry have mainly been adopted by large organisations. As a result, these organisations have managed to substantially improve their safety performance. The construction industry, however, is dominated by small organisations. These organisations are facing difficulties to implement safety and, as a result, their safety performance is worse than their larger counterparts. Due to their large proportion in the construction industry, a small improvement among small organisations should have considerable impacts on the overall safety performance of the industry. This research aims to identify potential strategies to improve safety in small organisations in the context of the Australian construction industry. A questionnaire was developed based on a list of barriers and strategies identified from the existing literature. The questionnaire was then distributed to construction practitioners in Australia, particularly those working in small construction organisations, to obtain the perceived importance of each barrier and strategy. Open-ended questions were also included allowing the respondents to add additional barriers and strategies. Many perceived that external environmental factors are the key barriers that hinder safety implementation in small organisations. Improving safety, therefore, requires the support from influential stakeholders in the industry. Clients should consider safety as one of the key project objectives and include safety as one of the criteria in tendering. The government and regulatory bodies need to enforce safety regulations effectively and subsidise safety training for qualified small organisations. Safety performance should also be linked to insurance premium and licencing system in the construction industry. Finally, existing mandatory safety training needs to be evaluated and revised, while safety compliance for small organisations should be simplified and made practical