Enhancing Safety Performance in the Construction Industry

Abstract

Construction accidents are known to occur often; in 2022, there were 129 accidents in the Netherlands for every 100,000 workers . Beyond the tendency to place the responsibility on employees, this study investigates the impact of client involvement in enhancing safety performance. The majority of safety research focusses on the building phase, indicating that client influence decreases as projects progress. The study highlights 43 crucial client responsibilities with a focus on pre-construction phases, specifically in the Planning, Inception, and Feasibility; Design, and Procurement and Tendering phases. Moreover, Semi-structured interviews reveal differing practices between infrastructure and oil & gas projects, providing the opportunity to learn from these differences and highlighting areas for improvement, such as establishing stricter safety objectives, early contractor involvement, and enhanced knowledge sharing. The findings suggest that optimizing client roles in pre-construction phases can significantly enhance safety performance in construction projects.