Addressing violations of safe work procedures in South African construction

Abstract

In this study, safety violations professed to be part of work routines were investigated. The knowledge gap addressed is how to prevent the normalisation of violation of safe work procedures (SWPs) on construction sites in South Africa. An exploratory, mixed-methods approach was adopted for the study. The sequential approach started with face-to-face interviews, which were followed by a self-administered questionnaire survey to produce textual and statistical data for analysis. The findings showed that unsafe procedures beget safety violations on construction sites. The unsafe procedures usually stem from work pressure, inadequate supervision, misleading information, deviation from safety rules and refusal to follow SWPs. The source of the data analysed was limited to construction sites in two provinces in South Africa, so caution is needed regarding statistical generalisation. This study has provided some measures for preventing violations of SWPs, particularly in developing countries.