EVALUATING THE UNDERLYING FACTOR(S) OF SAFETY-RELATED BEHAVIORS IN SINGAPORE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Abstract

The construction industry in Singapore continues to have the highest number of fatalities compared to other industries in Singapore despite its improvements over the years (WSHCOUNCIL, 2011b). As the industry seeks to further lower the fatality in the years ahead, it is crucial to understand the underlying factors of safety-related behaviors among workers in the Singapore construction industry. Eight underlying factors were introduced from the literature reviews which form the eight main hypotheses of this study. The 8 underlying factors introduced include (1) competency of workers, (2) workers’ attitude and motivation, (3) safety-related habits and peer pressure, (4) supervision by management and safety personnel, (5) fatigue and health of workers, (6) commitment to safety by contractors, (7) safety commitments by senior management and (8) execution of project management. Using a three-stage research design which consists of an interview with a safety expert, survey of contractors and observational case studies of workers on-site, the underlying factors were rigorously investigated. Data collected from the survey was analyzed by the means of One Sample t-test and the Pearson Correlation using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The results gathered from the statistical analysis of the survey showed that the eight underlying factors were statistically significant in contributing to workers adopting safety-related behaviors, thus validating the hypotheses. Modification to the current Construction Safety Audit Scoring System (ConSASS) was recommended to help improve safety-related behaviors in the Singapore construction industry by engaging the eight underlying factors. The subjectivity of the data along with the fairly low number of respondent contributed to the limitations of this study.