Occupational health and safety (OHS) relates to health, safety, and welfare issues in the workplace. OHS includes the laws, standards, and programs that are aimed at making the workplace better for workers, along with co-workers, family members, customers, and other stakeholders.

1. M.TECH. CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING & MANAGEMENT
SEMINAR - 1
(CM601)
BARRIERS TO GOOD OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY
(OHS) PRACTICES BY SMALL CONSTRUCTION FIRMS
PREPARED BY :-
KAPTAN SAGAR R
ENROLL. NUMBER – 170080714006
ID NUMBER – 17CM811
MTECH CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING
AND MANAGEMENT
B.V.M ENGINEERING COLLEGE,
VALLABH VIDHYANAGAR.
GUIDE :-
DR. JAYESHKUMAR PITRODA
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
P.G. CO-ORDINATOR
CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
BVM ENGINEERING COLLEGE
VALLABH VIDHYANAGAR
BIRLA
VISHWAKARMA
MAHAVIDHAYALA
GUJARAAT
TECHNOLOGICAL
UNIVERSITY
1

2. CONTENT
1
• Introduction
2 • Need of study
3
• Objectives
4
• Literature review
5
• Major finding from Literature review
6
• Case study
7
• Conclusion
8
• Acknowledgement
9
• References
2

4. Occupational Health & Safety
(OHS)
• Occupational health and safety (OHS) relates to
health, safety, and welfare issues in the workplace.
• OHS includes the laws, standards, and programs that
are aimed at making the workplace better for workers,
along with co-workers, family members, customers,
and other stakeholders.

6. OBJECTIVES
1. Identifying the barriers, which affect the good occupational health
and safety practices in small construction firms.
2. Development of healthy work environment.
3. Development of healthy work practices and promotion of health at
work.
4. To prevent the unfavourable effects on health caused by working
condition.
6

7. NEED OF THE STUDY
• Due to high number of accidents that occur in construction and the
consequences this has for workers, organizations, society and
countries, occupational health and safety has become a very
important issue to take care of the human resources.
7

8. LITERATURE REVIEW
• Riza Yosia Sunindijo (2015) identified the key barriers which affect the safety in small
organisations in construction industry and stated improvement strategies for safety. Fierce
competition underpinned by lack of safety commitment from the client and the use of
lowest bid price to evaluate tender submissions forces small organisations to reduce
their costs by any means necessary, including neglecting safety. Due to the nature of the
barriers, the strategies to address them should also involve external stake-holders,
particularly the government, clients, and large organisations that actually have the required
influence to change the norms and culture of the industry. [2]

9. LITERATURE REVIEW
• Wong Jocelyn Ying Ying et al. (2015) identified the Barriers to Good Occupational Health &
Safety (OHS) Practices by Small Construction Firms. The main findings of this research are,
the lack of safety awareness and concern, where wrong perceptions or underestimation
of risks and the variability of legislative enforcement are the main contributors. cost
issues, comprising lack of resources and facilities, financial pressures and lack of
bargaining power over main contractors, make it difficult for small businesses to focus on
issues other than project cost, schedule and quality. tight project deadlines and the long
training and education period needed for good OHS practice. To overcome these barriers and
promote OHS practice in small construction companies, the government to establish funding
schemes to ease the financial burden of small firms. OHS to be included in the curricula of
tertiary and technical education. [5]

10. LITERATURE REVIEW
• Umeokafor, (2017) identified, assessed and analyzed the barriers to construction H&S self-
regulation in Nigeria. There is evidence in this study that in terms of H&S self-regulation, the
three categories of contractors, large, medium and small-sized, are highly limited by the high
cost of H&S self-regulation, as it ranks highest overall and 1st and 2nd among the
contractors respectively. This contests the notion that only the small and medium-sized
contractors experience financial difficulty. The impact of lack of H&S awareness and the
lack of management commitment are also highly ranked factors overall. The study also
shows statistically significant differences between the group means of the responses of the
large, medium and small-sized contractors, where out of the seven factors with the significant
differences, the small and the medium-sized contractors are different in four factors. The
factors are “H&S is not a duty”, “H&S is not the right thing” (which are related to
molarity), “lack of H&S awareness”, (that fall under the ability to self-regulate) and
“inadequate level of external involvement” (which is under the regulatory case). [4]

11. LITERATURE REVIEW
• Guilherme Besse Garnica et al (2018) identified barriers to occupational health and
safety management in small Brazilian enterprises. The main barriers perceived by the
three stakeholders are systematically inadequate OHS behavior by management,
absent or ineffective information, absent or ineffective communication, and
prioritization of production over safety. Management behavior and prioritization of
production, even without safety assurance, reflect the lack of information of owners about
OHS. Therefore, raising awareness policies, improvement of government auditing, and
increasing the qualification of OHS consultants to carry the information to these
companies are necessary attitudes to confront the three barriers. [12]

12. MAJOR FINDINGS FROM LITERATURE REVIEW
1. The issue most affecting good OHS practice is cost. Purchasing personal
protective equipment (PPE) and employing safety staff incur additional project
costs.
2. Fierce competition underpinned by lack of safety commitment from the client
and the use of lowest bid price to evaluate tender submissions forces small
organisations to reduce their costs by any means necessary.
3. Due to the cost and time pressure of projects, there is a lack of OHS training
and education, which significantly increases occupational risk.
4. Lack of safety awareness and concern is also a problem affecting OHS
performance. There is a positive relationship between the intensity level of safety
management commitment and overall safety performance.

13. MAJOR FINDINGS FROM LITERATURE REVIEW
5. Tight project deadlines provide another barrier to effective OHS
management. The industry strives to complete projects on time and neglects
safety.
6. Long working hours increase fatigue, result in poor concentration and
decision making, and thus exacerbating the risk of injury.
7. The practices of competitive tendering and award of most public sector
contracts to the lowest bidder in many countries compel the contractors to
drive their prices low, while cutting costs, which, in turn, affects health and
safety considerations.
8. The impact of lack of H&S awareness and the lack of management
commitment are also highly ranked factors overall.

14. • Based on the literature review, three main variables and eight sub-
variables were identified as barriers to good OHS practice by
small construction firms
a) Cost barriers
i. lack of expertise or resources
ii. lack of financial benefit in OHS investment
iii. lack of bargaining power
b) Time barriers
i. long training and education time
ii. tight project deadlines

15. c) Lack of safety awareness and concern
i. The fragmented nature of constructed industry
ii. Wrong perception or underestimation of risk
iii. Onerousness and variability of legislation

16. Proposed interrelationships between variables

17. Additional barriers
• a) Fear of change of the company;
• b) The high risk nature of construction industry;
• c) Inadequate communication between the OHS law enforcer and
small construction firms preventing good OHS practice;
• d) Ineffectiveness of safety training; and
• e) Absence of inspection and enforcement of OHS laws.

18. • recommendations for overcoming the barriers to good OHS practice in small
construction companies comprise:
a) Participation of the tertiary educational sector in OHS training;
b) Greater penalties for non-compliance and financial rewards for
compliance;
c) Provide financial assistance to small firms in developing OHS
competence;
d) Conduct proper safety training before engaging in any construction
works;
e) Regular monitoring and evaluation of the company’s' safety
performance; and
f) Clear description of OHS responsibilities on each project in the
contractual arrangements.

19. Case study
• Improving safety among small organizations in the construction industry in New
south Wales, Australia : key barriers and improvement strategies.
• A three-section self-assessed questionnaire
• The first section is about the profile of the respondents
• The second section consists of 13 barriers to safety improvement among small
organisations
• The third section consists of 13 items representing strategies to improve safety
performance among small organisations.
• five-point Likert scale format ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’.

20. • The questionnaire was then distributed via emails to 967 construction companies.
• Sixty-eight valid responses were received, representing a 7% response rate.
• Forty-four respondents (64.7%) worked in companies that had 1-19 employees,
14 respondents (20.6%) worked in companies that had 20-99 employees, and 10
respondents (14.7%) worked in companies that had 100 or more employees.
• The barriers to safety improvement are presented in Table 1, while the strategies
for improvements are presented in Table 2.
• The items have been ranked from the highest to the lowest based on the
respondents’ responses
• one sample t-test was conducted to find out which barriers and strategies were
deemed relevant and which ones were not.

23. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I really thankful to the following persons who help in my research
study:
• Prof. (Dr.) I. N. Patel (Principal) BVM Eng.. College
• Prof. (Dr.) L. B. Zala (Professor and H.O.D.), Civil Engineering
Department, BVM Eng. College
• Dr. Jayeshkumar Pitroda , P.G. Co-ordinator Construction Engineering
And Managaement Bvm Engineering College Vallabh Vidyanagar,
Anand.
• To all my friends of Construction Engineering and Management
(CE&M)
23

24. References
1. Pratibha Joshi, Promila Sharma, T.C. Thakur, and Amit Khatter, “Safety in
Construction Line: Important issue for Risk Identification”, International Journal of
Advanced Engineering Research and Studies, IJAERS/Vol. I/ Issue III/April-June,
2012/30-34.
2. Riza Yosia Sunindijo, “Improving safety among small organisations in the
construction industry: key barriers and improvement strategies”, The 5th
International Conference of Euro Asia Civil Engineering Forum (EACEF-5),
Procedia Engineering 125 (2015) 109-116
3. Satish Kumar, and V.K. Bansal, “Construction Safety Knowledge for Practitioners
in the Construction Industry”, Journal of Frontiers in Construction Engineering,
Jun. 2013, Vol. 2 Iss. 2, PP. 34-42.
4. Umeokafor, “Barriers to Construction Health and Safety Self regulation: A
Scoping Case of Nigeria”, Civil Engineering Dimension, ISSN 1410-9530 print /
ISSN 1979-570X, Vol. 19, No. 1, March 2017, 44-53

25. References
5. Wong Jocelyn Ying Ying, Gray, Jason, and Sadiqi Zabihullah (2015), “Barriers to
good occupational health and safety (OHS) practices by small construction
firms”, Journal of Construction Management, XXX(I), pp. 55-66
6. Helander MG. “Safety hazards and motivation for safe work in the Construction
Industry”, International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 3(1991) 205-23.
7. Arocena, P. and Núñez,I. (2010). An empirical analysis of the effectiveness of
occupational health and safety management systems in SMEs. International
Small Business Journal, 28(4), 398-419.
8. Champoux, D., & Brun, J.-P. (2003). Occupational health and safety
management in small size enterprises: an overview of the situation and avenues
for intervention and research. Safety Science, 41(4), 301-318.

26. References
9. Choudhry, R. M., & Fang, D. (2008). Why operatives engage in unsafe work
behavior: Investigating factors on construction sites. Safety Science, 46(4), 566-
584.
10. Choudhry, R., Fang, D., & Lingard, H. (2009). Measuring Safety Climate of a
Construction Company. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management,
135(9), 890-899.
11. Choi, T. N. Y., Chan, D. W. M., & Chan, A. P. C. (2012). Potential difficulties in
applying the Pay for Safety Scheme (PFSS) in construction projects. Accident
Analysis & Prevention, 48(0), 145-155.
12. Garnica, G. B., & Barriga, G. D. C. (2018). Barriers to occupational health and
safety management in small Brazilian enterprises. Production, 28, e20170046
13. Glendon, A. I., & Litherland, D. K. (2001). Safety climate factors, group
differences and safety behaviour in road construction. Safety Science, 39(3), 157

27. References
14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health
15. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01446193.2013.816435?journalC
ode=rcme20
16. https://www.safeopedia.com/definition/439/occupational-health-and-safety-ohs
17. http://training.itcilo.it/actrav_cdrom2/en/osh/intro/inmain.htm
18. https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3252/3252.html
19. https://www.dir.ca.gov/chswc/reports/barriers_to_ohs.pdf
20. https://www.safetyblognews.com/safety-blog-common-barriers-to-
implementing-workplace-safety-programs/
21. https://archive.india.gov.in/business/legal_aspects/occupational.php