Exploratory study of the commitment of top management of construction firms towards health and safety of workers

Abstract

Top management commitment is an important factor to achieving high health and safety performance of construction. Sadly, literature on health and safety has accorded little attention to top management commitment to health and safety. The aim of this study was to examine the commitment of top management members of construction firms in ensuring workers health and safety. Data for the research were obtained through a questionnaire survey with top management members of twenty randomly selected construction firms in the Ashanti Region. The analysis was done using descriptive statistics and ranking with a relative agreement index. The analysis showed that the respondents had active roles in ensuring the health and safety of workers including guidance, training, education, advice and monitoring worker activities. Empirically, the top rated factors that influence management commitment had RAI values greater than 0.800 and were found include; planned health and safety training, management awareness of health and safety, procedures that meet the requirements of the health, safety and welfare provisions in conditions of the contract and Labour Act, 2003, as well as communication of health and safety performance. In addition, typical top rated challenges in ensuring health and safety were “lack of top management awareness of health and safety”, “inadequate enforcement mechanisms” and “lack of adequate resources to manage health and safety” with respective RAI values of 0.729, 0.714 and 0.700. “High cost of health and safety” was the least ranked challenge with an RAI of 0.598. From the analysis, the study concludes that, with adequate resources, top management members of construction companies would be more committed to the health and safety of their workers given its importance and benefits irrespective of its cost. As the administration of a health and safety program requires funding and resource allocation to thrive, the research recommends among others that management of construction firms should have a definite budget for their safety and health programs.