Construction Safety Management System & Beyond

Introduction to OSHC

The Occupational Safety and Health Council was established in 1988 under the

“Occupational Safety and Health Council Ordinance”. Our vision is to be a leading

organization in the region for ensuring all individuals would operate in working

conditions that are free of risk and hazards and our mission is to foster safe and

healthy working environments in Hong Kong.

To accomplish this mandate, the Council works in partnership with government,

employers, employees, professionals and academics through a wide range of quality

services. The Council consists of no more than 21 members representing employers,

employees, professional and academic interests, as well as the Government. They are

appointed by the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to

serve the Council for a term of three years. The Executive Director heads a

Secretariat which is the executive arm of the Council.

Our functions are to enhance occupational safety and health through an integrated

approach. They include activities to raise the public awareness of the subject, the

application of modern technology, education and training, technical knowledge,

development of relevant strategies and programmes, and consultancy services.

Above all, we encourage and facilitate cooperation between all the stakeholders in

occupational safety and health, such as the Government, employers, employees, and

professional and academic bodies.

Our experience has demonstrated that promoting occupational safety and health

isn’t a simple goal to be set and achieved through the implementation of one simple

plan. It is a long-term objective that needs to be approached step by step, at

different levels, and with the support of everyone concerned.

Construction Industry Safety & Health Records

The construction industry has always been a major concern of OSHC and the society

at large in particular its safety and health performance. Let us review its past accident

statistics to have a rough idea in this aspect.

The number of construction accidents has been reduced from the peak 27,125 in

1988 to 3,548 in 2005, dropping by 87%. And the accident rate per 1,000 workers

drops drastically from 369.3 in 1988 to 59.9 in 2005, a reduction of 84%.

Strategies for S&H Improvement

We can summarize the development of the workplace safety movement in Hong

Kong into 3 stages - They are technical improvement, system improvement and

behavioural management stage as seen below. Construction industry plays a vital

role by being the pioneer in the development processes. When we superimpose the

accident statists with the different stages of development of the construction

industry, we could see the significant changes as result of the hard work contributed

by the stakeholders concerned.

• Technical Improvement Stage

• System Improvement Stage

• Safety Culture Building

Accident Statistic For Construction Industry in Hong KongAccident Statistic For Construction Industry in Hong KongAccident Statistic For Construction Industry in Hong KongAccident Statistic For Construction Industry in Hong Kong050001000015000200002500030000

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005No. of Accidents 0100200300400500Acc. Rate/1000 Workers

No. of Accidents Acc. Rate /1000 Workers

Technical Improvement Stage

The first phase of the development of workplace safety movement in Hong Kong can

be described as the “technical improvement stage”. During the period up to early

1990s, we focused on making basic improvements to the working environment, and

encouraging people to use suitable protective equipment. In those days, the Hong

Kong Government focused its occupational safety and health efforts on improving

the unsatisfactory conditions that existed in many workplaces by enacting legislation,

and then conducting inspections to ensure that it was being enforced.

As a start, this approach yielded some remarkable initial results in terms of reducing

the number of industrial accidents. Its success may have been due to the fact that

physical conditions were so obviously poor; and perhaps because many people

believed that such conditions actually caused injuries.

System Improvement Stage

Despite the progress made in earlier years, the number of accidents in the industry

remained at an unacceptably high level. When Hong Kong decided to embark on the

Airport Core Programme (ACP) in 1991, we had to deal with the problem head-on

and identify the culprit for those unsafe working conditions in the construction sites.

The lack of safety management system (SMS) is deemed to be the underlying causes

of the S&H problems we were struggling at that time. To begin with, the New Airport

Projects Coordination Office prepared an ACP Construction Manual to assist in the

implementation of SMS in 1992. The then Works Branch (WB) introduced SMS in

public works contracts in 1993. Later in March 1996, WB launched 2 major safety

initiatives, the Pay for Safety Scheme (PFSS) and the Independent Safety Audit

Scheme (ISAS) to encourage public works contractors to set up SMS and to enhance

the standard of safety performance by contractors. A consultancy agreement was

entered between WB and OSHC for the latter to manage the ISAS. The consultancy

included the establishment of a scheme for the accreditation of independent safety

auditors and the development of a safety auditing system suitable for the Hong Kong

Construction Industry. The Hong Kong Housing Authority also joined the scheme in

December 1996. OSHC together with other interested parties developed “A Guide to

Construction Safety Management” in 2000. The guide book consolidated the

experiences gained during the period in the system stage and sustained the

momentum achieved thus far.

In 1995, the Government carried out a comprehensive review of industrial safety in

1995, with a strong focus on the construction industry. The main conclusion of the

Review Report was that a self-regulatory (or best-practice) approach to safety and

health issues which would be more effective than one that relied purely on

compliance and enforcement. The Review Report also proposed that OSHC should

spearhead the implementation of this new approach by providing and co-ordinating

the relevant training on safety management and safety auditing. It set the scene for

the enactment of the Factories & Industrial Undertakings (Safety Management)

Regulations in 1999.

Safety Culture Building

By the late 1990s, it became clear that legislation, inspection and management alone

were not sufficient means to improve the situation further. Their biggest

disadvantage was that they didn’t nurture the creation of a safety culture among

employers and employees. If people regarded their own safety and that of their

colleagues as being the responsibility of others, they had little or no incentive to

develop attitudes that would encourage them to actively contribute to long-term

improvement of safety standards in their workplaces.

From 2000, we are entering another stafge, which may be called the ‘Behavioural

Management Stage’, in which behaviour-based safety programmes will be a core

feature of our promotion of occupational health and safety.

The Council has paid great attention to promoting best practices in the public sector.

In 2000, we helped the Civil Service Bureau to introduce the “Continual Improvement

Safety Program Recognition of System” (CISPROS), a scheme that recognises

occupational safety and health management systems and helps Government

departments achieve high safety management levels. Two departments participated

in the System’s initial pilot scheme, and they subsequently received certificates of

recognition. Other Government departments have since joined the CISPROS

programme, and it has also been extended to private enterprises, with very

encouraging results.

Many Hong Kong companies have achieved good track records in terms of safety and

health best practices. Their experience can be an invaluable learning opportunity for

others. The Council has been advocating benchmarking for many years, because

benchmarking exercises enable organisations to improve the management of their

businesses, broaden their safety and health horizons, and boost the morale of their

employees. Benchmarking is an especially useful tool for SME.

Benchmarking is also a cost-effective way to spread safety culture and knowledge.

For instance, the Council has adapted and promoted two Japanese systematic tools in

OSH, namely, the 5S housekeeping technique, which promotes an orderly working

environment that prevents accidents; and the Safe Working Cycle, which enhances

the implementation of safety management system.

5S Good Housekeeping

It encourages a tidy work place. The implementation of which features everything

having its own home and the avoidance of accumulating junks, hence higher

efficiency and less accidents. We introduced it first to the construction industry. Now,

most construction sites practise 5S to a certain degree. We have made 5S good

housekeeping one of our four major promotional programmes.

The Japanese are very disciplined and the safe working cycle system has worked for

them for decades. Their construction sites are probably some of the safest in the

world. We introduced SWC in Hong Kong work sites believing it would work for us as

well. We met with some difficulties at the beginning, especially with the morning

exercise. Same difficulties were encountered by the Japanese at the beginning. They

got through it and so did we. We now have companies modified the exercise to

kung-fu and taichi sessions, making it a lot more attractive to the workers.

KYK (hazard identification activity)

KYK is on-site risk assessment and serves to bring foremen and workers’ attention to

potential hazards. The meetings encourage workers to speak up. KYK not only

improves two-way communication in a work site, it also provides a good opportunity

to collect invaluable information on possible hazards from frontline workers.

Work Safe Behavior (WSB)

When analyzing the causes of accidents, it often boiled down to the unsafe behaviors

by individuals. The 5S and KYK are mentioned above are one of the effective

techniques for behaviors modification. The WSB training kit pinpoints the

identification of critical behaviors and then illustrates the method of observation and

measurement of them. The results could be applied to figure out ways to reinforce

the safe behaviors observed and avoid the unsafe ones seen in the workplaces.

The WSB is a proven technique that has also been done in Hong Kong under the

guidance of OSHC. We have assisted the implementation of it to various

organizations and industries. An experience sharing forum has been held for this in

2004 and was very well received.

Safety Culture Index (SCI)

To facilitate construction companies for determining their safety culture indexes so

that relevant improvement measures can be implemented, OSHC and Tsinghua

University jointly developed the “Construction Industry Safety Culture Index

Software” and released the “Construction Industry Safety Culture Index Software” in

form of a guide book. SCI is the employees’ perception of safety & health matters of

their organization. Organization can assess its SCI to reflect the level of its safety

culture. The said guide book explained how to use the software to conduct the SCI

survey. The software’s functions include questionnaire design, treatment of collected

data, result analysis and generation of draft survey report. The guide also discuss in

details the procedures for carrying out the SCI survey, including the preparation

works, how to conduct the survey, treatment of survey results, etc.

Way Forward

Work safe behaviour is the essential elements in the prevention of workplace

accidents. Safety culture surely nurtures safe behaviours and safe behaviours make

safe culture. OSHC is now actively tie these 2 key components together and create an

upward spiral in safety & health. OSHC is still running the ISAS as mentioned earlier.

These 2 important ingredients in safety & health would become more evident in the

SMS of the construction companies. OSHC would remain supportive as before to put

them into effects. In this connection, you are welcome to join our training

programmes, seminars or receive the updated publications. We believe with our

collaborated efforts, we could break new ground for construction safety and health.