Construction Safety and Risk Management
Identify, assess, control, monitor
Safety and risk management begin with hazard identification, not incident reaction. Build a risk register: list hazards, assess likelihood and severity, score the risk, assign an owner, and set a review date. Use the hierarchy of controls in order: eliminate, substitute, engineer, administrate, and only then use personal protective equipment (PPE). PPE is the last line of defence, not the first. A site-specific safety plan should cover orientation, hazard assessments, safe work procedures, emergency response, inspections, and incident investigation. Report near misses; they are free lessons.
For project risk, classify responses as avoid, mitigate, transfer, or accept. Insurance and bonds transfer some financial consequences but do not remove the hazard. Contingency belongs in the budget and schedule, with a clear drawdown rule.
Traps: treating 'common sense' as a control, relying on PPE alone, scoring risk by likelihood only, failing to investigate root causes, and assuming a transferred risk is gone. Document inspections and corrective actions.
Worked example: A task scores likelihood 4 and severity 3, giving 12 on a 5x5 matrix: high risk. A guardrail (engineering control) reduces likelihood to 1, giving 3: low risk. Training alone would leave the risk higher. Rule of thumb: if the risk score is high, engineer it down before relying on behaviour.