Developing safety cooperation in construction: between facilitating independence and tightening the grip

Abstract

Cooperation about safety and joint responsibility between managers and workers is one of the cornerstones of health and safety work. However, attempts at ensuring safety in the workplace run the risk of focussing on formalities and compliance rather than on joint engagement in safety. Drawing on an understanding of safety as practice, this study attempts to empirically unpack the difference between cooperation as engaging with local knowledges and the disciplining of unsafe behaviour. The research involved an ethnographic study at two large construction sites in Denmark and follows empirical examples of how safety breaches are identified, catalogued, and revealed later on at safety meetings. Managers saw this as an attempt to engage the workers. However, the workers saw this as a punitive way of criticizing their work at a distance. They felt that this practice of moving safety from the construction site and in to meeting rooms ran counter to aims of establishing engaging and effective safety practices close to the work. Efforts to engage workers in safer ways of working should therefore acknowledge the integrated nature of safety practice and the value placed on independence, discretion and negotiation when developing cooperation about workplace safety.

Safety Management in Norwegian Fish Farming: Current Status, Challenges, and Further Improvements

“…To stay safe, operational personnel are concerned with planning, not working alone, taking care of each other, and relying on experience. Staying safe is thus not merely about following standard procedures but is also rooted in practical know-how and personal relations, as described from other occupations [ [24] , [25] , [26] , [27] , 42 ].…”

The competences of successful safety and health coordinators in construction projects

“…As Pink et al (2010) argue, the complexity and dynamism of construction work is well suited for ethnographic approaches, and the focus on safety as a practice has proven very informative by others. For instance, it has been used to understand the negotiation of cooperation between OSH professionals, management and workers (Baarts 2009, Grytnes et al 2020, managers' transformational and/or passive/avoidant leadership behaviour (Grill et al 2019), and to inspire methodological considerations of ethnography in construction work (L€ owstedt 2015). Our study contributes to this expanding body of practice-based and/or ethnographic informed approaches to safety research.…”

Complaining about occupational safety and health: a barrier for collaboration between managers and workers on construction sites

“…OSH collaboration is both organised by formal structures based on legal frameworks (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work 2018), and practiced informally in everyday work. Although several studies recognise the importance of OSH collaboration, and have provided theoretical insights relevant for understanding manager-worker relations and their significance for OSH practices (Paap 2006, Thiel 2012, Ajslev et al 2013, Andersen et al 2015, Grytnes et al 2020, OSH collaboration between managers and workers is described as conflicted (Grytnes et al 2020). For instance, Grytnes et al (2020) exemplified the difficulties in establishing collaborative safety practices by exploring resistance and distrust among the workforce.…”

“…Although several studies recognise the importance of OSH collaboration, and have provided theoretical insights relevant for understanding manager-worker relations and their significance for OSH practices (Paap 2006, Thiel 2012, Ajslev et al 2013, Andersen et al 2015, Grytnes et al 2020, OSH collaboration between managers and workers is described as conflicted (Grytnes et al 2020). For instance, Grytnes et al (2020) exemplified the difficulties in establishing collaborative safety practices by exploring resistance and distrust among the workforce. In other research, the manager-worker relation is described as an "oppositional relationship" (Andersen et al 2015, p. 646), where construction workers identify themselves in opposition to their managers and employers (Paap 2006, Thiel 2012, Andersen et al 2015.…”

“…From a boundary work perspective, this article aims to analyse the mechanisms of construction site managers and workers' complaining practices, and their implications for the manager-worker relations and OSH collaboration. Thus, in search for promoting OSH collaboration within construction management, the case of managers and workers' complaining practices may yield new insights precisely because previous research suggests that OSH collaboration is challenged in such professional fragmented and contested work settings (Antonsen 2009;Fellows and Liu 2012;Grytnes et al 2020). A focus on managers and workers' boundary work is both theoretically interesting and practically relevant, as there is a lack of insight into how occupational groups construct their boundaries and distinctions (Battilana 2011, Bucher et al 2016, and thereby purposefully influence such distinctions (Lamont andMoln ar 2002, Phillips andLawrence 2012).…”