Saudi Arabia, and for that matter the Middle East, is becoming highly noted as a leader in the construction industry, especially when it comes to the construction of high-rise buildings. According to Yule and Flin (2002), most of the changes in the construction industry in the KSA, which has made it the envy of the world, are due to trade liberalization,
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globalization and internationalism. However, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the increasing scope of work in the construction industry is directly proportional to the increasing demand for safety within the industry. Stranks (2005) explained that given the very nature and paradigm approach to the construction in Saudi Arabia, the best way to define safety is as a consensus commitment among all stakeholders in the construction industry. This is in order to ensure that no one will suffer in terms of health, wellbeing or security at any point in time while being immersed in the construction work. Having noted the need for safety, there have been many different policies and regulations that have been used and those that continue to be used in the construction industry of Saudi Arabia. As part of provisions under Article 48 and 49 of the Government Tenders and Procurement Law of Saudi Arabia, Yule and Flin (2002) made mention of the fact that there are liabilities spelt out against construction companies in the areas of death, personal injury, and property damage. As a result, most of the existing policies on safety have been focused on the need to keep death, personal injury and property damage to the barest minimum.
Reviewing existing safety policies in the current construction industry in Saudi Arabia, Wu (2005) mentions that there may not be a universal national safety policy that all construction companies are expected to abide by. However, Cox and Cox (2011) observed that each company must have its own safety policy that it can apply in order to ensure the health and safety of all its employees and other stakeholders involved in construction activities. In a study that looked into the trend of safety policies available for most of these companies, Varonen and Mattila (2000) noted that several companies in Saudi Arabia relate their safety policies to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Health Standards 1926 and 1910. As part of these two policies, the emphasis about safety is placed
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on accident prevention rather than the control of accidents occurrence. In the opinion of Van Vuuren (2010), safety prevention is thus made to cover all employees, subcontractors and customers. According to Varonen and Mattila (2000), apart from the people, there are also safety provisions that cover prevention of wasteful, inefficient operations and all forms of damages to property and equipment.
In the study by Jannadi and Al-Sudairi (1995), the authors evaluated the safety performance of Saudi Arabia in terms of their injuries in the construction workplace, and the authors established that the safety in the larger construction firms seem to be highest. Saudi Aramco (1988) also points out how safety performance can be assessed by applying a standard checklist in the different work activities. This approach seems to help reduce risks on safety (Jannadi and Al-Sudairi, 1995; Cheng and Teizer, 2013). In general, these elements of safety and the safety practice have not been sufficiently established in Saudi Arabia. More efforts have to be made to ensure safety. The discussion below presents statistics on safety issues to demonstrate gaps in the workplace safety in Saudi.
In relation to the preventive safety approach taken by companies by way of safety policy, there are various practices within construction companies in Saudi Arabia that aim to bring about the realisation of the said safety policies. In a recent study, Van Vuuren (2010) investigated some of the safety practices and made mention of the use of personal protective equipment and employee health scheme (EHS) as two practices that are common among majority of Saudi Arabian construction companies. By the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), Isla and Díaz, (2007) discuss that site managers ensure that all stakeholders at every level including employees, subcontractors and employees use
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equipment and clothing that adequately protect them from possible harm. Some of these protective equipment and clothing include gloves, goggles, helmet, and safety boots. To encourage workers to use PPE, Friedman (2010) advise site managers to place much emphasis on comfort, style and suitability of the equipment so that they will not be rejected by workers. Employee health scheme (EHS) has also been used to guarantee the health of stakeholders within various construction sites. With the EHS, Tashakkori and Teddlie (2008) indicated that the emphasis has been on issues that affect the inner wellbeing of employees such as noise regulation which can affect hearing against those that affect their external wellbeing, such as accidents.
According to Taylor and Bowers (2012), keeping health and safety records is one important means by which construction companies can have a very good view of the state of health and safety standards within their premises. Based on the existing state of health and safety standards, Ngo, Foley and Loi (2009) posited that site managers are better placed to make decisions that border on the way forward for them in terms of health and safety policies and practices. For most construction companies, studies show that the type of record system they have used over the years is the standardised accident report form. With this standardised accident report, it is possible to keep records on all injuries, accidents and other forms of health and safety events that take place at the site. According to Tashakkori and Teddlie (2008), the effect of these events such as the amount of man-hours that these make the organisations loss and the amount of money spent on cases of accidents are also adequately recorded. Based on the outcome of the records, Taylor and Bowers (2012) advised that decisions are made on the way forward for the company referring to how health and safety risks at the workplace can be reduced. As a way of enforcing all these policies, the
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organisations resort to the use of safety training and oversight committees that ensure that the company and its workers adhere to safety standards at work, including the use of protective equipment and the wearing of safety outfits.
In summarising the discussion above, it is apparent to note that the Saudi Arabian construction industry’s safety standards are not up to date, with their policies being reactive rather than proactive. There are inadequate policies in place in order to ensure their worker’s safety and there are also inadequate means and resources, which can be used by the workers to ensure their safety. Inadequate policies on safety are therefore an issue for the Saudi Arabian construction industry. Clearer details on the safety culture and the construction industry shall be presented below in order to further establish better safety policies for Saudi Arabia.