|
The International Labour Organisation estimates that 1,000 people die each day in accidents at work. It also estimates that construction workers are three to four times more likely than other workers to be among them. With that in mind four of Britain’s largest engineering consultants have decided to take action.
Halcrow, Atkins, Mott MacDonald and Arup have joined together to form the Consultants Health and Safety Forum. This forum has now produced an internationally applicable test for their site work across the world.
The new test is based on the existing ConstructionSkills Health and Safety test taken by half a million workers across the UK every year. It has been a great success. Based on computer it sets five hundred questions that participants are expected to learn. Then, when they are tested, they will be asked fifty of the questions.
The reason for providing the learning in the form of a test is to help provide a focus. The aim is not to catch people out or make it hard to pass. It simply tests knowledge and so uses the test itself as a way to teach that knowledge or re-affirm it.
Braden Connolly of ConstructionSkills explains that the only reason tests are timed at all is because otherwise they couldn’t schedule all 500,000 tests each year. “We wouldn’t time the tests in this country if we had the choice. We are not testing the speed they recall answers, just the fact that they have that knowledge.”
Learning answers is made easy by the software provided. An employee can sit at a laptop anywhere, sign in to the programme, and answer as many questions as he or she sees fit. In doing so they are given a score and can run through the correct answers if they got any wrong.
The test has proven successful in the UK. Issuing a qualified person card to those that pass it has set a strong standard of background knowledge for construction health and safety. However, applying the test abroad can be difficult.
Peter Gammie, Halcrow’s chief executive, comments: “The application and approach to health and safety varies from region to region. The introduction of the international health and safety test across our business means that we have a real opportunity to save lives and reduce accidents on construction sites across the world.”
To make the test international has meant making some significant changes. References to issues of health and safety law are not applicable across borders. Atkins led the testing process. They took the test to hundreds of workers on sites abroad and quickly found that it wasn’t just specific legal references that led to difficulties. One of the first examples raised was when English speaking staff abroad asked “what is a cherry-picker?”.
Another challenge is that in much of the world, construction sites have little or no access to the internet. Yet it is often impractical to call staff off site for training and testing. With that in mind the programme has been downloaded to a set of secure USB devices. The worker taking the test is given a secure log-in to the programme and, if they pass, a unique certificate is generated on-screen ready to be printed there and then.
This means the test can be done anywhere, though with hundreds of questions reviewed and adjusted, translation is the next step. The four companies have not set schedules for translation. Instead each will be led by their own needs and translations can then be shared.
The four firms will also not attempt to enforce all workers on their sites to pass the new test. Instead they have agreed simply that all of their own staff will be required to pass it. This will make health and safety standards consistent across their own companies as well as with each others’.
But while the test will not be forced on other companies, it is hoped many will appreciate the benefits and adopt them. “Accidents at work can be avoided using proactive health and safety management. We hope that this test will help train project managers and designers within our global operations and contribute to avoiding the terrible loss and waste caused by accidents in the construction industry”, explains Peter Wickens, chairman of Mott MacDonald.
The case for other companies taking note is a strong one. Along with being a moral issue, an estimated four percent of the global economy is taken up by the costs of occupational accidents.
Workplace injuries cost firms talented staff, time and money. That gives clients an interest in ensuring as few delays caused by accidents as possible and gives contractors a clear financial incentive to respond.
So with an estimated 15,000 workers abroad at any given time, the four firms of the Consultants Health and Safety Forum hope their efforts will encourage more firms to join in.
 Impact article to print.
|