Joint CIBW099 & TG59 Conference Cape Town, South Africa 11 – 13 June, 2017

Drivers behind health and safety implementation in construction organisations within the Gauteng Province in South Africa Jacobus van Heerden Innocent Musonda Chioma Okoro

Introduction cont’d. Organisations are driven to implement H&S for various reasons Motivation to implement H&S is an indicator of maturity level on H&S

Drivers On a project, H&S may be implemented in order to: reduce the cost of accidents comply with legislation and laid-out standards improve quality and avoid rework achieve client satisfaction complete projects on time preserve the image and reputation of the construction organisation improve productivity and profitability

Objective To determine what the drivers of H&S implementation in construction organisations Establish what the maturity level of organisations within Gauteng is

Methods (1) Quantitative approach Questionnaire with 12 questions on H&S implementation drivers Distributed in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan (Boksburg), City of Johannesburg Metropolitan (Sandton, Parktown, Midrand and Linksfield) and Central Pretoria.

Methods (2) Sampling techniques: snowballing of 7 commercial building construction sites. (First with the in-service training company); judgmental or purposive sampling of site engineers, site agents, contracts managers, construction managers and project managers (participants)

Methods (3) Data analysis EXCEL software Descriptive statistics using mean item score (MIS) and standard deviation (SD) Cronbach’s alpha: 0.980, indicating good internal consistency.

Findings (1) Table 1: Respondents’ profile Percentage contribution Site Engineers 25 Site Agents 23 Construction Managers 20 Contracts Managers 16 Project managers Total 100

% frequency of responses Findings (2) Drivers % frequency of responses MIS SD Rank D N A SA Need to manage hazards 7.14 51.79 41.07 4.34 0.611 1 They regard H&S to be important 3.57 14.29 39.29 42.86 4.21 0.825 2 To comply with the legislation 8.93 62.50 28.57 4.20 0.564 3 They consider H&S as the way to do business 50.00 32.14 4.11 0.779 4 To reduce costs associated with accidents and injuries 5.36 23.21 3.84 1.023 5 To preserve image and reputation of company 16.07 57.14 17.86 3.80 0.923 6

Findings (3) Table 3: Drivers of H&S implementation cont’d. % frequency of responses MIS SD Rank D N A SA To achieve client satisfaction 1.79 10.71 23.21 39.29 25.00 3.75 1.014 7 For ethical reasons 3.57 32.14 41.07 21.43 0.939 8 To avoid penalties 17.86 3.64 1.052 9 To improve quality 12.50 37.50 3.61 1.073 10 To improve productivity 5.36 14.29 44.64 3.55 1.111 11 To improve profitability 30.36 35.71 16.07 3.45 1.077 12

Conclusion (1) Items rated 1-4 relate to H&S culture of organisations Values Pull factors Items 5-9 relate to serving organisations’ self interest External motivation (push factors) Items 10-12 are external factors (Push factors) Client, top management and share holder pressure Productivity, profit and quality of work are key It seems H&S implementation or driver is values based

Conclusion (2) It is encouraging to see that organisations place H&S at the forefront of their business decisions; and not just to make profit or avoid penalties, as the results reflected Immature organisations implement H&S due to external or push factors Mature organisations implement H&S due to internal or pull factor which is value based

Conclusion (3) Figure 1: H&S Culture Ladder (Source: Hudson, 2007:704)

Conclusion (2) Findings reveal that contracting organisations in Gauteng are moving towards the mature level given the factors driving their H&S implementation

Thank you!