Implementation of safety management systems in Hong Kong construction industry – A safety practitioner's perspective

Highlights

• A review of the current state-of-the-practice helped to establish the critical success factors (CSFs), benefits and difficulties of implementing the SMS in the construction industry, while structured interviews were used to establish the key factors of the SMS implementation in Hong Kong.

• Visible senior commitment, in terms of manpower and cost allocation, and competency of safety manager were key drivers for the SMS implementation.

• Core benefits of implementing the SMS included reduced accident rates and accident costs, improved organization framework and increased safety audit ratings.

• Key challenges to the effective SMS implementation were insufficient resources, tight working schedule, and high labor turnover rate.

Abstract

Introduction

In the 1980s, the safety management system (SMS) was introduced in the construction industry to mitigate against workplaces hazards, reduce the risk of injuries, and minimize property damage. Also, the Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Safety Management) Regulation was introduced on 24 November 1999 in Hong Kong to empower the mandatory implementation of a SMS in certain industries including building construction. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of the SMS in improving construction safety and identify the factors that influence its implementation in Hong Kong.

Method

A review of the current state-of-the-practice helped to establish the critical success factors (CSFs), benefits, and difficulties of implementing the SMS in the construction industry, while structured interviews were used to establish the key factors of the SMS implementation.

Results

Results of the state-of-the-practice review and structured interviews indicated that visible senior commitment, in terms of manpower and cost allocation, and competency of safety manager as key drivers for the SMS implementation. More so, reduced accident rates and accident costs, improved organization framework, and increased safety audit ratings were identified as core benefits of implementing the SMS. Meanwhile, factors such as insufficient resources, tight working schedule, and high labor turnover rate were the key challenges to the effective SMS implementation in Hong Kong.

Practical applications

The findings of the study were consistent and indicative of the future development of safety management practice and the sustainable safety improvement of Hong Kong construction industry in the long run.

Introduction

The incidence of accidents is higher in the construction industry when compared to other sectors of the world economy. More so, between the year 1996 and 2005, of the overall industrial accidents in Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, 20% were related to construction activities (Poon & Tang, 2008). In Hong Kong, the total value of construction project was HK$ 223,947 million (9.3% of the overall GDP of HK$ 2,398,408 million where US$1 = HK$7.8). Meanwhile, 323,000 workers were engaged in the construction sector, which is 8.2% of the overall labor force in the year 2015. There were 3723 accidents on the construction sites in 2015. Also, 62% of industrial fatalities occurred in the construction industry (Census and Statistics Department, 2016, Poon and Tang, 2008). The high accident and fatality rates in the construction industry could be attributed to its hazardous workplace environment and fast changing work practices (Fan et al., 2014, Tam and Fung, 1998). Therefore, construction safety has been of great concern in occupational safety and health research.

In the 1980s, the SMS was introduced to mitigate against hazardous conditions, reduce the risk of injury, and minimize against materials wastages in the construction industry. For example, Accident Prevention Advisory Unit of Health and Safety Executive (HSE) of the United Kingdom approved the ‘Occupational Health and Safety Act’ to empower the introduction of the SMS in 1989 (Health and Safety Executive, 1991). Meanwhile, per the “Code of Practice on Safety Management” prepared by the Hong Kong Labour Department, safety management refers to

“the management functions connected with the carrying on of an industrial undertaking that relates to the safety of personnel in the undertaking, including the planning, developing, organizing and implementing a safety policy; the measuring, auditing or reviewing of the performance of those functions.”

A SMS refers to a system that provides the safety management as stated earlier (Labour Department, 2002). In the year 1995, a comprehensive review of industrial safety was conducted by the Hong Kong Government, and the results suggested that enterprises should embrace self-regulation and safety management. Afterward, the Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Safety Management) Regulation was adopted on the 24th November 1999 to empower the mandatory implementation of SMS in certain industries including the construction sector. Studies revealed that a SMS was essential to accident prevention and reduction, through the deployment of proper and consistent management program of safety planning, education and training, and inspection (Bunn III et al., 2001, Labour Department, 2002, Moorkamp et al., 2014, Yoon et al., 2013).

The accident rate is one of the key performance indicators in the SMS. Results indicated that there was a remarkable reduction in construction accident rate immediately after the introduction of SMS in Hong Kong. However, the decreasing rate was diminishing in recent years (Chan et al., 2010, Chan and Choi, 2015, Yu and Hunt, 2002). Therefore, it is necessary to examine the factors contributing to the success deployment of SMS, and thus achieving the sustainable safety improvement in the construction industry in Hong Kong.

Indeed, there has been a lack of systematic review of the factors contributing to the success and the obstacles to the deployment of the SMS in the construction industry (Robson et al., 2007). Therefore, this study attempts to identify the potential contributory factors to the effective implementation of SMS through the review of the state-of-the-practice. Afterward, the identified factors will be verified through a series of structured interviews with safety practitioners in the Hong Kong construction industry. For instance, (a) factors contributing to efficient deployment of SMS; (b) benefits of the implementation of SMS in relation to both safety and operational performance; and (c) difficulties of deploying SMS on the construction sites will be assessed. Moreover, the mandatory deployment of SMS has been introduced for more than 15 years, understanding the contributory factors to the efficient implementation of SMS would be essential to the sustainable improvement of construction safety in Hong Kong and other regions of the world in the long run.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes the rationale and mechanism of the state-of-the-practice review. The design, procedures, and results of the structured interviews are detailed in Section 3. Thereafter, recommendations based on the findings of the state-of-the-practice review and structured interviews are presented in Section 4. Section 5 provides the concluding remarks and suggests the best possible ways forward.