The sheer nature of construction work makes it one of the world’s most dangerous industries. On any given day, even the most experienced of construction workers could encounter a hazard and have their life seriously altered by it.
Slips and falls, structures giving way and collapsing, machine malfunctions, heavy objects falling from above, fire, electrocution — these are just a few of the dangers that workers face in this field each and every day. If you want to protect your employees against these hazards, be sure to put the advice laid out below into practice.
Provide your workers with protective gear
Whenever they spend time in your working environment, your employees need to be wearing proper protective gear. The gear that you provide them in this instance could make a world of difference when it comes to their safety. It could even end up being the difference between life and death…
Here are some of the most important pieces of protective gear that should be made available on your construction site:
- Helmets
- Goggles
- Boots
- Gloves
- Earplugs
- Fall protection
Erect scaffolding correctly
Scaffolding is one of the biggest everyday hazards found on typical construction sites. Should you fail to correctly erect this all-important construction tool, you will put your workers in serious danger.
Quite simply, you cannot afford to take any shortcuts when erecting scaffolding. It needs to be built on footing that is level, strong and stable, and the scaffolding itself needs to be maintained regularly to ensure that isn’t broken or lacking in structural integrity.
Keep fire at bay
So long as you keep the blaze at bay, it is safe and acceptable to start a fire on your construction site as and when it is required for a certain project. Keeping fire at bay is not, however, an altogether easy task. Even when you employ someone to monitor it, you’ll never truly be able to control the embers or the smoke that the fire produces.
If you don’t feel confident in your ability to light and control fires on your construction site, you should get in touch with a professional fire accessor right away. The professionals install a fire alarm system to ensure that the area is safe for you to start a blaze on it. If they don’t believe that your working environment is currently fit to host controlled fires, they will advise you about what needs to be done to make your premises safer in this sense. They might say that you need to fit fire doors or they may tell you to update your fire alarm system — whatever your fire assessor tells you to do, for the sake of your employees and their safety, you must make sure that you do it.
The construction industry is a notoriously dangerous one… but serious hazards can be avoided if you heed all of the crucial pieces of advice laid out above. Provide them with protective gear, erect scaffolding correctly, and make sure you keep fires at bay — if you do all of that, you’ll be sure to keep your workers safe whenever they spend time on your construction site.