e-ISSN: 2682-7662, Volume 1, Issue 3, Pages 267-275, October 2019

The Occupational Safety Measures of

Organizations: An Empirical Study on the
Construction Sector of Bangladesh
Manjurul Hossain Reza
Center for Post Graduate Studies
Limkokwing University of Creative Technology
1/1, Innovasi, Jalan Teknokrat, Cyberjaya, Malaysia
E-mail: reznman@gmail.com

Abstract
The construction sector is a significant and fundamental part of infrastructure
development. It provides a huge improvement to the national economy. Today
occupational safety is the most thinkable problem in the whole commercial world and
construction sector faces a lot of occupational safety problems and accidents, which
causes the great hamper of workers’ safety as well as the industrial safety. Since the
last era industries are growing rapidly in Bangladesh. Industrial occupational safety
difficulties are of supreme importance not only to the people who directly work in mills
and factories but also to the industrialists, the government and the country. The
determination of this study is to find out how this industry maintains the safety
programs and the approaches to ensure the health and safety of the employees.
Accordingly, this paper empirically finds out the working conditions and occupational
safety hazards of the construction industry.
Keywords: Safety, accident, hazard, occupation, workers

Introduction
Across the world safety is a major issue in construction industries and the important
characteristics of each project are concluded cost, time, quality and safety. The thought of the
Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) has become common over the
past 20 years (Robson et al., 2007). It is typically required to set up a management process
which must include a health and safety division and measures the threat of the agency (Hasle
& Limborg, 2006). The safe and healthy workplace is considered to be a right for any worker
or employee (Islam, Morshed, & Karim, 2015).
Management Construction firms’ commitment to safety is defined as ‘the extent to which
management is perceived to place a high priority on safety, and communicate and act on safety
issues effectively (Mashi, Subramaniam, & Johari, 2018). According to the International Labor
Organization (ILO) (Alli, 2009) every year at least 60,000 people are killed on construction
sites throughout the whole world. It means that around one death every 10 minutes. According
to Occupational Safety, Health, and Environment (OSHE), 147 construction workers were
killed in 2016 due to unsafe workplaces in real estate sector. The Bangladesh Institute of Labor
Studies (BILS, 2016), reported that there were a total of 1,196 deaths in the construction

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industry between 2005 and 2016. This resulted in an average of approximately 100 deaths a
year. Empirical evidence suggests that safe and healthy working conditions have a positive
relationship with employee satisfaction, performance, and productivity (Chowdhury, 2014).
In the developing countries, business strategies do not include organization health and safety
regulations and the construction sector still relies more on labor than the equipment (Reza,
2019; Ul & Jamal, 2015; Zahoor et al., 2016). This study evaluates the number of persons
whether follow construction safety or not, to find out the degree of safety adoption and endorse
how the safety rules can be implemented in construction practice. Most of the workers do not
know what types of safety should be taken and who are supposed to supply the safety
equipment. It is recommended that the regional development authority must regulate safety
practice in construction sector along with the owners, engineers, supervisor and contractor
(Ahmed, Sobuz, & Haque, 2018).

Industry Overview
With the rapid urbanization of the country, accompanied by steep increase in population, comes
the essential need for shelter and housing facilities to accommodate the people. This has
resulted in the quick expansion of the construction industry (Farooqui, Ahmed, & Lodi, 2008)
in the recent years. From the early 1980s the business started to flourish and at present, more
than 1000 companies are active in construction business in the country (Islam et al., 2015).
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) sources, some 50 lakh employees are
working in the construction sector in the country. Although construction workers comprise 4.4
per cent of the total labor force, the number of deaths in the construction industry constitutes
14.5 per cent of the total occupational deaths (BBS, 2017).

Table 1 Death Report of Workplace

No. of death Workers Year
1402 2017
699 2016
745 2015
1288 2014
7650 2013
Source: Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies (BILS), 2018.

In 2013 it was in high because of the collapse of Rana Plaza. In 2016, there were 182
casualties on construction sites, of which 85 were deaths and 97 injuries (BILS, 2016)

Table 2 Annual Workplace Death Report of Construction workers

No. of Workers Year
179 2017
147 2016
172 2015
165 2014
175 2013
175 2012

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 116 2011
138 2010
Source: Occupational Safety, Health and Environment Foundation (OSHE) Survey, 2018.

Bangladesh Occupational Safety, Health and Environment Foundation (OSHE) disclosed

Workplace Safety Report 2017 where 179 construction workers lost lives. Some 147
construction workers were dead in 2016, 172 in 2015, 165 in 2014, 175 in 2013, 175 in 2012,
116 in 2011, 138 in 2010.

OSHE provided the data by recording the events that are published in the various national daily
newspapers. But OSHE says this is not the actual data as news of most of the accidents do not
reach the journalists. In many construction sites there are lack of safety equipment and also the
trend of work in hazardous situation is a major concern in the construction sector (Adnan,
Rakib, & Rahman, 2015; Islam et al., 2015; Vickers & James, 2004). In Bangladesh safety
measures are still neglected as in almost every case the owners, contractors and workers are
reluctant to ensure safety measures due to negligence and lack of knowledge, experience and
awareness (Islam et al., 2015).

Occupational Safety
Work-related health hazards typically denote to the ingredients and procedures that have the
possibility to cause injury to the workforces (Hasle & Limborg, 2006; Vickers & James, 2004).
Occupational safety is the set of beliefs, norms, attitudes, roles and social and technical
practices which are concerned with minimizing the exposure of individuals, within and beyond
an organization, to conditions considered dangerous or injurious (Robson et al., 2007).
Workplace health and safety (WHS) is a critical and continuous developmental issue for every
business (Reza, 2018). National, legislation authority, commercial property owners and
managers need to take all reasonable steps to ensure their buildings are safe for tenants, the
public, customers and contractors (Akram, 2014; Reza, 2019; Wever, 2016). The good
occupational safety systems constantly update their mechanisms to identify the new risks and
hazards that appear in the working area (Alli, 2009; Kheni, Gibb, & Dainty, 2008).

Occupational safety scheme should be a clear set of management systems (Robson et al., 2007;
Vickers & James, 2004). Operational safety system should be commonly understood, being
more proactive, better internally integrated and improve the system continuously (Reza, 2018;
Robson et al., 2007). The financial expenses of occupational injuries and deaths are colossal
and involve individuals, enterprises and nations and certainly the whole world (Alli, 2009;
Loewenson, 2015). After reviewing 13 publicly available management system documents for
occupational health and safety, environment, or quality (Redinger & Levine, 1998; Robson et
al., 2007).
The 15 primary elements are essential for the organization.
These are as follows
Management commitment and resources.
Employee participation.
Occupational health and safety policy.
Goals and objectives.
Performance measures.
System planning and development.

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Occupational health and safety manual and procedures.
Training system.
Hazard control system.
Preventive and corrective action system.
Procurement and contracting,
Communication system.
Evaluation system.
Continual improvement.
Management review.

Safety management practices as antecedents of safety culture in different organizational setups

like transportation, healthcare, aircraft maintenance, and factory environment (Chowdhury,
2014; Vickers & James, 2004). Safety culture is a concept that is gaining adhesion within this
sector as a useful concept to further reduce fatalities, injuries and incidents (Profil &
Habibullah, n.d.). It has been used by organizations seeking to improve construction site safety.
Safety measurement is continuous process and new safety system should be adapted in order
to improve the safety system for any industry (Ahmed et al., 2018; Zahoor et al., 2016; Zohar
& Luria, 2003).

Occupational Hazard
Occupational hazard is defined as a situation that has the potential to harm life, health or
equipment at work (Jaiswal, 2006; Pinder, 2017). The two major occupational hazards in
construction sector are fall from a height and electrocution. In construction sector there are
many places of work hazards that have the potential to cause injury. Identifying these hazards
may be very vital and is the responsibility of the enterprise to ensure the place of business is as
secure as possible. (Akram, 2014; Jaiswal, 2006; Pinder, 2017).
Some researchers (Alli, 2009; D.Langford, 2006; Robson et al., 2007; Vickers & James, 2004;
Zahoor et al., 2016; Zohar & Luria, 2003) have seen in the construction sector some accidents
happened by occupational hazards. These hazards are as follows:
Table 3 Some Hazards of Construction Sector
Construction Sector
Common Occupational Examples
Hazards
Struck by or against Low headroom
Objects Sharp projections
Slips and falls Wet floor
Slippery floor
Uneven floor
Manual handling, Lifting, carrying, pushing and
awkward postures and pulling
repetitive movements Prolonged standing
Indoor air quality Extremes temperatures
Extremes relative humidity
Inadequate lighting

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 Fatigue Long work hour
Overtime work
Electrical hazards Low quality
Poorly maintained electrical
Equipment
Unsafe electric wearing
Shocks
Injury from sharp things Nail
Pointed rod
Wooden plank or bamboo
Sharp edge
Collapse structure Roof collapse
Earth sliding
Breaking structure
Chemical Harsh cleaning agent
Toxic
lime
Dust Dust from cement, sand, breaking
bricks
Heavy noise Noise from machine, breaking
bricks and stone

O’Toole (2013) has given a useful guide to identifying safety critical positions within the
construction industry. The author has proposed that “accidents” are a result of eight factors:
a) Deficiency of proper training.
b) Deficient implementation of safety guidelines.
c) Lack of safety apparatus
d) Unsafe work approaches and/or sequencing
e) Unsafe site circumstances.
f) Failure to use provided safety apparatus.
g) Ignorance attitude held towards safety.
h) Sudden unavoidable accidents.

Methodology
This study was conducted by using a questionnaire that was developed based on safety
measures. The questionnaires are divided into two portions. The first portion consists the
respondents’ demographic information about the construction site such as gender, age, working
tenure etc. The second portion of the questionnaire contains the data about the safety measures
and working surroundings. In this study emphasis was given on the second part of the
questionnaires. The questionnaire has employed a five-point scale. Each of the criteria is
categorized as 1= no, 2= poor, 3= neutral, 4= good, 5= better based on safety measure for
workers and the working environment.
This study was conducted at several sites of Dhaka city. Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh
and day by day becoming busiest and populated city of this country. Construction of new
buildings, infrastructure, modification, vertical and horizontal extension of the existing

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structures have become the common phenomenon of this city. Simple random sampling method
has adopted in this study for the purpose of sampling the target respondents. There were 10
construction sites which were casually selected from both public and private construction of
Dhaka city whereas some are little projects, and some are big projects. The data was collected
by face-to-face interviews to workers at the sites with structured questionnaire considered as
primary data source. At the selected sites it has found that 327 workers were working on those
construction projects. According to Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table the sample size for this
study be determined 175 respondents. The data were collected from 175 respondents by
conducting face to face interviews with the structured questionnaire. For the need of this study,
relevant data are collected from existing articles, government branches, the news media as the
documents.

Analysis and Discussion

Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 23) used here to examine the data
after conducting the survey. After conducting the survey, we have found that the male
respondents are 141 and female respondents are only 34. The statistics of this study are
presented in the table-4 as shown in below. Each of the safety is categorized as no, poor,
neutral, good, and better based on safety implemented by the organizations in the working
environment. Safety measure is remark as ‘no’ means there is no safety protection and
‘poor’ means there is little bit safety protection not as in satisfactory level. Analyzing
the data after conducting the survey it has been found that safety practices of
construction sector in Bangladesh is very inadequate and in poor condition as well as
disappointing. Most of the sites do not have enough safety protection according to workers’
need. Workers are working in the most hazardous situation. In this study it has shown that
every safety criterion is in poor condition not in a satisfactory level.
It has found that 55.4% respondents agreed that in construction sites there are no protection for
fall of workers. From figure 4 it is noticeable that more than 50% workers said at the
construction sites there are poor protection for eye, face and fire protection. their hand and head
respectively from hazards. Although the workers are being faced hazards and hazardous
situation in their everyday works due to insufficient protective tools. It was also found that
scaffold facility is in poor condition, 54.9% workers said that scaffold is not enough for these
sites according to need and even in some sites there are no scaffolding facility. For hand
protection, workers use hand gloves to avoid hazardous situation, 43.4 % of workers’ hand
protection is in poor condition and most of the time they didn’t use gloves because of lacking.
Figure 1 Safety Measures Of Different Criteria

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 Table 4 Average Safety Measures
Safety criteria No Poor Neutral Good Better
Scaffold facility 22.3 54.9 8.0 9.7 5.1
Fire protection 24.0 50.9 4.6 16.0 4.6
Fall protection 55.4 32.6 4.0 5.1 2.9
Head protection 23.4 40.6 4.6 26.3 5.1

Eye protection 30.9 54.9 4.0 8.6 1.7

Face protection 52.6 2.3 8.6 4.0
32.6
Foot protection 15.4 44.6 3.4 29.7 6.9

Hand protection 18.9 43.4 2.9 26.9 8.0

Average (percentage) 27.86% 46.81% 4.22% 16.36% 4.78%

It is found that most of the workers did not know what kind of safety measures should be taken
during working in the construction site to protect themselves from hazards. They also don’t
know who are authorized to supply the safety equipment for them. The labor force is not
conscious of their safety where poverty makes them bound to work in such kind of risky and
unsafe atmosphere. The main problems associated with not practicing safety rules in the
construction projects of Bangladesh are lack of awareness, unemployment, poverty and the
most important thing careless monitoring of administrative authority.

Conclusion
Millions of workers died and injured on the job each year throughout the whole world. These
deaths and injuries have an extensive effect on families, organizations, communities, and
society as a whole. It is known by everyone that workers’ safety is the first priority and
indispensable matter of any construction project because if workers are the key persons of any
site to develop a project. Safety measures in construction sector are all about avoiding people

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from death or injured at work or establish proper protection and providing a suitable workplace
(Okeola, 2009). In this study the survey was conducted in 10 projects, the data was collected
through questionnaires as a primary source and secondary data also used in this paper. Through
this study, it was found that about 46.81% of the workers assume poor safety measures and
27.86% workers did not assume any safety measure and in altogether the percentage of ‘no’
and ‘poor’ measure is 74.67%.
So, the overall safety practices of construction sites are at poor level and not at a satisfactory
level. The accident in a construction site is the most important fact in the recent era that affects
a construction project in various ways and run the project adversely. Constant observation and
inspection by safety officials and local authority, train the workers skillfully and proper use of
safety measures can ensure a safe, healthy and accident-free industry.

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