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An ethnographic study at two large construction sites, which empirically observed the differences between cooperation and discipline.

They drew on themes of safety as enforcement and engagement from prior work (e.g. Sherratt et al.) and also power embedded within safety (e.g. Antonsen). That is, how “inconsistent efforts of management to facilitate independence and involvement of workers whilst … tightening the grip and cracking down on rule- violations” (p3).

Results

The authors highlight how views of safety, such as safety as seen by frontline workers (embedded in their expert practices) versus safety as seen by management as adherence to rules can be confused. They describe how a safety committee meeting ran at site. It was designed to foster cooperation and engagement, but was always ran by the safety manager following a relatively fixed schedule.

Notably, the topics covered were seen to be largely practical yet *trivial* topics that largely were retrospective (passing on info that had already been decided elsewhere.)

Although the safety manager (SM) tried to engage workers by asking for their input – it was mostly for trivial and obvious issues, e.g. how to address water on the floor and framed largely as risks, rather than operational issues as workers saw them. 

These meetings were said to illustrate “the often banal, albeit selective, focus on safety as linked to, but also separated from, safety as practiced” (p7).

Further, a weekly morning meeting was also run on site by managers, aiming to facilitate dialogue. Despite the aims, it was more informative and directive in the sense of reminding people on what they should do (e.g. wear helmets). Thus at this site, “cooperating about safety is mostly about solving problems and not about engaging with the workers knowledge about the site [or] the work” (p8).

Prior to this meeting, the SM would undertake a site walk and complete an observation form. In some cases the SM would approach workers directly if he felt something was risky and in other cases would just record it on the form/take a photo to table at the next meeting. Although the SMs intentions of sharing the observations/photos was to create dialogue about general safety problems and solutions – this was not how it was received.

Workers saw the practice of showing “breaches” at later dates, decoupled in time & space from the event itself, as counterproductive. They saw it as focusing on the individual & as a type of embarrassment.

Largely, where engagement and participation was sought, it was seen as more of a “monologue rather than a dialogue over safety and this challenges the finely balanced relations of trust at a worksite” (p11).

Safety as wielded by management, was seen as a “privileged and powered practice”, where, in alignment with Antonsen, issues of power in safety are under-communicated and occasionally disguised as priorisation of workers’ needs, whereas in reality it is more management needs.

Another tension was the top-down rule-driven view of by management vs the more pragmatic, work-focused view by workers – made difficult for supervisors who negotiated rule use. For instance, workers not wearing life lines when at height.

Workers in some instances didn’t perceive there to be a considerable risk (due to experience etc.) and believed equipment to increase their risk, due to reduced mobility. Workers anchored their safety in trust with colleagues – based on relational practices; versus the management view, based on their judgement of safety.

The Safety Manager thought that rule negotiation undermined their authority.

Rule deviations were common at both sites and were normalised as part of daily practice. In some cases people clearly identified the departure and said the rule should have been followed. In other cases, rule departure was “elaborate and articulate”.

E.g. workers would leave garbage and materials lying around for the safety manager to find and record, to distract away from more pressing things (lack of guard rails) or rule departures. In either case, workers didn’t see the departure as increasing their risk and were things that could easily be dealt with by them in practice.

It was observed also as a way to “outwit management”.

Overall, authors note that “current management practices, as they were observed, can “dress up” enforcement as engagement and that this breeds a degree of resentment and distrust among the workforce” (p11).

Authors: Grytnes, R., Tutt, D. E., & Andersen, L. P. S. (2020). Construction management and economics, 38(11), 977-992.

Study link: https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2020.1726978

Link to the LinkedIn article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/developing-safety-cooperation-construction-between-grip-hutchinson