Site Safety Management in Hong Kong

The construction industry is well known for its complexities and inefficiencies in dealing with human safety and construction processes. The industry itself has been notorious for its high casualty records over many years. Especially in Hong Kong, the concept of improving safety in construction sites has only started to be developed in recent years. The government has set up new ordinances and regulations, and companies are willing to invest more on this issue before the construction commences. Nowadays in Hong Kong, from the small to the sizable, nearly all construction companies have their own site safety plans indicating safety guidelines and protective measures to achieve certain safety standards on the project sites. However, when viewing the past records published by the Labour Department, no trend in injury frequency reduction was noted. Consequently, an effort has been made in this report to compare three different site safety plans of three renowned civil and building contractors were investigated. Moreover, in order to review the effectiveness of the prevailing site safety plans and the safety performance of the contractors, a questionnaire survey targeting some site staff was conducted to solicit their opinions on the implementation of site safety plans. From the results of the questionnaire survey the authors determined that the construction companies are now regarding occupational health and safety as prerequisites of all the site operations.