1.Introduction

1.1 Background

Safety signs and symbols are widely used for ensuring safety of employees in construction and other industries that involve risk of accident that can be damaging for health and safety of employees. The diverse safety signs are being used which convey different messages to personnel working with equipment (Zhou, Goh and Li, 2015). Regardless of this active reliance of safety messages and symbols, still there are chances of accidents if employees do not clearly understand those messages. Misinterpretation of safety messages has been considered as one an important issue for declining the effectiveness of safety signs in reduction of accident rate (Chan and Chan, 2011).

The prior studies on construction industry have highlighted that there lies an untested assumption that warning signs and symbols are equally understandable by people who have different background and have different language and culture (Tam et al., 2003). However, this assumption does not seem to be true and it is misleading. Given this view, proper education about safety warnings is required for reduction of accident rates (Chan, Chen and Chan, 2010). Along with this, selection of right safety symbol, signal word and colour of safety sign is also an important perspective for enhancing the effectiveness of safety warnings for reduction of health and safety risk in construction industry (Arphorn et al., 2003).

 1.2 Research Aim and Objectives

The main aim of this research is to investigate the association of safety signs and symbol recognition with prevention of accidents in construction industry of Australia.

The study will focus on achieving following key objectives;

• To focus on approaches of accident prevention for ensuring health and safety of employees in construction industry.
• To investigate the linkage of safety signs with accident prevention in construction industry of Australia.
• To investigate the association of safety symbol recognition with prevention of accidents in construction industry of Australia.
• To investigate the extent to which signal word and colour of safety warning can contribute to prevention of accidents in construction industry of Australia.

1.3 Research Questions

The research will seek the answers for following research questions.

• How rate of accident can be reduced in construction industry of Australia?

• To what extent safety signs and symbols can lower the accident rate in construction industry of Australia?
• To what extent proper signal word and colour of safety sign can contribute in prevention of accidents in construction industry of Australia?

1.4 Research Problem

Safety signs and symbols are mainly used as tools for ensuring the health and safety of employees at workplaces. Due to increasing accident rate in construction industry of Australia, current research will explore that how recognition of specific safety signs can draw attention of workers to health and safety hazards. The research is based on the notion that when employees are aware of the hazards around them and take the necessary precautions, the possibility of an injury, illness or other loss is minimized. It will draw attention of practitioners to the fact that in order to protect workers from health and safety issues at construction sites, they must be educated about different safety signs and symbols.

1.5 Project Structure

The research project will be structured in five sections. First section will be based on introduction of background information of research and it will also address aim and objectives of research. Along with this, research questions will also be extended in this section and significance of research will be mentioned. The second section will address relevant literature on the topic and it will highlight theoretical foundation of research issue. Third section will address research methodology, including population and sample selection, data collection and data analysis approach. Fourth section will analyse main findings of the research. Finally, discussion section will address findings of research in the light of relevant literature and it will also offer guidance for future researchers based on limitations of study. Implication of research findings for practice and theory will be presented in this section.

2.Case of Australian Construction Industry and theoretical Views

Occupational Health and Safety is related with protection of workers from the risk of injury, death and illness. Health and safety of employees is the responsibility of business organization and according to common law jurisdictions, employers have common law duty to ensure health and safety of workers (Tam, Fung, Yeung and Tung, 2003). In addition to common law, state laws also have jurisdictions for preventing workplace hazards. In spite of these strict regulations at global level, still there prevails high risk of health and safety for workers in different industries (Behm, 2005; Stellman, 1998). There are number of industries that have been identified as high potential for health and safety hazards (Quinlan, Bohle and Lamm, 2010). In different countries across the world, health and safety is considered as an important concern in the construction industry based on the fact that construction sector has higher level of potential for risk (Lee, Mahendra and Alvarez, 2010). The construction industry that is main focus of current study is comprised of work related with construction, devastation and alteration of buildings (Zhou, Goh and Li, 2015). While talking about the accident rate in global construction industry, In United States only, the rate of construction accident is three time more than any other industry. The workers in construction deal with heavy equipment and work on heights (Toole, 2002). Workers could either fall from ladder from the height or they can stuck or caught by any object and machine that might cause damage to them (Kartam, 1997). Construction industry around the globe has caused death and injuries to number of workers and research has identified that mainly the reason of accidents in construction industry is poor training and education of workers regarding identification of health and safety risk at work sites (Suraji, Duff and Peckitt, 2001). There is general consensus of global construction sector that proper training of workers is crucial before they start their work.

It is of huge importance to consider that although the fatality and injury rate in construction industry of Australia has reduced over past decade, still involves huge risk of health and safety of workers. According to the recent figures of Safe Work Australia, the number of deaths caused in different industries of Australia are reported to be 32 from January 1^st to March 14, 2017 (Safe Work Australia, 2017). Among these 32 deaths, 9 were in construction industry (Safe Work Australia, 2017). Based on high injury and fatality rate, Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy from 2012 to 2022 has considered construction as priority sector for improving health and safety conditions for workers (Safe Work Australia, 2017).

Construction industry of Australia has been considered as highly susceptible for health and safety risk due to different events that have not caused death only for workers but has also influenced health and safety of common citizens (Safe Work Australia, 2017). One of such incident dates back to 2013, when a wall collapse in Swanston Street of Australia has caused fatalities to three people. The construction company Aussie Signs has not complied effectively with the health and safety regulations of Work Safe Australia (Hare, Cameron, Real and Maloney, 2012). The incident has shattered construction industry and industry was criticized for its inability to comply with health and safety regulations of the country. There are plenty of such issues in construction industry that have caused fatalities and injuries to workers and non-workers (Dainty, Moore and Murray, 2007). This high rate of accident and potential of health and safety risk in construction industry of Australia has attracted the attention of researchers to seek the ways through which potential of health and safety risk can be lowered from construction industry (Behm, 2005). Given, the importance of health and safety issue in construction sector of Australia, the current report has considered this as highly important and thus relied on investigating the impact of warning symbols, signs, colours and signal words on reduction of accident risk.

The organizational health and safety of Australia has offered that construction industry needs to consider proactive approach for reducing risk associated with health and safety issues. The reliance on warning signs in the form of labels and symbols has been recognized as important tool for influencing behaviour regarding risk perceptions of workers (Gutierrez and Tiong, 2015). The warning signs are widely relied tools for safety management strategy of construction industry as they provide wide information regarding better safety prospects for workers. It has been considered in the research of Hare, Cameron, Real and Maloney (2012) that some of the warning signs used in construction industry are understandable by the workers as education of workers is not carried out for enhancing understanding of safety signs.  The prior studies on construction industry have highlighted that there lies an untested assumption that warning signs are equally understandable by people who have different background and have different language and culture (Tam, Fung, Yeung and Tung, 2003). However, this assumption does not seem to be true and it is misleading. Given this view, proper education about safety warnings is required for reduction of accident rates.

Along with this, colour of warning symbols is also considered important by prior researchers. It is notable that different colours represent risk, such as yellow and red are most widely used colours in safety signs and they also attract attention of workers (Dainty, Moore and Murray, 2007). In addition to colour, the warning signs for accident prevention needs to contain some signal words, to make the safe warning signs understandable for workers. The signal word of danger is most commonly used (De Silva and Wimalaratne, 2012). Along with this, caution and warning are also used as signal words. Mainly, in construction industry, these three signal words convey differing level of safety risk, for instance, danger indicates high level of risk, warning shows mediate level of risk and caution indicates lower level of risk (Levitt and Samelson, 1993). There are number of studies on construction industry, which have studied the combined effect of sign word and colour for indicating level of risk and have found that both of these aspects are likely to gain attraction of workers (Chen, Lu, Liu and Wang, 2013). The construction industry professionals have highlighted that when signal word associated with higher level of risk is combined with colour of lower level of risk, then the effects of warning sign can be weakened (Ng and Chan, 2015b). The research has also asserted this view and indicated that when respondents are asked to assign colour to warning signal word ‘danger’, then most of them has associated red with high risk (Ng and Chan, 2016). Therefore, in order to prevent injuries through safety signs, it is important to assign right word and colour for indicating the degree of risk associated with site of activity.

Moreover, it is notable that as signal words in particular language might not be understandable by people of all background, so symbols can serve best for attracting the attention of workers towards danger (Chen, Lu, Liu and Wang, 2013). Thus selection of most suitable symbols is highly important for reducing the risk of health and safety for workers in construction industry.

3.Research Methods

There are two available research approaches that can implied by researcher and in order to generate high validity of research, it is important to rely on most suitable research approach (Zikmund, Babin, Carr and Griffin, 2013). These available approaches include; quantitative and qualitative research approach. The quantitative approach relies on facts and figures, while qualitative approach is based on in-depth views and offers detailed insight of any given phenomenon (Collis and Hussey, 2013). The current research study will rely on qualitative approach of research. On the other hand, the researcher can choose from either primary or secondary data. The primary data is fresh hand data while secondary data has already been collected by other researchers in the form of books, published research articles or reports (Creswell, 2013).

3.1 Case Study

The case study approach will be chosen for present research study and main focus will be maintained on Australian construction industry. The selection of case can be justified by the fact in Australia, higher injury and fatality rate has been reported by construction industry and this sector is mainly important for improving health and safety conditions for workers (Safe Work Australia, 2017). Therefore, it is important to study the role of safety signs and alerts in reducing accident rate in construction industry of Australia.

3.2 Data Collection and Data Analysis

Underlying research study will rely on secondary data and secondary data will be obtained from published reports on health and safety conditions in Australian construction. Prior research about usage of safety signs and understanding of safety signs will serve as foundation for current research.

Data will be analysed through content analysis as it is the best way of interpreting qualitative data.  

3.3Ethical Considerations

According to the views of Gray (2013) it is important to consider ethical aspects of research into account. The study will not use any unethical means for collection of data. Along with this, results of study will not harm anyone, either physically or mentally. Likewise, it will not offer damage to image of any person, entity or an organization.

 

 

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