Safety Measures That Construction Companies Must Follow

May it be the pyramids, other monuments, palaces and fortresses, dams, bridges or modern high-rises – none of the greatest civil engineering feats of mankind has ever been achieved without shedding blood. To be honest, there is no prominent sign which indicates that this trend will cease to continue on a global scale. If you have ever been part of any construction project of a large scale, you will admit that either you have seen the death of your on-duty coworker or you have heard about such incidents. Also, there are chances that you have managed to save yourself by a whisker or have been fortunate enough to be attended instantly when you were down.Does that mean that we should stall progress and return back to our caveman lifestyle? Definitely not! So, what can be done to reduce the chances of death for our construction workers? Is there any option for us to minimize loss of lives during construction projects, especially in an age when medical science is pushing the limits towards a better future? Thanks to technology again, the answer is a yes!

First of all, follow each and every standard safety measures that are suggested by statutory bodies and industry experts. Every single worker of your team must be equipped with helmets, gloves, safety shoes, safety belts, head-mounted torches, standby fire-proof dresses and anything else that enhances their safety. Also, make arrangements for stand-by ambulances if there is any medical emergency. If you are a construction worker, you have every right to complain to statutory bodies and concerned authorities if such primary measures are not observed.Remember that those thick safety manuals are not for decorating your office but are to be implemented diligently. Strict laws and vigilant enforcement agencies are working very hard to ensure that managers of construction sites follow their safety guidelines. It’s not about the money that is charged as penalty, but your reputation as a sensible construction company or a manager responsible for your subordinate’s safety.In lieu with the latest trend of workforce management and job scheduling in the construction industry, the most appropriate thing to do is to allocate blocks of workers for a short, specific timeframe. The concept is to take advantage of machine efficiency and wrap up things quickly, so that the extra cost incurred by the company for appointing teams in contrast to the usually practiced trend of working in silos can be countered.It has been statistically proved that pairing up with a co-worker reduces the stress levels, fear and anxiety among high-risk workers who are regularly exposed to hazardous working conditions. This, in turn, enhances the productivity of workers and thus adds to the bottom-line of the company. However, not all belongs to this school of thought.There are many who strongly advocates use of man down duress alarms – a small, GPS enabled device that acts as the primary mode of annunciation when a worker is having problem of any sort regarding his mental and physical health while working. Their argument evolves round the fact that there are many situations where only highly skilled and therefore high-salaried workers can work. Also, it is not at all a cost-effective proposition to depute another worker who will be utterly useless and a wasted resource, other than keeping a watch over the safety issues of the man at work.

The problem with such an argument is that not all countries, geographies and terrains are well covered under wireless communication technology, especially if we consider a global scale. A majority of construction projects takes place at such areas where wireless communication infrastructure does not paint a very encouraging image. Under such conditions, the safest bet is to do a survey of the area regarding the strength and reliability of wireless communication, before a company can solely depend on man down duress alarms for bail-out calls.