The Construction High Risk Strategy (HRS) is designed to reduce the construction industry’s serious injury rate through risk-reduction tactics focused on health and safety responsibilities specific to planning and supervision and high-risk work activities.

The statistical data shows that although the injury rate has been slowly decreasing over the past six years, the serious injury rate has remained steady. This has prompted a layered approach to identifying and correcting high risk work conditions and practices. The strategy looks at task or environmentally created hazards, and at responsibilities, planning, and the effectiveness of supervision.

Goals

• Prevent unsafe acts or conditions that cause workplace serious injuries and fatalities by addressing identified shortcomings in planning and supervision and by ensuring a proper selection of tools, equipment, or processes.

Approaches

The 2018-2020 Construction HRS is focused on three areas:

• Health and safety responsibilities — Planning and supervision
  Officers will conduct workplace inspections focused on health and safety planning and supervision. They will engage prime contractors, owners, employer, supervisors, and workers to promote effective supervision and planning to prevent the development of unsafe working conditions and practices.
• Tools, equipment, and processes — Choosing the safest option
  The target risks and injury areas for this initiative will focus on the selection of the right tool, equipment, or process to reduce workplace incidents resulting in serious injury and the development of high risk violations at workplaces. Shorter term inspectional campaigns, designed to be interchangeable and flexible, will also be conducted by officers.
• Partnerships and collaborations
  This focus will include working with internal and external stakeholders, like the BC Construction Safety Alliance (BCCSA), to encourage and foster communication to proactively respond to evolving industry challenges and emerging risks.

Deliverables and timelines

Updates and results

WorkSafeBC’S High Risk Strategies and Industry Initiatives identify and target industries and employers with a high risk of serious workplace injury and a significant contribution to the serious injury rate. Each strategy focuses prevention initiatives on identified areas of high risk in order to apply resources and effort where they will be most effective. As part of our strategic initiative to develop measures to assess the effectiveness of prevention activities, we are providing updates of our High Risk Strategies and Industry Initiatives.

Note: To save space in bulleted lists, our update documents may refer to occupational health and safety as OHS. All references to the Act, refer to Part Three of the Workers Compensation Act. Penalties and warning letters reported in updates may have been initiated by inspections in a previous quarter.

• Construction HRS — Q1 2018 update
• Construction HRS — Q2 2018 update

Related resources

• Supervisor Safety Resources
• Manufactured Scaffolding Safety Resources
• Is This the Right Tool for the Job? Stepladder Safety in Construction
• Construction High Risk Strategy overview
• Construction High Risk Strategy - Letter to employers