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Safety in construction

Help make health and safety a priority on your worksite.

What you need to know

Every year thousands of workers are injured on construction sites as a result of easily preventable incidents. Some workers lose their lives; others suffer serious and debilitating ill health. It is important to manage risks associated with construction work.

While construction sites have many risks, they can be easily managed without significant costs to the business.

The most common causes of serious injury or death on construction sites are:

falls from heights

contact with electricity

being hit by falling objects

moving plant

asbestos exposure

silica exposure

manual handling

high work stress

Inspector Focus

Throughout safety month and beyond SafeWork Inspectors are targeting work at height safety in the construction industry.

Similarly, mental (psychological) health, just like physical health, is an important part of work health and safety.

Construction workers are more than twice as likely to take their own lives than the general population. Businesses should consider better ways to improve and sustain the wellbeing of their workers.

SafeWork has a strong statewide presence in construction, with inspectors based at all regional locations. Rolling blitzes will continue to occur across the state to ensure high visibility, and a fair and level playing field across the industry.

What you can do

Construction sites have many risks that need to be managed and it’s hard to know where to start or what’s really required. That’s why we’ve developed the Construction Site/Trade Supervisors Virtual Workshops.

Register for one of our free online workshops today to see how simple managing safety in construction can be. They will be delivered in short modules so you can build your work, health and safety (WHS) awareness and knowledge over time.

The first virtual workshop will launch in October to coincide with Safe Work Month 2020, and new virtual workshops will be released each month.

Construction Site/Trade Supervisors Virtual Workshop Series

The workshop series are designed for construction site and trade supervisors to further develop their understanding of their obligations for managing WHS at the worksite and recognising and managing the major risks in the building and construction industry. These workshops will be delivered in short modules, approximately 2 hours each.

The workshops will be interactive and will be facilitated by an experienced SafeWork Inspector with extensive construction industry experience.

The modules will cover the following topics:

  • The role and influence of a construction site supervisor
  • The work, health and safety responsibilities of site supervisors
  • Understanding and implementing work health and safety management plans
  • Consultation, inductions, HSR’s and toolbox talks
  • Risk management
  • Safe Work Method Statements
  • Licenced work requirements

Register

Helpful resources

Construction

  • Pocket guide to construction safety – or order your weatherproof flip book with safety checklists from the publications hotline 1300 799 003
  • Erecting, altering and dismantling scaffolds
  • Working at heights
  • Incident information releases
  • Safety alerts

General fact sheets and checklists

  • Falls from height fact sheet
  • Scaffold safety checklist
  • Construction falls from heights blitz checklist

Posters

  • Falls kill poster - English, Arabic, Chinese simplified

Codes of Practice for the building and construction industry

Formwork (PDF 1MB)

Hazardous manual tasks (PDF 1.5MB)

Managing noise and preventing hearing loss at work (PDF 1.7MB)

Managing the risk of falls at workplaces (PDF 4.1MB)

Managing the risk of falls in housing construction (PDF 7.0MB)

Legislation

For the specific laws about working safely on construction sites, see chapter 6 of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017.

Videos

Safe use of ladders

This video provides advice about the safe use of ladders in your workplace.

Watch this video on the safe erection of roof trusses

This video illustrates each step in safely erecting roof trusses as well as related topics like risk management, falls protection and manual handling. It was produced by the Master Builders Association of NSW with funding from WorkCover NSW.

Voids in house construction

This video provides advice about voids in house construction.

Solar safety - how to manage the risk of falls

Falls from heights are the leading cause of traumatic fatalities in the NSW construction industry. Watch our safety video to learn about managing the risks of falls during a solar installation.

Mental health

Mental Health@work – free programs and resources

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