Complaining about occupational safety and health: a barrier for collaboration between managers and workers on construction sites

This explored how complaining about OHS affected collective OHS action and the quality of manager-worker relations. Specifically: how complaining downplayed or built social boundaries between workers and managers.

The study was based on a Danish construction project.

It’s argued that complaining may be an important social activity to build shared ground for collective action and collaboration amongst groups. It also provides an important coping mechanism for individuals and groups and on the latter useful for creating and sustaining a sense of community and team engagement.

Results:

Found was that both groups (managers vs workers) used complaining to downplay differences within their respective occupational group and thus improving intra-group collaboration (eg, complaining strengthened the hierarchical boundaries of managers as a distinct group, and similarly for workers).

Workers were more likely to try to break down the boundaries towards managers whereas managers were more likely to build and maintain their boundaries. Thus, they “demonstrate that complaining is an important social activity on construction sites” (p3).

At the same time, this dynamic also reinforced an “oppositional relationship” between the groups: us vs them. Managers characterised workers as lazy and “depersonalised them as “arms and legs”, who could not “be trusted” (p6) and distanced themselves from OHS-related work which they saw not as a management activity. Workers in contrast characterised management as incompetent, unable to manage a project and as hiding behind their desks instead of being outside.

This oppositional relationship was said to cultivate “a tighter affinity within the participants’ respective group than between these two groups” (p6).

A typology of four complaining mechanisms were proposed by the authors:

1. Shifting responsibility for advancing OSH

Complaining served as a way to shift responsibility of OHS onto the other group. Workers frequently complained about dangerous or challenging work conditions and intense complaining directed towards site management where they disagreed on how best to address OHS.

It’s said that complaining reveals a physical and social demarcation between the groups, for instance workers are the ones doing heavy labour and at risk of injury, whereas it’s management that have the capacity to actually change the workspace to address these risks. Thus, it’s said that workers’ “hierarchical position and their power demarcate them from that of managers” (p7).

Similarly, managers complained of the tensions that they have to manage including complex and uncertain working conditions, tight budgets, business contracts and more. Managers blamed tight schedules and high staff turnover on the workforce and said that they didn’t get the chance to bond with workers to create a sense of “we-ness”.

In a specific boundary effect between groups, it was discussed that managers sending emails to workers didn’t satisfy the workers’ need for information – of whom preferred verbal comms in the field; managers preferred emails to negotiate demands.

2. Defending oneself against strained working conditions

Complaining also worked as a mechanism to distance oneself from troubling situations via expressing anxiety and stress. Both groups reported facing physically and psychologically stressful working conditions from heavy workloads and organisational demands.

Workers aligned themselves about their pressures from uncertainty and low control how to decide how to accomplish and plan work. This strengthened their group cohesion. Use of language like we (workers) and they (management) were used.

Regarding collaboration between the groups, a weekly coordination meeting aimed to enhance upcoming work and reduce uncertainty was seen by workers as a waste of time and as “an attempt to diminish workers’ control over work” (p7). Workers used complaining to breakdown the hierarchical boundaries, increasing their ability to negotiate within the management domain.

3. Dealing strategically with criticism

Here complaining is a mechanism to allow managers and workers to “strategically brush off external allegations” “(p10). Complaining was used as a way for managers to brushoff and disassociate themselves from unpopular decisions which may have influenced site safety conditions. For instance, complaining was used to justify the site’s accident statistics as factors relating to tight scheduling, being busy and worker behaviour rather than their own decisions.

Complaining was also used “to cope with self-criticism, as managers repeatedly told us about their difficulties in prioritising work tasks, particularly when they had to fulfil several demands” (p10).

In one example a manager described how his ability to enforce safety rules, like not wearing a hard hat, was diminished by tight time schedules. Conflict here was between his professionalism of being a good manager adhering to project schedules versus his professional understanding of what being a good manager is, eg looking after workers. Thus, complaining here was used to safeguard one’s own professional standard and brush off self-criticism where they knew it was wrong to let people work without PPE or as the author’s also said, it provided an “escape route” to lift the burden.

4. Blaming other occupational groups

Complaining was also used as a way to “nurture the blaming of the other occupational group” (p10).

As a disparity in power, workers emphasised their practical expertise to execute work on site whereas managers voiced having legal knowledge and administrative tasks in the office. Again the barriers in communication—email vs verbal—was highlighted.

Here, raising OHS issues was seen to be a strategic/political mechanism amongst managers. That is, managers blamed workers for “misusing OSH issues when they were unable to finish the job in time” (p11).

Managers in discussing this point quickly acknowledged and reinforced each other’s views about experiencing this phenomenon. As before, complaining here and seeing raised OHS issues as a strategic tool of workers served as a safeguard to protect their boundaries as managers, downplaying the role of real OHS issues and instead focusing on workers using OHS as an excuse for being behind schedule.

In this discussion, the only exception was the safety manager – who didn’t agree with this and instead reminded the other managers of their responsibility for managing schedule and safety.

For workers, they maintained that the weekly scheduling meeting from management was useless and believed that management used photos of near misses to criticise workers’ work performance.

In discussing the findings, the authors say that their findings about complaining “paradoxically achieves both collaboration and demarcation, as complaining designed to change working conditions in fact reinforces current conditions, with negative implications for cross-boundary collaborative safety practices” (p12).

Complaining does allow groups to release frustration but also increases tensions in other ways. For managers, it often led to more boundary creation and sustaining (which maintains a distinction between the groups and maintains the power imbalance) whereas workers were more likely to try to break down boundaries.

It’s argued that creating boundaries may “[shield] the group of workers from potentially important safety information regarding potential hazards … that are known outside their group” (p12). Moreover, it’s said that the strong power imbalance between groups and perceived boundaries can’t be managed through complaining. Complaining within manager groups may hamper worker participation and drive down trust and motivation.

For workers and managers, complaining may be a type of “safe space” where boundaries can be negotiated and reinforced. Workers may assert their social value and sense of professionalism by complaining about OHS, which being a safe space, becomes a safe vehicle for issues relating to precarious employment conditions or low control of work (the latter of which without being connected to safety may impact their jobs).

For moving forward, it’s suggested that transformational leadership behaviour may help to break down some existing boundaries among other ideas.

Link in comments.

Authors: Katharina N. Jeschke, Susanne Boch Waldorff, Johnny Dyreborg, Pete Kines & Jeppe Z. N. Ajslev (2021), Construction Management and Economics