Contextualising new safety paradigms: A study in a large Australian construction company

This study explored the presence, implementation, appetite and feasibility of 12 principles representing “new safety paradigms”.

It involved focus groups with 53 participants and a cross-sectional survey of 514 employees.

I’ve skipped HEAPS (actually, the entire results section – so check out the full paper).

Background:

·???????? “The review by Karanikas et al. (2022) revealed that safety interventions did not visibly translate or transform ideas and practices between sources and recipients and did not consider contextual factors systematically and inclusively”

·???????? Focusing on training for instance, “a range of technical, cultural, and political factors can affect its design and delivery safety interventions supported by senior management enjoy higher transformability and translatability, with translations becoming more successful when the corresponding safety interventions receive adequate resourcing and are integrated into existing work practices”

·???????? Based on a recent review of construction research on Safety-I and Safety-II, “(Sarvari et al., 2024) concluded that businesses could achieve positive outcomes by integrating the safety practices these paradigms advocate”

·???????? And these approaches “fosters sustainability and resilience when grounded in continual learning and improvement”

·???????? Some research has focused on Resilient Safety Culture, which integrates psychological, behavioural and managerial elements of resilience, with some work highlighting that this approach can mitigate some of the negative impacts of project complexity

Again, skipped heaps, but the 12 evaluated safety principles are shown below:

Results

Some key findings:

·???????? “Overall, our findings suggest that a one-size-fits-all approach to implementing ‘new’ safety principles could be ineffective, as different business units of the company showed varying levels of interest and perceived presence of these principles”

·???????? “11 out of the 12 safety principles were perceived as useful and feasible for implementation within HB, indicating an open and positive mindset among participants towards unfamiliar safety concepts”

·???????? While some differences between variables were observed, these were so small that they were of “no practical significance”

·???????? “implementing new safety principles requires contextualisation to specific organisational needs and highlight the value of participatory approaches in capturing diverse perspectives”

·???????? These findings support scholarly views, that “focusing on positive outcomes can be a powerful motivator for safe behaviour (Wei & Yazdanifard, 2014) and highlighting the crucial role of effective safety communication (Zara et al., 2023) and the influence of supervisors”

·???????? Expectedly, senior managers may view organisational aspects more negatively to those lower in the hierarchy (communication, leadership and engagement, performance)

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I’ve skipped the study results and focused on the implications section – below are a few points. ?

Participants aligned with the concept of ‘Reasonable safety’ – which is avoiding the quest for ‘safety perfection’, like zero harm. Based on these findings, they observe that since “safety mantras like ‘zero harm’ or ‘safety first’ can be counterproductive to safety efforts and could also impose undue stress on staff and the system”, the fact that participants wanted to avoid safety perfection could be a “positive sign of pragmatic and balanced approaches at [this company]”.

They also state that the findings highlight “the importance of integrating new safety paradigms with existing practices in a way that acknowledges the complex and dynamic nature of construction work”.

Examples include the principles of emerging uncertainty, and compliance exceptions. As such, principles like these emphasise that “safety management practices in the construction industry need to evolve beyond rigid, top-down approaches”.

And instead, companies should leverage more flexible safety systems that “empower workers to adapt to changing conditions while maintaining a strong safety focus”. Examples include regular feedback mechanisms, open communication, and use of targeted training that emphasises decision-making under uncertainty.

The findings also support an expansion of focus from just physical safety to also psychological and emotional-wellbeing, e.g. worker needs and post-event care.

Construction companies should also leverage a focus on cultural factors, which include power distance, individualism vs collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and more. All of these factors can “profoundly impact how safety messages are received and acted upon”.

They also argue that the introduction of new safety paradigms may “face resistance in organisations with deeply entrenched cultural norms”, and particularly from new approaches which challenge the traditional hierarchical logics, or which promote individual empowerment.

They say the principle of ‘compliance exceptions’, might be more accepted in cultures that value flexibility and individual judgement but could be “viewed with scepticism in cultures that prioritise strict adherence to rules”.

Where construction companies want to implement safety principles across culturally diverse workforce – then they need to understand these “cultural nuances, potentially adjusting their communication strategies, training approaches, and implementation”.

Next the paper talks reflects work from Patriarca et al. 2018, who evaluated Resilience Engineering. They found that matters like accountability, ethical considerations and legal aspects of work haven’t received enough attention. Other work highlighted that designers and users of interventions based on the new safety paradigms must also have the necessary knowledge and skill base to “comprehend, critically process and carefully test any‘new’ approach to ensure they do not unwittingly create side and additional risks”.

Other insights from the participants was the view that these “particular safety paradigms and their concepts might not actually be very new”, however, “still the principles we derived functioned well as conversations starters to stimulate focus group participants to share their perspectives and experiences”.

11 of the 12 principles “appealed to the majority of focus groups participants”. The authors recommend some practical steps though for principles which could be enhanced in this organisation.

Ref: Karanikas, N., & Zerguine, H. (2025). Contextualising new safety paradigms: A study in a large Australian construction company.?Safety Science,?185, 106784.