Hartela's Pohjoiskekä school site from Rauma was awarded as the safest construction site in the Satakunta area in 2018. Good safety practices, regulations and instructions alone do not guarantee safety, there is always a person behind everything.
In the photo, from the left, Lauri Piitari, the regional director of Hartela Satakunta, Jani Marjakoski, the site's deputy occupational health and safety representative, and Toni Raita, the responsible foreman of the site.
The responsible foreman of the winning site Toni Raita is satisfied for a reason. The victory in the House Construction Industry occupational safety competition was his third time. In addition to 2018, he has worked on award-winning construction sites in 2015 and 2017.
"Everything starts with a good feeling from working together, to which everyone commits, from management to employees and subcontractors," Toni Raita says when reflecting on the success factors of a safe construction site. "People are slowly starting to understand that work for safety is done so that everyone can get home safely at the end of the working day," he continues.
Our own employees work together with subcontractors
Raita mentions that there are a lot of Hartela's own experienced workers on the construction site, who take care of everyone's common safety with their excellent attitude and example. The subcontractors are also long-term partners and the ways of doing things have been welded together over the years.
Raita is also satisfied with the fact that everyone shares the motivation to keep the construction site clean. The passageways are kept clean and everyone takes care of their own cleaning obligation in an exemplary manner. Help is given and received across contractor boundaries.
Special attention has also been paid to the busy traffic in the construction site area and its immediate vicinity, as various machines are constantly moving in the area.
"Management must have a low threshold to address deficiencies and dangerous situations on the site," says Raita. One of the important factors of the winning site is that the work there is carefully planned and the site is on schedule. In this way, unnecessary haste has been tackled, which often causes dangerous situations on construction sites.
Safety pays off
"We have worked a lot in Hartela Western Finland last year to improve safety. The main theme of our action plan was Safety pays off. We have raised safety as the first point at every event, from management team meetings to weekly meetings on construction sites and staff get-togethers," Raita enumerates.
"Every Hartela Western Finland employee completed an electronic eIntroduction last year, and subcontractors were encouraged to do the same. The people of Hartela also made it their goal to do more safety observations, because they have a direct impact on both occupational safety and profitability. Every day of sick leave or injury avoided, not to mention more serious consequences, is preventable by working safely. Security observation campaigns were also organized in Hartela, and the number of observations made during the year multiplied from the previous year," explains Satakunta's regional director Lauri Piitari measures taken. All safety observations were discussed in the weekly meetings of the construction sites, and compilations of the best observations were made for various events and internal announcements.
At Hartela, occupational safety indicators are monitored at all levels. Regional management participates in the investigation of every work accident; this is one way to involve all levels, from manager to employee.
"Every accident is published internally at the level of the entire group, so that we could prevent a similar accident from happening in the future. Under the leadership of the group's safety manager, extensive, theme-specific safety training was started for several different personnel groups, including, for example, safety management related to element work, fall protection, lifts and scaffolding. Cut protection gloves and safety footwear with ankle support have been introduced at the work sites," Piitari lists.
At Hartela, many different measures have been taken to improve safety, and it has begun to be clearly seen in the daily life of the construction sites in the form of improved working conditions and fewer accidents and absenteeism.
Background of occupational safety competitions
In addition to regional competitions, occupational safety also competes nationally. The "Safety starts with me" competition is open to all building construction companies, including non-member companies of Talonrakennusteollisuus ry. The evaluation criteria in the competition are the general safety level of the construction site evaluated with the TR meter (80%) and the number of work accidents at the competition construction site (20%). In the 2018 national competition, a historic result of one hundred points was achieved for the first time. The victory of the national competition went to Vantaa.
An occupational safety competition between house construction sites has been organized in Satakunta for several years. Last year, the rules of the national competition were used for the first time in the regional competition.
For more information:
- Tuuli Harjunpää, Area of responsibility for occupational health and safety at the Regional Administrative Agency, 029 501 8106
- Kimmo Lang, Building Construction Industry Association, 050 595 6422
- Ismo Mansikka, Rakennusliitto ry, 0500 590 346