How Can Safety Contribute to Working Conditions in the Construction Industry? A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Studies have demonstrated the critical role that safety plays in preserving favourable working conditions in the construction industry, which is necessary to accomplish goals. The aim of this research was to inform stakeholders in the construction industry in developing nations about the value of safety and possible strategies for influencing their opinions regarding safety protocols. The importance of safety to the construction sector, which is crucial to the advancement of the country, has also been emphasised. However, due to a lack of adequate safety understanding among stakeholders in the construction sector, the construction industry is characterised by a great deal of instability and hazard. To determine what factors affect productive working conditions in construction production, this study examined safety. We studied what is obtainable in developed countries through a literature review and then making recommendations for developing countries. A systematic review approach was used to examine 81 research articles on construction safety that were released between 2004 and 2022. There were not many articles on construction safety before 2004. The person dimension, environmental factors, safety behaviour, organisation features, technology, and safety incentives were the six construction safety categories into which the results of this study were classified from the in-depth review of the health and safety literature. Additionally, these construction safety variables were developed into a conceptualised framework. To solve different construction safety issues related to working conditions in the construction sector, this study adds to the body of knowledge by systematically classifying and defining the often-utilised safety variables. It is now imperative to bring in these dimensions to improve the safe working conditions in the construction industry, particularly in developing countries. By putting these safety factors into practice, the construction industry can reduce safety risks, lower the number of accidents and fatalities, cut expenses related to subpar safety performance, safeguard the reputation of construction companies, boost employee morale and satisfaction with their work, enhance employee retention, reduce absenteeism, and enhance sustainability goals. Furthermore, it is certain that the conceptual framework that has been suggested would be novel and well-liked in developing countries. The conceptual framework was created with this supposition in mind.

1. Introduction

Due to its unique nature, the construction industry is one of the most hazardous sectors in the world. Many hazards, uncertainties, and complexities cause problems in construction projects because accidents regularly occur in these settings [1]. Developing countries are particularly susceptible to construction accidents due to their lack of strict legislation or practices governing construction safety and the lack of awareness of the problem among stakeholders and employees [2]. Any individuals, organisations, or groups with an interest in a construction project are considered stakeholders in the construction industry. These stakeholders have the power to affect or be affected by the choices, actions, and results of the project. Key stakeholders in a project are usually the owners or clients who commission it, the contractors and subcontractors in charge of building it, the architects and engineers who give the technical know-how and design, and the suppliers who supply the supplies and tools [3,4,5]

As stated by [1], accidents in the construction sector can have detrimental effects on employees as well as the broader public. Refs. [1,6] point to several industry-specific factors that may be responsible for the high proportion including the dynamic and constantly changing character of construction sites. According to [1], as a result, it is common to have multiple work teams completing different tasks in the same location on the site, with the teams changing as the project moves along. Therefore, there could be several risks because the employees are not from the same background and are working in different places. To lower the risk of accidents, a construction site with several contractors and subcontractors needs to be well-organised [6]. One major contributing factor can potentially be the limited implementation of safety programs on construction sites. According to [7], improper implementation of safety measures raises the probability of workplace accidents or fatalities. Because there are so many risks at work, some employees, for example, disagree with safety standards because they believe they complicate their lives [8], which increases the number of workplace accidents as a result. The workers’ health and safety are at risk while carrying out many of the duties involved in finishing construction projects [1]. According to [9], they could cause fatalities, chronic disorders, or bodily traumas [10].

A safety program is an integrated collection of rules and actions designed to increase safety [11]. According to the Industrial Accident Prevention Association, a safety program is a methodical set of tasks, practices, and resources intended to guarantee and preserve a safe and healthy workplace [12]. The client, the architect/engineer, the contractor, the construction manager, the subcontractor, and the suppliers make up the construction team, and it is their duty to ensure that each project is completed without any recorded mishaps or casualties [12,13]. As a result, the construction team is responsible for implementing safety programs.

Safety programs are either non-existent or loosely implemented because of poor management and a disdain for safety. Outdated safety rules and regulations that are not followed lead to poor performance [12]. However, after an incident or near-miss, everyone’s attention usually turns to the state of the site because tangible proof of the incident can be easily obtained, and past modifications can be used to stop similar incidents from happening in the future [14,15]. According to [16], 98% of accidents are the result of dangerous behaviour. These discoveries have led many researchers and experts to focus their attention on how to effectively handle safety issues at the construction workplace [16].

The intention of this study was to adopt safety knowledge through the literature from developed countries to make a case for developing countries. To improve working conditions in the construction industry, this research aimed to establish a conceptualised safety framework. This was conducted in an attempt to outline the basic principles required to provide safe working conditions in the industry. The use of this framework is expected to enable the construction industry to fulfil its commitment to Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 9 (SDGs) by delivering safer projects. This approach is a workable solution to the sector’s inherent risk. To guarantee productivity, enhance health and safety, and benefit society, the construction sector in developing nations will greatly benefit from the forthcoming development framework.

2. Methodology

Secondary data were used to develop the research study. For this research study, a systematic review methodology was employed to look through the literature on construction health and safety. The terms “construction industry”, “working condition”, “unsafe environment”, “health”, and “safety” were used to search the ISI Web of Science and Scopus databases for relevant material. These databases were chosen based on the submission by [17], which claims that the ISI Web of Science and Scopus archives are the most popular sources of research articles related to scientific topics. Over three hundred papers were found through the search, which were carefully reviewed to see whether they had anything to do with the main topic of the study. The search was restricted to conference publications, journal articles, a small number of reports, and books. There were not many articles on construction safety before 2004, however, many articles came up on construction health and safety between 2004 and 2022. After restricting the search to publications between 2004 and 2022 because some research papers overlapped, 123 articles met the criteria to be included for this study. A total of 81 published documents were eventually found to be relevant since they addressed working conditions in both the developed and developing construction industries worldwide. For the purposes of this study, “working condition” refers to all of the criteria that have been examined and used to evaluate safety programs on building projects in the construction sector. The goal of this was to identify the critical safety variables that must be present to establish safe working conditions in the construction industry. The safety conceptualised framework is shown in Figure 1. Below are the safety variables from the systematic review findings.

3. Result and Discussion

3.1. Person Dimension

Both [30,31] assert that an employee’s attitude towards safety affects not only whether they will follow formal workplace guidelines and accept and follow instructions, but also whether they will take the initiative to establish informal procedures that accomplish the same objectives when needed. Attitudes are a major factor in determining behaviour, as noted by [32]. Safety-related incidents are not significantly correlated with formal safety procedures such as creating safe working method statements, according to data from Safe Work Australia [33]. This finding lends credence to Dekker’s analysis [34], which concluded that the desire to move away from formal administrative systems-based approaches to safety is crucial and depends on attitude.

Traditionally, the method of determining occupational health and safety (OHS) susceptibility has involved identifying sociodemographic characteristics or groups specific to a sector or occupation where work-related injuries are more common [35,36,37]. However, it is becoming more frequently accepted that this approach fails to consider how susceptibility changes over time or how variable circumstances can either increase or decrease the likelihood of a work accident [38,39]. According to the Expert Advisory Panel [40], a more current definition of vulnerable workers in the context of OHS are those who are more exposed than most workers to situations that could be harmful to their health or safety, but do not have the authority to change such circumstances. To provide more clarification, recent efforts have defined OHS susceptibility as situations in which employees face risks but have insufficient protection against those risks. These protections could be OHS regulations and procedures, the awareness of OHS rights and responsibilities, or a work environment that encourages employee participation in safety [38]. In addition to the previously listed dangers and safeguards, a worker’s risk of injury may also be influenced by the direct supervisor’s safety procedures. Supervisors have a big impact on how employees behave with respect to safety because of their constant presence and close contact with them [41,42,43].

According to [44] (p. 349), safety compliance refers to “the core procedures that individuals need to carry through to maintain workplace safety” and is correlated with task performance. These actions include things like wearing personal protection equipment and abiding with safety regulations. “Behaviours that do not directly contribute to an individual’s personal safety but that do help to develop an environment that supports safety” [44] (p. 349) are referred to as safety participation, which is contextual performance. These behaviours include things like taking the initiative, helping colleagues who are having safety-related issues, and participating in voluntary programs to improve workplace safety. When it comes to safety management in high-risk enterprises, which are characterised by highly unpredictable unfavourable occurrences, both employee compliance and involvement behaviour are critical [45].

It is challenging to strike an appropriate balance between productivity and safety; thus, management usually pushes construction workers to complete their work within an aggressive time in most projects when the actual progress deviates from the baseline schedule. Then, to increase productivity and maintain the planned timetable, production pressures are established [46]. Additionally, these pressures cause workers in the construction industry to focus more on productivity than other project goals, which negatively affects the construction performance, especially regarding safety and quality performance on job sites [47,48]. Because accidents are more frequent when productivity and safety are out of balance, it undermines worker safety. Accidents can reduce worker motivation and slow down productivity, which can affect the success of a project [48].

According to [49], apprentices participate in both classroom and “on-the-job” learning. This includes receiving instruction in the classroom on technical safety elements. When classroom safety teaching does not necessarily translate into workplace application of what has been learned, a gap between idealised safety and workplace practice may occur [50]. The gap between work as intended and work as done is a well-known issue in numerous organisations. On the other hand, apprentices who are still learning about standard operating procedures are likely to find the contrast between idealised and real safety behaviour especially noticeable. Improving the safety and well-being of workers is a primary objective of the person dimension complicated role in preserving safe working conditions for individuals in the construction industry [51].

In conclusion, the person dimension construct provides a thorough understanding of how individual traits and experiences affect safe working conditions in the construction industry. This is because it considers factors like age, marital status, educational attainment, working experience, work-related pressure, workmate safety behaviour, prior exposure to occupational safety health accidents, awareness of safety, and safety attitude.

3.2. Environmental Factors

The risk of construction workers can be reduced, and their safety-related behaviours may be influenced by the planned and organised site layout [52]. Experts agree that well-designed spaces are more likely to improve safety practices by reducing the causes of on-site accidents. For example, locking equipment or limiting access to specific locations can help prevent accidents on the job site. Additionally, labour camps can be thoughtfully planned and erected to lower the risk to workers on site [53].

To provide an atmosphere free from accidents, the construction site must be clean and orderly [52]. Even in quality standards, the importance of a clean site is emphasised. For instance, according to the Architectural Services Department of Hong Kong’s 2012 specification for buildings, cleanliness on site is considered essential in the British Standards’ General specification for buildings. It states that the area needs to be kept tidy and clean, that plants and materials need to be stored correctly, and that dirt and garbage need to be removed as they accumulate. Experts stressed the importance of neat and clean settings for improving safety behaviours. Improving the working conditions is essential to lowering the risk of deaths in the physical environment [53].

To monitor employee behaviour regarding safety, OSH monitoring systems and feedback mechanisms need to be in place. Employees naturally follow these systems if they are well-designed to catch every error and correct it [54]. Although organisations now have this technology, experts have stressed that the problem lies in the continuous monitoring. They felt that any good system may eventually fail without continuous monitoring. Additionally, the monitoring procedure will make the workers feel watched over, and it will undoubtedly affect their safety behaviours. Experts also noted that without adequate system monitoring, the workers could fail to take the system seriously [53].

Senior managers from the owner regularly gather on-site to discuss managerial innovations and safety issues. The onsite meetings are attended by personnel from all safety management positions. When a typical safety event occurs, the owner’s senior management immediately gathers the main project managers on the site and sets up seminars to discuss the causes of the incident and its deeper organisational roots. Each participant is expected to explain the lessons they learned during the meeting. Senior leaders frequently assert that accidents of this nature “could also occur on your site someday at this time” [55] (p. 1670).

Pre-accident safety supervision data, generated by project management teams or government agencies, can serve as a substitute for ex-post-accident reports in the context of construction sites. These real-world safety monitoring statistics provide a comprehensive picture of the circumstances at the construction site within the relevant time frame [56], which is helpful for decision-making in risk management. As the third accident-causing element in Heinrich’s [57,58] domino model, pre-accident safety supervision data concentrate on capturing those low-severity yet high-frequency signals of unsafe acts and conditions in detail, in contrast to ex-post-accident or injury reports.

3.3. Safety Behaviour

The crucial function of procedures is demonstrated by the fact that noncompliance with procedures is regularly identified as one of the primary causes of accidents. Scholars and practitioners alike have a particular interest in understanding employee compliance behaviour [59]. Compliance with procedures was conceptualised by [44] as a fundamental safety behaviour. Based on this conception of safety compliance, several follow-up research studies have been carried out to comprehend the organisational and human elements that enable this behaviour [60,61,62,63,64]. Researchers are aware that processes have limitations on their own, even though the significance of procedural compliance is well-recognised. Ref. [65] summed up procedures as being difficult to understand and follow, taking a long time to finish, and possibly inappropriate to utilise when conditions at work are different from what was expected. Process management, according to [66], ought to be a continuous and developing process that involves the adoption, monitoring, evaluation, and modification of procedures. This action is taken with an awareness of the limits inherent in the processes. Their process management approach states that worker efforts to apply procedures in the task environment are essential for safe operations. Employees can help to track and enhance the performance of procedures by speaking up about their experiences utilising them. Employees are also thought to possess significant expertise and information.

It is possible to create behavioural observation checklists for safe and risky behaviours using incident reports, risk assessment documentation, standard operating procedures, and group discussions that are readily available. Then, to obtain the base-period safety scores, trained observers would periodically measure the safe and dangerous actions. Construction machinery and systems should be adjusted as needed based on these ratings, the site environment, or other conditions. The workforce must be made aware of the metrics being used, and goal-setting meetings must be scheduled so that they may help create attainable safety performance goals. For a predetermined length of time, behavioural safety performance is measured, and behavioural safety checklists are routinely reviewed and revised [67].

A lacklustre safety culture has been found to be one of the major causes of many accidents and fatalities in the international construction industry [68]. The bulk of these accidents are the result of employee safety culture, as migrant workers comprise 95% of the workforce in the construction industry. Therefore, until safety culture is taken into consideration as a primary topic, making any measures to decrease or eliminate the accident history will not be beneficial [69]. As a result, a great deal of study has produced models for this goal, and a great place to start is with safety culture evaluation. The “reciprocal safety culture model” [68,70] is one of these methods that focuses mostly on behaviour (safety behaviour), the environment or circumstance (safety management system), and the individual (safety climate).

Safe behaviours can be enhanced by the implementation of initiatives such as warning indicators, training, and spoken instructions. However, employees will surely take short cuts, maybe violate safety rules, forget to wear personal protective equipment, and operate in a dangerous manner if they are convinced that the work is easier and can be finished quickly in exchange for a financial incentive. Maintaining their employees’ health at work is one of the long-term goals, as it allows them to continue to make money for their families and the company. Regarding management involvement, developing a strong safety culture is a major responsibility of management. The best methods to show these are to set aside money, set aside time, set an example, complete the tasks at hand, conduct inspections, include staff members in management meetings, take part in risk assessments, and hold committee consultation sessions. A strong safety culture requires the active participation, ownership, and commitment of employees; employee empowerment promotes feelings of value, self-worth, and belonging. Workers should take part in noise-related training, consultations about sound barriers, job rotation, personal protective equipment (PPE), and donning different earmuffs [67]. Although [71] distinguished between worker behaviours and management attitudes, they contend that to be useful in assessing and classifying safety culture, worker activities and management activities should be seen as separate but related phenomena.

Operating safety committees are more likely to attempt to improve safety outcomes than non-operational safety committee organisations, according to the hypothesis put forth by [67], given the important role that safety committees play in safety performance. As a result, the construction company should set up a safety production committee before proactive behaviour-based safety (PBBS) interventions to develop policies for sustaining the organisation’s overall safety. Subcontractors, safety managers, and foremen should be part of the safety production committee. The authority to act as safety officers should extend to representative subcontractors and safety managers. Foremen ought to have the same authority to act as safety supervisors, and all committee members must first undergo rigorous safety training before being accepted as well-versed safety representatives [72]. In the construction industry, the relationship between the person dimension and safety behaviour is crucial since the person dimension including knowledge, attitudes, abilities, and personal beliefs has a direct impact on how employees see and implement safe work procedures. On the other hand, a lack of knowledge about safety or unfavourable attitudes towards it might raise the possibility of mishaps and dangerous behaviour on construction sites.

3.4. Organisation Features

OHSAS 18001:2007—Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems states that an organisation must have both an effective training program and an introduction to safety policy [73]. Programs for worker training and awareness have been identified by experts as being crucial as they make clear the importance of workplace safety and serve as a guide for appropriate and safe behaviour. A successful safety program can be achieved if every worker has regular access to opportunities for education and training to increase their knowledge and proficiency on workplace safety [74,75,76].

A key element of measurement and evaluation that demonstrates the efficacy of current systems or initiatives is site safety inspection, as described by [77]. Despite the significance of site safety inspection systems, very few studies have looked at them in depth. As per [78], inspectors in numerous site safety inspections use paper and a pen to record the inspections. The traditional paper-based inspection method makes it difficult to maintain and evaluate inspection results. It also requires extra work to input the handwritten observations through a computer system, which is error-prone and time-consuming. A good safety policy requires employers to provide employees with adequate supervision to shield them from hazards at work. For supervision to be successful, qualified individuals must assign tasks based on the employees’ abilities, assess employees when they carry out their jobs safely, communicate with one another by engaging in conversation and listening, set a good example by following the same safety regulations, and take care of any new safety concerns [75].

Workers are known to cooperate with OSH frameworks within an organisational setting when given tangible rewards for following OSH norms and procedures. Ref. [52] argued that, despite OSH, experts generally concurred that rewards had historically been a powerful worker motivator. An employer encourages a worker to perform safely at work by providing an OSH incentive. Experts claim that it is a real reward for the employee. As a result, OSH incentives have a significant impact on site safety behaviours [79].

If a company wants to encourage safe work practices among its employees, management commitment to safety is essential [67]. According to [79], current OSH management techniques include overseeing the employees’ safe and healthy behaviour as well as a centralised OSH management unit, resources, insurance policies, OSH paperwork, and an OSH committee. Experts assert that if senior management has an apathetic attitude towards safety, there is less that can be anticipated of the employees in terms of safety.

To improve safety behaviour, it is necessary to provide and employ the appropriate tools for the work as well as protective clothes and gear [68]. According to experts, it is the responsibility of the employers to give employees those items because they help them execute their jobs securely. Experts, however, have stated that even though they give their employees the required PPEs, they do not use them, except when they are being constantly watched. Organisations must frequently compel employees to use PPE while they are at work [53]. To maintain safe working conditions, it is imperative to understand the relationship between organisational features and environmental factors in the construction sector. Interactions exist between organisational aspects like safety regulations, leadership dedication, and training programs and environmental factors including site architecture, weather, and resources. By putting strong safety procedures in place and making sure that employees are competent and prepared to handle the unique demands of a construction site environment, a well-run organisation that places a high priority on safety may successfully reduce the environmental risks.

3.5. Technology

Given the degree of industry fragmentation that exists today and the variety of construction methods and approaches that are employed by organisations involved in the construction sector, it is imperative to ascertain the adoption of technology forecasts and assess their importance in influencing the embrace of safety technology in construction [80]. In the construction industry, the location of resources that are vital to the project—such as labour, machinery, and supplies—is crucial. Understanding and evaluating the precise positions of construction resources as well as identifying and monitoring the status of work tasks improve the project’s performance (safety). To capture 3D/4D (spatio-temporal) data, many real-time sensing technologies including GPS (global positioning system), UWB (ultra-wideband), and vision tracking can be used. However, data are dispersed over numerous systems, several of which are disconnected from one another, in most construction-related jobs. Data fusion and consolidation are difficult because of the high degree of variation in sensor technology options. Using a protocol that can be implemented to any sort of data stream is one way. There is also the option of forcing data that form a consistent data pattern, even if it originates from different sources, like databases [81]. For data collection, a single instantaneous data source from a single tracking technology was employed. The movement of the building process resources could have been tracked using any of the tracking technologies, which may have also been more affordable for an outside construction site implementation. However, the preferred technology was ultra-wideband, which can track people, tools, and materials at the same time and provide frequent updates [82].

In most modern on-site safety inspections, engineers make handwritten notes on the hazards they observe, which are subsequently input into a computer system to generate a safety report. Nevertheless, this method of manual data transmission is error-prone and time-consuming. Advances in image caption algorithms enable us to provide semantic image captions that enable autonomous hazard description [83,84]. Instead of having to walk the site to look for potential risks, this strategy can allow site managers to automatically prepare risk reports.

Producing safety reports from photos automatically, design-phase digital methods to construction safety are less developed than construction-phase ones. The range of digital tools utilised for safety during construction is much greater than the number of technologies available to designers to help them achieve construction safety during the design process. Significant advancements have been made in the design of a safety process tool that addresses technical problems throughout the building phase and in the knowledge-based design decision toolkit. Additionally, rule-checking methodologies using building information modelling (BIM) have been used to enhance construction safety by layout [85]. Building maintenance personnel can evaluate the danger of falling from a roof while carrying out preventive maintenance by using the web-based ToolSHeD [86] decision support tool. The core aim of ToolSHeD is to use knowledge-based techniques to examine the maintenance dangers of complex building settings.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), sensors, virtual reality, building information modelling (BIM), and other technologies have all been proposed as emerging technologies for safe construction. Their advantages have been investigated for applications such as real-time monitoring, early warning, and quick rescue from hazards [87,88]. Although multiple new technologies are being used for construction safety management to reduce the accident rates, it is difficult to achieve the high safety requirements required using only one technology. One creative new approach for those trying to solve these unsolvable problems is the application of Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology into the construction management process [89]. As safety event warnings are supported by BIM technology [90], IoT also makes it possible to deploy a variety of sensors to monitor dangerous conditions at building sites [91]. IoT may therefore connect many technological functions to satisfy the demands of the construction procedure for safety core technologies.

Context information can help a system to respond to emergencies to determine what action to take based on its ability to assess the current state of the environment [92]. This definition of “context” includes any data that can be used to characterise an individual’s circumstances, the state of a spot in an enclosed space (e.g., fire extinguishers, stairs, etc.), or the state of a physical or computational item. According to [92], an emergency response plan must have the capacity to monitor and compile user-provided information properly. Rapid identification and prompt notification are essential components of an emergency; hence, mobile cloud computing (MCC) networking concerns are significant and must be met to guarantee uninterrupted connectivity [93]. However, setting realistic reliability targets for subsystems or components, which are frequently developed by many suppliers or groups of designers at separate locations, is a crucial and significant step in the product development process known as reliability allocation. Because of this, it is critical to convey the reasonable reliability standards that every design team must meet and prove throughout the product development cycle. Furthermore, reliability allocation techniques must be used to rank the improvement possibilities according to their actual potential for reliability enhancement, in addition to establishing reliability targets [94]. When responding to an emergency, active user participation, such as pushing switches on wearable alarm devices or smartphone apps or sharing emergency information with other users, is crucial to spotting perilous circumstances and facilitating rescue efforts. Furthermore, there may be scalability issues because of the increasing number of connected devices such as providing services to a sizable number of dynamically added and registered devices and facilitating communication.

3.6. Incentives

Nowadays, many companies globally use monetary incentives in the form of bonus systems to motivate workers to improve their performance [95]. With the rise in workplace accidents, one of the biggest concerns among companies these days is employee safety. Safety-promoting organisational practices are critical for all organisations, but they are especially important for those that face higher risks. As a result, many high-risk firms implement bonus programs that are largely focused on enhancing employee performance in safety-related areas to achieve safety. Nearly all firms compensate their employees for the work they produce, but there are significant variations in how closely the pay structure is tied to productivity. The premise that employees should be encouraged to work better because they understand the link between job performance and compensation is the foundation for the use by many firms of various sorts of performance-related pay schemes. However, the design of such structures can vary depending on who is involved (and at what levels), how success is assessed, and which incentives are utilised (cash, shares, etc.). The sort of performance-related compensation system is denoted by a variety of names, although the differences are not always obvious. Bonus systems are sometimes described as having an agreed-upon weekly or monthly salary for employees as well as performance-based bonuses. Productivity measures may be based on an individual’s performance, the performance of a group (such as a team or department), or the performance of the entire organisation [96].

Goals are the intended outcome of an action such as achieving a particular competence level within a specific time frame [97]. High objectives encourage people to perform better through four factors, based on goal-setting theory [97]. First, setting high goals helps one focus on tasks that are relevant to the goal and directs attention there. Second, people are motivated by high goals to exert more effort, which results in increases in output, pace of performance, and direct physical effort. Third, setting high goals fosters perseverance. Fourth, setting high goals encourages the acquisition of task-relevant information and the application of task-relevant techniques to improve performance. According to goal-setting research, there is a positive linear link between the complexity of the objective and task performance if a person has the necessary levels of drive, commitment, and aptitude [98]. This association between objective difficulty and performance does not begin to wane until a person reaches the boundaries of their capacity or their commitment to the goal is lessened [97].

Rewards for meeting deadlines, bonus plans for all work groups, performance-based incentives, recognition for excellent work and goal achievement, health and safety awards and incentives for no delays or incidents, and health and safety competitions to promote safe and healthy competition among trades are just a few incentive programs that can boost output and morale [99]. According to [100], enhanced labour relations are positively correlated with improved job performance, and optimal labour management can further increase job satisfaction and productivity.

4. Implication of the Study

Construction work is high-risk, so it is imperative to provide safe working conditions by focusing on personal traits such as abilities, background, consciousness, and state of health. In order to reduce human error and improve safety compliance, we highlight the significance of employing qualified personnel, offering sufficient training, and taking into account the physical and mental health of employees. The physical aspects of the workplace, such as the weather, noise level, illumination, and available space, are included in the environmental factors. By taking these considerations into account, site layout and processes may be designed to minimise hazards and lower the likelihood of accidents and injuries. Safety-related actions entail encouraging employees to adopt attitudes and behaviours that prioritise safety. This could be achieved by holding safety drills, ongoing education, and encouraging a culture that places a high value on safety. It guarantees that employees follow safety procedures on a regular basis, which minimises risky behaviours. Organisational features include the rules, management styles, and styles of leadership that exist within the organisation. Clear safety regulations, credibility, and leadership that puts employee welfare first all contribute to the development of a good safety culture. Proactively addressing safety concerns also requires supporting management structures and efficient routes of communication. Modern technologies can greatly improve safety by lowering human vulnerability to hazardous circumstances, strengthening site surveillance, and simplifying real-time safety management. Examples of these technologies include automated machinery, wearable safety gadgets, and drones for site inspection. Employees are encouraged to follow safe practices when incentives are offered such as bonuses for following safety procedures or prizes for days without an accident. This produces a feedback loop that is positive in nature, promoting constant safety behaviour enhancement among employees.

When these constructs are combined, a comprehensive safety framework is produced that covers a range of issues related to workplace safety including organisational support, individual accountability, and technological developments. As a result, the workplace is safer because of its proactive risk identification and mitigation capabilities. The construction industry may improve project outcomes and safeguard workers by concentrating on these constructs, which will lead to safer and more efficient working environments. Thus, as Figure 1 illustrates, the construction industry in developing nations will benefit greatly from the development of effective safety models for working conditions, as these models will help to address and improve working conditions in the industry. The goal of this research is to develop a conceptual safety model that is focused on the working conditions in the construction industry.

5. Conclusions and Recommendations

This article offers a review of the literature regarding the health and safety measures used in the construction industry to improve working conditions that are safe. Construction safety has been improved by the application of numerous safety variables including person dimension, environmental factors, safety behaviour, organisational features, technology, and safety incentives. The ability to identify and mitigate safety risks and hazards on construction sites can be significantly enhanced by the potential integration of these variables. The objectives of this research were to define, classify, and establish a conceptual framework for the safety variables utilised in the construction industry. This was done to address many difficulties with working conditions in the construction industry that were relevant to construction safety. To ensure a safe working environment in the construction sector, it is imperative to integrate these constructs. In order to promote a culture where safety is a shared responsibility, workers must be competent, well-trained, and health conscious. To guarantee that safety is given top priority throughout the organisation, it is imperative to have well-defined safety policies, robust leadership, and proactive worker involvement. Introducing safety incentives can encourage employees to uphold strict safety standards. Utilising technology, such as digital safety management tools, real-time monitoring systems, and improved personal protective equipment, also improves overall safety by lowering risks and guaranteeing that safety precautions are taken on a regular basis. Construction sites can establish a comprehensive and successful approach to safety by harmonising these constructs, reducing the likelihood of accidents and fostering a secure working condition in the industry.

If adopted based on geographic location within developing nations, based on project size: small or large projects, based on construction type: residential construction, commercial and industrial construction; the findings of this can assist in reducing worker safety risks, decreasing accidents and fatalities, saving money associated with poor safety performance, protecting the organisation’s reputation, boosting employee morale and job satisfaction, enhancing employee retention, decreasing absenteeism, and furthering sustainability objectives.

While this study greatly advances our understanding of safety and working conditions, caution must be exercised in extending its findings as its data were only obtained from the ISI Web of Science and Scopus databases. Even if it is believed that there might be a lot of overlap between databases, more research using different databases, or a combination of them, could be conducted to compare findings and gain a deeper comprehension of the topic under study. Obtaining more samples than could be practical for the current investigation will help achieve this.