DEVELOPMENT OF METRICS TO EVALUATE DISABILITY MANAGEMENT AND SAFETY PERFORMANCE IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

摘要

The risk of a major injury or fatality in the construction industry is two and a half times and five times higher respectively than that in the manufacturing industry. The resulting costs of injuries and fatalities in the form of productivity losses, workers' compensation insurance and other direct and indirect costs affect the profitability of construction organizations. This reinforces the need for effective health and safety disability management (DM) and the need to quantify safety and disability management performance. A research study has been initiated by the University of Manitoba Construction Engineering and Management Group and funded by the Workers' Compensation Board of Manitoba (WCB) for that purpose. The study aims more specifically to evaluate DM in the construction industry and its relation to safety performance using leading and lagging indicators of performance. This paper reports on the methodology used to measure safety and DM performance using lagging performance indicators or metrics. The research entailed reviewing the literature to identify the most important metrics used to evaluate safety and DM performance in construction and collecting those for ten Manitoban construction companies with the help of these companies, the Construction Safety Association of Manitoba and SAFE Manitoba. The indicator developed include communication practices, case management practices, return to work practices, claims management, disability and injury prevention practices, transition program practices, physical accessibility practices, senior management support, program evaluation practices, regulatory and compliance polices, retention polices and ergonomic practices. The resulting data will be analyzed and correlated with the data derived from the use of a maturity model developed to evaluate these organizations' DM performance using leading indicators of performance. This research makes the case for the need to better integrate disabled workers in the construction workplace to improve the safety of the overall organization. It also aims to justify further investments in DM to ensure related practices effectively accommodate disabled workers on site and in the field.