Project status: Active

Supporting the work health and safety of the businesses that support our economy: the small construction businesses.

In NSW, the highest number of small business (5-19 employees) are in construction and about 97% of all construction businesses are small construction business. It is particularly concerning that small construction businesses, have one of the worst WHS outcomes in the country (ABS, 2013).

Small businesses are struggling to effectively implement WHS best practices due to lack of resources. It is crucial to provide these businesses with support to improve their capabilities and improve WHS.

Developing a health and safety maturity framework

Through this study we will develop a health and safety maturity framework that will allow small construction businesses to identify the status of their current WHS practices and help improving their capabilities with the available resources.

We have partnered with the University of Newcastle to develop a novel health and safety maturity framework through:

• Understanding the key barriers to existing interventions through semi-structured interviews with small and micro businesses in construction.
• Conducting focus groups and gathering expert opinions to identify emerging themes.
• Creating innovative strategies and collecting feedback from businesses through surveys.
• And finally testing the health and safety maturity framework with small businesses through a pilot study to refine it further.

If you would like to be a part of the study or like to test out the intervention, get in touch with us.

Want to know more?

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