Safety Tips

You can never be too safe when it comes to working on a construction site. No matter how big or small the site is, you need to make sure that you keep to the health and safety regulations.

First things first, you need to make sure that before you even start work on the construction site, the manager of the site does an induction and goes over all the safety tips. Those that are general to all construction sites and the ones specific to what is going on.

Clothing

When on a construction site you are only allowed to wear certain suitable clothing. This means you need to ensure that all your clothes and shoes are appropriate.

1. Steel toe boots. You need to make sure that you have steel toe boots on at all time in an around a construction site. Wearing these means that if the unfortunate situation happens and something is dropped, you will not break your foot.
2. High Viz Clothing. To ensure that other people working on the construction site, you need to ensure that you have on a high viz jacket at least. You can get these jackets, vests, and trousers from many different stores, and may be supplied by the company.
3. Hard hat. Your head is one of the most important parts to keep safe on a construction site, as any sort of mishap, and someone could end up injured or even worse. I admit they can be annoying to wear and can sometimes be uncomfortable, but when you are working with a roof above you or scaffolding, it is pertinent that you stay safe. Everyone from the person mixing the cement to the contractor, everyone needs to wear one.
4. Safety Gloves. Most construction sites work with all different sorts of materials that can cause harm to the workers, so when on a construction site, as well as wearing all of the other things I have mentioned, it is important to keep your hands safe by wearing industrial gloves. So get yourself a pair of thick, heavy duty gloves.
5. Goggles. Making sure that you protect your eyes at all times is something that cannot be stressed enough. Weather you wear glasses, googles, it does not matter as long as your eyes are protected. Especially when working with products that create sparks or anything that could go flying.

Site

1. Tidy. When creating a safe working environment you want to keep it as secure and tidy as possible. So this means, no wires lying around that people could trip up on. No beams, poles or metal lying around, and make sure there is a general clean up as you go along.
2. Safety. Do not put yourself or anyone else at risk when on site, as this can result in injury or even worse. Create yourself and others a serious and healthy environment so that no one is put at risk at any point.
3. Communicate. Considering you are spending all day with other people you will surely communicate with them. Just make sure you also communicate about the things that are going on around you so that everyone is on the same page. You need to make sure that you and others talk about the different things that are happening on site.
4. Signs. Plaster the entire site in all of the essential posters and warnings that may occur during the work. Ensure that yourself and others have read all the essential posters and are one hundred percent aware of all the hazards and risks.

Equipment

1. Knowledge. I cannot stress enough that when using equipment on site, it is so important that the person using the equipment has had training on the machine and knows exactly what they are doing.
2. Clean. Make sure at the end of every day someone cleans the equipment used. As keeping it all clean ensures a longer life for the equipment, and will create better production.
3. Warnings. Understand all the warnings that come with the equipment and all the hazards too. It would be ideal to do an induction on all the equipment beforehand. Just to go over all the hazards of the equipment.
4. Certificates. Before even starting to use any of the equipment at all, make sure that they have all gone through the correct procedures and whatever needs certificates, they have them, and you have them on site or in office.
5. Report. If there is anything that has gone wrong with the equipment, make sure that you have told the necessary people, and they know exactly what is going on, what has gone down and what needs to be done to get it up and running again.

Lastly, when in doubt, just ask. There is no shame in you asking for help or tips, as it means the job will get done properly.