Benchmarking and advancing construction safety: An owner's perspective

Historically, owners have taken a "hands-off" approach when it comes to contractor safety, mainly due to the liability associated with the injury of construction workers. Today, with the lawsuits arising from construction accidents, owners could be held liable for the damages. Literature shows that involvement of owners in selecting, monitoring, and mentoring safe contractors significantly reduce recordable incidents on projects. This paper presents a research effort on benchmarking and advancing construction safety for The Pennsylvania State University's Office of Physical Plant. The goal of this study is to pilot the ability to profile the level of involvement of owners in project safety. The research effort involves two major activities: (1) benchmarking safety standards and practices for owners by an in-depth review of published literature on owner involvement in construction safety and review of safety programs of similar owners, and (2) profiling Penn State's safety practices, using documents from two case study projects. The outcomes demonstrate the ability to leverage the benchmarked safety approaches to inform current owner safety practices and suggest several opportunities to improve.