Both in Finland and Russia, in construction industry, the frequency of working accidents is considerably higher than in other fields of industry or other working environments. Even though work safety in construction has been under development, and standardized and mandatory training actions are implemented in both countries, the number of accidents, of different degrees of seriousness, is still high.
Staff training is used to decrease the accident risks, but the personal and cultural factors have relevance and are associated with dangerous behavior on work sites. Also, the share of foreign labor is increasing on construction sites, and this challenges cultural assumptions and communication skills of the managers in charge.
The various training available is carried out in the same format for all workers. However, there are several situational factors that affect the efficiency of the training and the implementation of the work safety regulations and practices, for example:
Based on these recognized challenges, the specific objective of this project is to improve work safety competence in construction industry in the cross-border area. This will increase the productivity of the industry, as well as reduce social costs and human suffering by:
All steps and actions that reduce accident frequency, the harm level caused by the accidents, or the number of touch and go -cases, have a positive influence on the productivity, public image of the industry, societal costs and the level of human suffering.
The main influence of the project actions will be a permanent, widely usable training environment and new interactive training models for work safety training for different target groups in the cross-border-area.
The closest ones now are located in Espoo and Oulu, but they are lacking the individual and cultural approach in the training models, that will be implemented in the new one. The other main outputs of the project are the competence guidelines for top management and the cultural-sensitive monitoring methodology for work safety competence evaluation that will support companies, vocational and higher educational institutions for developing their work safety practices on a modern, new level.
This individual and cultural-oriented approach has a recognized need and novelty value in work safety training in construction industry. Noticing situational, social and psychological factors on individual level in both instructions and in training methodology will enhance learning and competence building and will reduce risks of accidents.
The main target groups and beneficiaries of the project are, in order of relevance:
The target organizations are:
