Jobsite Safety is Falling Behind at Smaller Home Builders, But Can Improve

According to a new academic study, small residential construction firms account for a disproportionate number of annual construction fatalities. But opportunities exist to improve jobsite safety through more deliberate communication, especially with subcontractors, and including safety buffers when creating project timelines.

Researchers at the University of Hawaii and Oregon State University interviewed owners, managers, and workers at residential construction firms and followed up with site visits to determine how safety policies are followed and where gaps may exist between policy, practice, and enforcement.

The study was commissioned by the Job-Site Safety Institute (JSI).

The research attempts to explain why smaller construction firms (fewer than 20 employees) account for about 50% of all construction fatalities while employing about one-third of U.S. residential construction workers, and why those numbers have not changed in years despite an industry-wide focus on safety.

Researchers first had to determine what is different about work being done on smaller jobsites compared to large, development-scale jobsites.

“A critical component to reducing injuries and fatalities in residential construction is understanding the realities of how homes are built,” said JSI Executive Director Rob Matuga. “This research shines a light on the unique challenges facing residential builders, remodelers, subcontractors and small construction businesses.”

Time is the Ultimate Stressor in Home Building

Schedule pressure dominates every decision made on a home building site, including safety decisions.

For smaller firms, schedule pressure isn’t just an operational stressor; it is “the arithmetic of survival,” according to the study.

A specialty framing contractor told researchers his firm operates under the philosophy “every day on one job is a day not on the next.” And when researchers visited an active jobsite with the firm, the pressure was visible in how fast workers moved, noting at one point that they continued framing through rain when the schedule demanded it.

In total, eight of the nine firms that agreed to site visits for the study described schedule pressure as the single most significant operational stressor affecting safety. Production builders are under the same schedule pressure as smaller builders, but they have access to resources — like more manpower — to speed projects along.

Organizational Structure Limits Smaller Firms

The study found that safety in small firms is personal, not programmatic. The use of written safety programs and owners’ commitment to safety was widespread, but the gap between what company owners value and what workers experience on site is the central problem.

Part of the issue is structural. The company owner typically serves simultaneously as estimator, project manager, crew lead and safety officer. There is often no dedicated safety staff, no human resources function, and no training department as seen at production builders.

Safety culture research confirms that owner or leadership commitment is a necessary condition for a positive safety culture but does not by itself produce one. Culture must be reinforced structurally, through systems, expectations and on-site accountability that operate even when the company owner is not present.

Subcontractor management is the weakest link in the safety chain, and the management structure of small construction firms makes it hard to correct. Contractual safety language exists in contracts, but enforcement is rare. Smaller home builders, most dependent on subcontracted labor, are the least able to hold those subcontractors to safety standards because of jobsite staffing and potential problems finding replacement subcontractors.

Communication is the Ultimate Safety Solution

Based on the findings of the study, JSI developed the Coordinate–Communicate–Insulate framework for small home builders.

• Coordinate:
  • Assign a named safety contact per project;
  • Embed subcontractor safety requirements at the estimating stage;
  • Treat safety track record as a selection criterion; and
  • Include safety status in routine owner-project manager check-ins.
• Communicate:
  • Open every site meeting with one specific, day-relevant hazard;
  • Brief subcontractor crews in person on arrival;
  • Stage PPE at the work location; and
  • Conduct at least one unannounced site visit per week per project.
• Insulate:
  • Build pre-task safety setup time into project schedules;
  • Establish stop-work expectation (not just authority) for every crew member; and
  • Connect safety performance to business outcomes owners already track (e.g., workers' comp rates, client reputation).

Small construction firms cannot replicate the safety structures of larger and production builders, and attempting to do so often produces the compliance theater observed by researchers: 

• Safety plans that exist but are not followed, 
• Toolbox talks that happen but are not retained, and 
• Subcontractor agreements that transfer liability on paper but not accountability in practice.

The goal of a safety framework at a small construction business is not compliance with a program. It is a daily operating discipline that makes the next close call less likely and ensures more workers go home safely at the end of each day. For more jobsite safety resources, visit nahb.org/safety.