Relationship between the level of preventive training of the companies and their accident rates

1. Introduction

Accidents at work are one of the most important problems in the construction sector anywhere. Because of the incidence rate and the severity of the accidents. According to the data of Eurostat, “there where 3876 fatal accidents at work in the EU-28 during 2015, an increase of 102 deaths compared with the year before. And more than one fifth of all fatal accidents at work in the EU-28 took place within construction sector”. Source: Eurostat

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

As shown in the previous tables, it is easy to see that the level of standardised incident rates of all countries in the EU-28 reflects a high number of accidents, fatal and non-fatal ones, in all the EU, and Spain is the 11th country in fatal accidents and the 3th one in non-fatal accidents. Seeing the table 3, where the accidents are represented by sectors in all EU countries the importance of the construction sector is remarkable due to accidents registered.

Looking at the data in the table 5 which reflects the incidence rates by autonomous communities within the Spanish state, we can assure that the trend has been similar in the last ten years in all of them, reflecting a decrease in the incidence rate of accidents in the construction sector during the years of economic crisis but since 2013 it is appreciate how the upward trend of accidents has returned. And within all the regions, the data reflects that the Balearic Islands is the region with the highest incidence rate.

SOURCE: Ministerio de Trabajo, Migraciones y Seguridad Social. Anuario de Estadísticas Laborales. Disponible en: http://www.mitramiss.gob.es/es/estadisticas/contenidos/anuario.htm

Occupational accident incidence rates with sick leave by sector of activity (years 2007-2017).  

Table 4 (number of accidents per 100.000 workers)

Occupational accident incidence rates with sick leave in Construction sector (years 2007-2017).  

Table 5

Incidence rate (IR) of accidents in the construction sector in the Balearic Islands 2013-2016

INSHT. Observatorio de Condiciones de Trabajo.

Table 6

With these data, for the similar characteristics, it is reasonable to think that the values studied can be extrapolated to any other region in Europe.

1.1 Literature review and hypotheses statement

There is a lot of literature that remarks the importance of the safety training usually mixed with others items. And not only the training before starting work, but the necessary continuous training to guarantee a good result. It should be noted, that “a vital factor of a successful safety program is to periodically train and educate all employees to enhance their knowledge and skill about safety at work. For new employees, safety orientation is necessary to inform them about safety goals“ (Bavafa, Mahdiyar, & Marsono, 2018) pointing as literary references among others (Cheng, Lin, & Leu, 2010), (Fernández-Muñiz, Montes-Peón, & Vázquez-Ordás, 2007) (Tam, Zeng, & Deng, 2004)(Hallowell, Hinze, Baud, & Wehle, 2013).

Another example is the Thesis where, Carvajal proposed a five-step cycle, and education and training, are in these important steps, pointing that it is necessary taking into account more variables when making the final analysis.   In the same line, we found (SUÁREZ SÁNCHEZ, CARVAJAL PELÁEZ, & CATALÁ ALÍS, 2017)

They mean that training and education reflects the impact that the former steps have upon the people involved if some improvement needs to take place, and the importance that it could have in the final results.

(Jeschke et al., 2017) found in their study that changing the training program focusing in some items detected to avoid the most common accidents was successfully.

With these premises we want to propose two hypotheses for the development of our study:

H1. High levels of safety training before start the works have a positive effect on accidents rates of a company.

At the end of the study we intend to verify if there is a direct relationship between the previous and currently mandatory training in Spain that workers of a contractor must have in order to work in the construction sector and the accident levels of these companies. And in the case of finding a direct relationship if it is negative as previously thought.

A higher investment has a positive effect on firm accident rate and economic-financial results.

Studying the economic effects of accidents in companies there is a lot of literature. In this study and taking advantage of the economic data that we have of the companies, we intend to investigate if as we have established in the previous hypothesis if the companies invest in a greater training in safety and health of their workers, they have fewer accidents, and if it were the case if the cost of these has a greater or lesser effect on the economic results of these companies.

1.2 Study and classification of compulsory training

The training established by the collective agreement for the construction sector is divided into several levels. On the one hand, the current minimum level is the first cycle of eight hours, with basic concepts plus training equivalent to the "Second cycle of training in occupational risk prevention in the construction sector: training by job or by trades "that will have a minimum duration of 20 hours and whose content is fixed by the agreement itself. This training can be of 6 hours when there are circumstances such as that a module of 20 hours has already been carried out or that the worker has previously completed the basic level training mentioned for the construction sector.

The workers who must exercise as a preventive resource in the work are required, as a minimum, the basic level of prevention in construction, whose training content is specified in the agreement and will have a minimum duration of 60 hours.

Therefore, in our study we have divided the training of the workers of the companies in these three levels, according to data provided by the Fundación Laboral de la Construcción (FLC).