A Complete Guide to Construction Site Safety for Tradies in Training

The building and construction game is an exciting industry to work in but it also comes with occupational health and safety risks.

If you’re a student, apprentice or tradie in the making, this is your complete guide to construction site safety.

Learn the Safe Work Method Statements

When you work in construction, your employer should have a site safety plan for construction.

Worksafe Victoria, the government organisation for work safety, recommends that construction companies have Safe Work Method Statements.

Safe work method statements are basically a construction site safety checklist. Your employer, boss or supervisor will either give you these to read or make you do induction training to learn them.

It’s important that you don’t simply give them what they call the “tick and flick” which is where you check all the items off without reading them properly.

If you do this you could be putting yourself or your workmates at risk of serious injury.

Make sure you know your Safe Work Method Statements because it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Write your own Safe work Method Statements

While construction site safety is important, it can also be very boring to read and work through a construction site safety checklist.

Even if you focus and apply yourself, it’s still hard to absorb and remember safety info on a piece of paper.

This is why WorkSafe Victoria actually recommends that each site get all the workers involved in creating their own Safe Work Method Statements.

Once you and your workmates are actively involved in identifying possible hazards and planning safe work practises, it becomes much easier to understand and remember your construction site safety.

If you are finding it hard to remember your Safe Work Method Statements, you could suggest the team get together to nut out some new ones together.

Read the house building regulations

The great thing about construction site safety is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

The building and construction trades have been around for millennia, so all you have to do is to learn the most up to date methods from a reliable source like Worksafe Vic.

If you are doing an apprenticeship with a housing builder, then your best resource will be WorkSafe Vic’s Working Safely in the Housing construction Industry: A Handbook for the Construction Regulations.

This easy-to-read handbook gives you practical advice about how to look after everyone’s health and safety while building homes.

Get a white card

In Victoria, any person who works on a construction site is required by law to have Construction Induction raining also known as a White Card.

This rule applies to everyone from apprentices to tradies to site supervisors—anyone who is doing paid work on a construction site.

Construction induction training is a short course in everything you need to know to stay safe on a construction site, including OHS rules, emergency procedures, and supervision arrangements.

It must be complete before you start work and must be done with a recognised registered training provider (RTO) like Builders Academy Australia.

If you do your white card with an unregistered or non recognised provider, you will not be able to work on a construction site and will have to retake the training with a legit RTO.

Do construction courses

While it is possible to work in construction without having any qualifications, building and construction courses have so many benefits.

Even if you are learning your trade from a master tradie, doing a certificate or diploma teaches you the most current best practices, including construction site safety tips and safety plans.

Our courses have been created by multiple experts in construction so that you learn all of their combined knowledge, including effective and efficient ways to ensure construction site safety.

Construction site covid-19 safety plan

As much as we all want to put the pandemic behind us, sadly we’re still living with covid.

Certain people may be at a higher risk of infection and serious illness, and new variants mean that we may have to continue getting booster shots for a while.

Make sure you are familiar with your workplace’s construction site covid 19 safety plan, and you’ll be able to minimise the spread and deadliness of covid.

Construction site safety

As you can see there are plenty of resources available for you to make sure that your construction site is a safe place for you and your workmates.

But the best way to get up to speed with construction site safety is by doing building and construction courses.

These formal qualifications delivered by recognised RTOs like Builders Academy Australia will ensure that you are an expert in occupational health and safety in the construction industry.

Thinking of doing building and construction courses? Discover your construction career pathway by chatting to a course advisor on 1300 534 363 (LEGEND) or request a callback today.