Factors Influencing Foreign Workers’ Unwillingness to Practise Safety in The Malaysian Construction Sites
Azreen Ariff Zulkeflee1,2*, Nasruddin Faisol2, Faridah Ismail2, Noor Akmal Adillah Ismail2, Qurtubi3
1 Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering & Science, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Sungai Long, 43000, Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia
2 Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi Mara, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
3 Department of Industrial Engineering, Universitas Islam Indonesia, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
*Corresponding Author: azreenzulkeflee@gmail.com, azreen@utar.edu.my
Accepted: 15 April 2022 | Published: 1 May 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.55057/ajrbm.2022.4.1.21
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Abstract: Foreign workers issue needs to be addressed urgently as most of the industry sectors in Malaysia are still heavily dependent on them. Therefore, cultural and behavioural differences have appeared as the primary sources of their unwillingness to practise proper safety procedure. The aim of this research is to access the fundamental factors influencing the construction foreign workers’ resisting to practise proper safety in the workplace. This research was conducted via qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews with nine (9) selected informants who are working closely with foreign workers at the operational level. Thematic analysis was adopted in this research in order to analyse the responses by familiarising the data coded and identifying the main factors as well as the sub factors. The finding shows that, ignorance, negligence, overlooked, over-confidence and misconception are the five (5) factors influencing construction foreign workers’ resisting to practise proper safety in the Malaysian construction sites. Therefore, if these elements are thoroughly evaluated, it is possible to attain a high degree of safety compliance among foreign workers.
Keywords: Reluctances, Resistance, Foreign Workers, Safety Non-Compliances, Safety Behaviour
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1. Introduction
FOREIGN LABOURS workforce are viewed as imperative to the Malaysian infrastructure growth due to unwillingness of local workers to work in filthy, unsafe, and demanding conditions. (Najib et al., 2019). Therefore, as most foreign workers came from diverse cultural backgrounds, the issue of safety non-compliance began to emerge. (Zulkeflee et al., 2020). The unwillingness of foreign workers to practise safety procedure is no longer a novel subject, as various studies have shown that safety non-compliance behaviour is one of the most imperative causes (Hasmori, Akhir and Said, 2020; Zulkeflee et al., 2021). According to Williams et al. (2018), the unethical attitudes and behaviour of the foreign workers, such as breaching the safety protocols, defying safety instructions, and neglecting safety procedures, are the major causes of accidents in the construction
doing a task due to their ignorance behaviour to practice safety. Ultimately, if this issue is not addressed and controlled from the start, the number of accidents and mishaps will escalate significantly (Agyekum, Simons and Botchway, 2018). In truth, there is a scarcity of research on the exact causes of operational health and safety non-compliance among construction foreign workers (Hamid et al., 2019). Moreover, majority of safety and health literatures focuses on improving safety compliance from the management standpoint (Zulkeflee et al., 2021). Hence, the factors influencing the foreign workers’ unwillingness to practise safety in the Malaysian construction sites have not yet been examined in order to reduce the rising prevalence of accidents and mishaps.
2. The Issues of Foreign Workers in The Malaysian Industry
The Malaysian government has been working hard to fill the employment shortages by implementing more development projects. However a large number of these positions have been occupied by foreigners (Ministry of Finance, 2018). In 2017, about 135,997 foreign workers were registered to be working in construction sector and the number was increased by 10.6% in 2018 which indicates that majority of the foreign workers are inclined to work in the construction industry (CIDB Malaysia, 2018). The Malaysian construction industry's reliance on foreign workers is undeniably owing to the lack of local workers (Ashaari and Razak, 2018). Most of the foreign workers in Malaysia are from Southeast Asian developing nations such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Myanmar, Philippines and Thailand (Ministry of Human Resources of Malaysia, 2019). Based on the report by Ministry of Human Resources of Malaysia (2019), majority of foreign workers who began working in Malaysia had no prior job experience.
They all come from various cultures, origins, and diverse perspectives on the value of safety in the construction sites (Lyu et al., 2018). Remarkably, the amount of safety awareness and their safety compliances in the construction sites remains ambiguous (Hasmori, Akhir and Said, 2020).
The level of foreign workers’ safety compliance in the workplace remains questionable, as seen by the annual accident rate (CIDB Malaysia, 2018; Zulkeflee et al., 2020). Most of the safety literatures highlighted that human mistakes and hazardous workers’ behaviour are the primary causes to the construction accident rates (Williams et al., 2018; Hasmori et al., 2020; Aliabadi et al., 2018). Nevertheless, in order to uncover the deficient actions frequently undertaken by foreign workers, the concept of poor safety practices in the workplace must be described in depth (Collins, 2016). Therefore, poor safety procedures may be defined as an unsafety activity that highlights the risk and hazard exposed to people, equipment, the surroundings, and work processes (Rajathi and Ramya, 2021). For example, poor safety practises include activities and actions like disregarding safety regulations, being cynical while working, or simply not wearing the required personal protective equipment (PPE) (Williams et al., 2018). These irresponsible behaviour of construction workers would result in an increase in behavioural safety non-compliance problems in the construction sites (Zulkeflee et al. (2020). On top of that, the most prevalent excuses provided by foreign workers for not applying safety equipment in the workplace are discomfort, distress, inconvenience, and trouble to apply while doing activities (Hasmori et al., 2020). Despite several attempts by top management to reduce accidents and fatalities, foreign workers continue to do risky work as a result of their poor demeanour, poor safety habits, and refusal to practise safety (Adinyira et al., 2020).
3. Methodology
The qualitative technique were adopted in this research which enables for further investigation of the informants' responses as greater understanding and more insight could be gathered from them (Konstantina Vasileiou et al., 2018). In order to achieve the research aim, an extensive responses from primary sources should be analysed through semi-structured interviews with nine (9) qualified construction representatives who have experiences working with foreign workers at the operational level. Brief screening questions was conducted through implementing initial screening process (Slaton, Hanley & Rarftery, 2017) to eliminate unqualified informants. Hence, only main contractors from Grades 7 and 6 were examined in this study since their organisations have the capacity and competence to employ huge numbers of foreign workers. Questions regarding foreign workers’ site practises, safety perceptions, reason for misbehaving, disobedience and reason for unwillingness to practise safety procedures are included in the interviews.
Table 1: Profile of the Selected Informants Informants Position Grade Experiences
A Site Supervisor G7 15 Years
B Deputy Site Manager G7 17 Years
C Site Supervisor G7 13 Years
D Site supervisor G7 16 Years
E Safety Site Supervisor G6 13 Years F Safety Site Supervisor G7 10 Years
G Site supervisor G7 9 Years
H Safety Site Supervisor G7 9 Years
I Site supervisor G6 9 Years
Informants were welcomed to disclose their comments and points of view on any safety related matters especially when involving foreign workers. The interviews lasted approximately 40 minutes on average, and their comments were captured and transcribed into in-depth conversation.
Thorough reading is essential to detect recurrent patterns, identify major and obvious factors, and gain a wide perspective of the data. This is a technique for disintegrating all raw data into sections and classifying them into categories. The process of data interpretation entails creating links and identifying similarities and variations between each category. Thus, the sub-factors are determined based on the categories. Therefore, the discovered sub-factors are connected together to identify the key factors of foreign workers’ unwillingness to practise safety in the construction sites.
4. Findings and Discussion
During the analysis stage, exemption criteria were set where any responses pertaining to managerial or environmental key factors were omitted from the analysis in order to meet the aim of the study. Only the behavioural based factors were examined as the inclusion criteria in order to identify the tangible source of safety non-compliances among the foreign workers. Based on the feedback of the informants, factors of unwillingness to practise safety among foreign workers were found.
4.1 Ignorance
Some of the foreign workers assumed that safety regulations are inappropriate and unsuitable to be practised; thus they tends to take it for granted (Informants B, G, and I). Apparently, foreign workers often complained that, the usage of safety equipment may cause discomfort and distress.
“… they have been accustomed to unsafe and unethical practices for so long…” (Informant A and C).
“…they are actually stubborn. They perceived safety matters to be tedious, complicated and uncomfortable…” (Informant D).
It is agreed that, foreign workers behave in this manner as a result of their lack of exposure to basic safety standards and their terrible behaviour (Hasmori et al., 2020). Furthermore, most of foreign workers are stubborn and irresponsible when it comes to practicing basic safety procedures as they often claimed that using safety equipment is time consuming especially when applying safety harness to climb at height. Hence, all informants believed that, most of the foreign workers are obstinate and irresponsibly disobeying safety regulation on purpose (All informants). The individual based factors such as misunderstood of safety procedures, inability to adhere with safety, and inability to use correct PPE contribute to major cause of safety noncompliance and risky behaviour (Zerguine, Jalaludin, and Tamrin, 2016). Moreover, workers frequently blame others when they are discovered violating occupational safety regulations as they believed that if the others do not, they will not too.
“Sometimes, the plastering work is minimal and can be completed in a short time of period compared to applying a safety harness which is troublesome and it takes much longer…”
(Informant A and D).
“How can I obey if other people does not? Plus, there is no one would teach me how to do it…”
(Informant C).
“… It is okay because someone will do it later…” (Informant D).
Safety researchers perceived that, inexperienced workers who are unwilling to comply with safety will lead to higher accident rates in construction industry (Dennerlein et al., 2020). The attitudes or actions of surrounding people, whether they are acting well or poorly, might impact the behaviour of other workers while executing a job (Oah, Na and Moon, 2018). Moreover, there are several incidents of drunken workers have been reported as a result of excessive alcohol use (Informants E and F). Their psychological state is unstable during working hours due to drunkenness or delusions caused by heavy drug usage. Andersen et al. (2015) also stated that, the construction site supervisor are compelled to dismiss the inebriated workers in order to avoid any unintended consequences for others. As a result, these impacts will hinder the workers from acquiring any safety coping skills and may result in increased threats and violence at work (Heiskanen, 2007).
4.2 Negligence
Foreign workers' inability to practise safety in the workplace is owing to their sloppiness and negligent behaviour. There are situations when workers are working recklessly and do not complete their duties in a decent manner, resulting in accidents and mishaps. In addition, foreign workers frequently make excuses for not implementing safety precautions in the worksite as they often unable to retain and protect their personal safety equipment (All Informants).
“They often claimed that their safety equipment was either taken, damaged, lost or misplace, or they just forgot and left it at home”. (All Informants)
“… sometimes they are careless while working. Accidentally skip a task or overlooked the steps and procedures…” (Informant D).
The major causes of construction mishaps are poor safety decision or carelessness in implementing precautionary measures by workers (Ahmed, Sobuz and Haque, 2018). Ahmed et al. (2018) also stated that, foreign workers frequently create an unhealthy working environment by performing their duties hurriedly, carelessly and recklessly while disregarding safety requirements. In addition, workers often like to jokes with their colleague while completing their task. Horseplay is seen normal in society, although it is possible that it will cause major injury to others.
“… they likes to joke with their friends while working which would cause accidents and injuries...”
(Informant E and F).
Workers' behaviours such as not wearing PPE, horseplay, carelessness, and failing to identify the cause of accidents are key contributors to safety noncompliance in the construction sites (Williams, Hamid and Misnan, 2019). Horseplay behaviour refers to dangerous play or pranks that include body contact, fooling about, silly activities, and social pressure to engage in hazardous acts that generally begin with innocent intentions (Iacuone, 2005).
4.3 Overlooked
Safety procedures and regulations mostly are common logic (Informants A, B, C, E, F, G and H).
However, due to their weak senses and poor behaviours, foreign workers frequently forget, oversight and disregard safety precautions.
“… they do not noticed the safety instructions if there are new instructions pasted on the notice board...” (Informant B, E and F).
“… the displayed safety instruction are often ignored and unnoticed due to their incapacity to read…” (Informant F).
In truth, several of them were either unaware or did not notice the safety procedures and restrictions displayed on sites. In agreement with Ajslev et al. (2020), interaction and engagement activities should be the normal practice on the workplace so that workers do not intentionally miss or overlooked the health and safety issues and procedures while transmitting effective safety information.
4.4 Overconfidence
Some foreign workers appear to be arrogant. There were foreign workers who claimed that they had not had a single accident during their time in the workplace, despite the fact that they had been working without safety precautions for so long (Informants A, C, D, E, F, H and I).
“I have worked like this (unsafe act) for a long time and I have never had an accident” (Informant B).
“…accidents are unlikely to happen if I work more carefully even without using PPE…”
(Informant E and F).
They are confident that they will not be harmed once they are at ease and familiar with their task.
Johanson (2021) emphasised that, workers are usually unconscious of their flaws, overconfident in their higher-level capabilities, and overestimate their ability while doing their duties. Johanson (2021) also added that, this is similar with the Dunning-Kruger Effect which is a psychological phenomenon whereby; workers will feel that they are much more capable than they actually are.
Foreign workers who are overconfident in their expertise are often eager to take risks since they are unaware of the potential drawbacks (Carpio-de Los Pinos et al., 2021).
4.5 Misconception
Workers frequently interpreted safety as a non-returning benefit that would provide no value to them (Informants B, E, F and H). They choose to measure their lives by the value of money as they are hesitant to invest their resources on safety. Foreign workers may not consider safety to be a priority since they are generally focused on the project completion rather than the value of their own lives (Keng and Razak, 2014).
“… they assume that safety is not important as safety equipment is quite expensive to buy and money is better spent elsewhere…” (Informant F and H).
“… they are more likely to get the work done sooner rather than complying with safety that takes more time…” (Informant E and F).
Foreign workers who are incapable to perform basic safety are nonetheless given the opportunity to work even though they often misinterpret and misjudge of the importance of safety (Zulkeflee et al., 2020). Despite the fact that the project activities had to be finished within the time range, majority of the informants agreed that foreign workers who haste around in the workplace will increase the chance of mishaps, accidents, or near misses. Besides, foreign workers tend to neglect safety precautions if are paid on a 'finish and go' basis (Ahmed et al., 2018). Hence, one of the causes of unwillingness to practise safety in the workplace is their misinterpretation about the importance of safety.
Figure 2: Factor Influencing Foreign Workers Unwillingness to Practise Safety
6. Conclusion
Accidents, mishaps, and near misses are common at construction sites owing to the unwillingness of foreign workers to implement safety precautions. Hence, this study reveals the key factors influencing foreign workers unwillingness to practise safety in the Malaysian construction sites.
Foreign workers who believe safety to be inconvenient, illogical, unrealistic, or antiquated are labelled as obstinate, which might lead to ignorant behaviour. Foreign workers are typically unconscious of their shortcomings, and their overconfidence in their higher-level abilities would causes them to exaggerate their capabilities while on the job. They neglected to take safety precautions and were unable to adhere to safety regulations, resulting in negligence and carelessness. Moreover, foreign workers frequently disregard safety measures since they often
Viewed safety as non-returning profit or benefit
Workers don’t have resources to spend on safety
Workers tends to chase for progress
Ignorance
Overconfident Negligence
Overlooked
Misconception Witlessness
Laziness and Stubborn
Relying on others
Drunkenness
Horseplay
Overlooked on safety
Measure life by the value of money
Safety prioritisation Arrogant Fails and Forgot Assume the regulations to be
inapplicable.
Take safety extremely casually Inconvenient to apply PPE
Consider the regulations to be unpleasant and out-of-date.
Disobey safety intentionally Applying safety is time consuming Workers expect others to do it for them Refuse to comply if others do not.
Never had Accident before Believed accident will not occur Misplace of PPE, Stolen, or left at
home Negligence
Unaware of the displayed instructions
environment. Furthermore, foreign workers stated that they are always under time constraints since they do not have time to comply with safety precautions in order to pursue project completion.
Certainly, their misperception on safety would taunt them if they viewed safety as a non-returning profit and rather measured their lives by the value of money. This research recommends that, the data will be more accurate if interviews are performed from the construction foreign workers’
standpoint in order to uncover the true causes for their unwillingness to practise safety on construction sites. Moreover, Theory of Planned Behaviour is seem appropriate to be used in order to explain and predict all behaviour over which workers have the ability to exert self-control.
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