Investigating the influence of occupational health and safety inspections on safety consciousness with an inspection project case study

Safety inspections are conducted either by the government as necessitated by law or by the company's free will as self-evaluation to identify whether the work place is safe and healthy for the employees, precautions are taken to prevent potential occupational incidents and take corrective actions, if required. In this study, influence of occupational safety inspections at construction sites on establishing safety consciousness was researched. Within the context of this study, the emphasis was first on the literature review of topics such as history of occupational health and safety, legal provisions about this subject, occupational health and safety inspection and management systems and safety culture along with the investigation of thesis studies and articles in occupational safety area. Programmed inspection project, which was conducted by Labor Inspectorate Coordinator at Ministry of Labor and Social Security in 2012, 2013 and 2014 across the Turkey, was selected as a case study to investigate possible positive influence of safety inspections on construction sites. As part of this study, investigation data were compiled and organized, results of the project and observations were examined and discussed to come up with various solution proposals. The study concluded that, the number of inspectors in Turkey are not sufficient, thus inspections could not be carried out at a desired rate. The results of the investigation revealed that there has been a 50% decrease in the number of violations within the past three years thanks to the inspection project, which focused on fall prevention and protection.