The management of ergonomics in the South African construction industry is legislated through the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 and its regulations; namely the Construction Regulations of 2014 and the Ergonomics Regulations of 2019. Despite these legislative imperatives, the implementation of ergonomics in the South African construction industry is limited. Consequently, unmanaged ergonomic risks are prevalent in South Africa, as they are globally, and remain a significant threat to the productivity, quality and safety of operations and personnel.

As the voice of the KZN construction industry, the Association provides a comprehensive suite of services to its members including training, occupational health and safety services and medical surveillance assessments, among others. Since the level of implementation of ergonomics in the construction industry is limited, there is a lot of scope to assist the industry to better understand and manage ergonomic risks, reduce injuries and accidents and comply with the legislative requirements for managing ergonomic risks within construction operations. In line with this, the Association has added ergonomics service its offering.

The following items fall under the Association’s membership services bouquet and will be provided to members at no cost.

• Conducting workshops on various ergonomics topics that are relevant for the construction industry.
• Improving ergonomics awareness by running awareness campaigns on ergonomics topics and conducting webinars and workshops for Association members.
• Providing advice to Association members on various ergonomics matters related to health and safety, labour matters and compliance.
• Conducting research on a variety of ergonomics topics and using the results from the research to develop targeted services for individual construction organisations as well as the industry at large. The results can also be used to develop tools that can be used by the industry to manage various ergonomic risks.

The below services are paid services that will be provided through the Association’s Occupational Health and Safety Consulting Unit:

• Setting up of ergonomic training programmes, medical surveillance programmes and conducting risk assessments as per the Ergonomic Regulations 2019.
• Conducting investigations of construction incidents to identify relevant ergonomics contributory causes of such incidents.

For more information, feel free to contact the Association.

Neil Enslin | Occupational Health and Safety Manager