Why Experienced Workers Take Construction Safety Shortcuts

A construction worker taking a shortcut by using a telehandler to bridge the gap between the scaffold and the work area.

Why would an experienced construction worker knowingly take a dangerous shortcut?

Maybe because experience has taught him it works.

After all, construction safety shortcuts often make sense to the worker taking them.

Consider a worker who has taken the same shortcut 200 times without getting hurt.

A safety professional sees 200 exposures to risk.

The worker sees 200 successful outcomes.

That matters.

Construction workers solve problems all day, every day. Poor access. Missing equipment. Schedule pressure. Procedures that don't fit the situation. Cold weather, hot weather, snow, ice, bees, wind, etc.

So they adapt.

The reasoning often looks like this:

I know the hazard.

I've done this before.

I know how to control it.

I can get this done.

That's not necessarily ignorance. It can be practical intelligence backed by experience.

But there's a weakness.

Experience can prove that you're good at controlling a hazard. It can't prove that you control every variable surrounding it.

The circuit has an unknown power source.

The material shifts.

The tool binds.

Someone unexpectedly moves the equipment.

The ground changes.

The shortcut worked 200 times because the worker's assumptions held 200 times.

Then one doesn't.

That's why telling experienced workers, “This is dangerous,” often accomplishes very little.

They already know.

The better conversation is:

What are you assuming?

What happens if you're wrong?

How do you prove it?

We shouldn't train experienced workers to stop using judgment.

We should train them to recognize where their judgment depends on something they haven't actually verified.

The most dangerous shortcut may come from a capable worker who believes he understands the risk well enough to control it.

And then his boot slips off the fork of the forktruck and he falls 50 feet headfirst to the ground below.