Assessing Psychological Safety in Lean Construction Projects in the United States

Abstract

The construction industry is hazardous, which requires careful consideration of occupational health and safety measures. Among various strategies that are proposed to enhance construction safety, Lean construction practices were widely implied and proved to be effective. However, the link between Lean implementation and construction safety has not been completely studied yet in previous research in terms of psychological safety context. This study implies that psychological safety is of utmost importance in terms of explaining the association between Lean and safety. Lean implementation elements such as respect for people, trust, leadership, and continuous improvement positively affect employees' psychological safety. In this context, semi-structured interviews and a survey were conducted with employees working in U.S. construction companies. The interviews provided that the majority of the construction employees do not feel psychologically safe at their workplaces either in traditional or Lean construction projects due to a number of reasons such as heavy workload, and deadline pressures. However, it was found that construction workers feel safer psychologically in Lean construction projects compared to traditional projects. According to the interview results and literature review, a conceptual model was proposed. Therefore, this study can contribute to the research area of psychological safety in the construction industry.