ShareToolboxlab – Encouraging/reviving toolbox meetings on construction sites
Toolbox meetings are a well-established practice in the construction sector. They are short meetings between a manager, preferably the foreman, and his team. The idea is to pause for a moment to consider a specific well-being aspect, a particular task, an accident or near accident or some other topic. In practice, it has been found that these toolbox meetings often miss the mark. The meeting leader and participants see them mainly as a necessary evil, a compulsory activity. Getting the participants’ signatures is the top priority...
Yet toolbox meetings remain an ideal method to get people talking and thinking about their own safety and health. This can only really happen when the welfare policy is supported and conveyed by the senior management and the entire line management, when the toolbox meeting leader is backed up by his boss(es), when he has the necessary knowledge and communication skills, and when the planning and monitoring of the toolbox meetings is supported by, for example, the internal prevention service.
In order to encourage/revive toolbox meetings on Belgian and European building sites, Prevent has joined forces with NAVB, P&I and partners from Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. With financial support from the European Commission’s Leonardo da Vinci programme, the Toolboxlab project has been launched.
