Leading Through The Worst Day: Turning Construction Incidents Into Real Safety Leadership
Construction incidents are not just safety events; they are leadership tests that expose how serious a business really is about its people, its systems and its future. For construction SME owners, the difference between a company that survives a serious incident and one that slowly unravels often comes down to what happens in the first few hours, and what is learned in the weeks that follow. Most foremen and project managers instinctively try to hand that problem to “the safety department”, which falls short when your brand and relationships are on the line. As a business owner, that scenario demands you ask: who answers the call, what do they say, and how well have you prepared them?
Desai’s background with 15 years across transport, oil and gas, hospitality and construction gives him practical depth on these challenges. He also brings a legal mind to the table, having been admitted to the Supreme Court bar in Western Australia before leaving law because he “wanted to help people in the workplace” rather than “burn the other side in the courtroom”. That blend of legal and operational experience makes his insights especially relevant for owner-managed construction firms.
Paperwork That Protects, Not Punishes
One of the most uncomfortable truths in the conversation is how safety paperwork can turn against a company after an incident. Desai observes that safety has become synonymous with “forms, checklists, TAs, SWMS and SOPs”, and that many businesses create this paperwork mainly to “cover themselves if the regulator gets involved or something goes wrong”. His warning is blunt: “sometimes that paperwork can actually be what’s used against you… people are actually generating a rod for their own back.”
From a construction SME standpoint, the takeaway is not to abandon documentation but to make it real. Oversized, copy‑paste risk assessments are easy to attack in hindsight because they rarely match what actually happens on site. A tighter, simpler set of documents that clearly reflect how work is planned and supervised in practice will do more to protect your people and your legal position than a fat folder of generic templates ever will. In other words, write for your supervisors, not your shelf.
Investigations That Go Beyond “He Didn’t Follow The Procedure"
When incidents do happen, most companies stop their investigation at the first obvious breach of process: “the worker didn’t clamp the timber” or “they didn’t follow the method statement”. Desai challenges that habit using a skillsaw incident on a New Zealand site, where a supposed carpenter nearly took his thumb off after holding timber by hand instead of clamping it. A typical investigation would have ended with “failure to follow procedure”.
Instead, Desai’s team kept asking why the procedure wasn’t followed and applied some basic legal thinking about evidence and causation. They eventually discovered the worker was not actually a carpenter and that an overseas recruitment agent had been fraudulently dressing up CVs and reference letters, sending unqualified people into high‑risk roles. That deeper finding turned a simple “operator error” into a systemic risk around recruitment and competency that the business could actually fix. For SME owners, this shows the value of treating every incident as a chance to test your systems, from hiring, supervision, training, and verification, rather than just blaming a single worker.
People, Pay And Staying Connected After An Injury
A big practical dilemma for smaller contractors is what to do with pay and work when someone is injured but not catastrophically. Desai acknowledges that each jurisdiction is different, but his core principle is human and commercially smart: “paying them is not an issue, but stay connected”. He has seen workers decline quickly when they are left at home “on the couch watching daytime TV”, losing their sense of purpose and connection with the world.
He strongly supports light or alternate duties when they are used to keep people engaged and within their medical capacity, and not simply to manipulate statistics or avoid reporting thresholds. In his words, keeping injured workers involved in some way can be “a really positive thing”, provided the motivation is right. For SME owners, that means getting in early after an incident, talking directly with the worker, doctors and insurers, and being transparent about what you can realistically offer. That approach not only reduces the risk of adversarial claims but also shows the rest of the workforce that the business will stand beside people when things go wrong.
Conclusion: The Real Measure Of A “Safe” Business
Any incident deserves a good investigation” and “a good investigation takes time”. For construction SMEs, this is both a challenge and an invitation. It asks owners to slow down just enough after an accident to learn something meaningful, even when clients are pushing for instant reports and quick blame.
The practical takeaway is that a truly “safe” business is not the one with the thickest paperwork or the lowest reported accident rate on a dashboard. It is the one that prepares its leaders for crisis conversations, designs investigations that reach system‑level causes, and keeps injured workers connected rather than cutting them loose. That combination protects people on site, strengthens your legal and commercial position, and quietly builds the kind of reputation clients increasingly look for when choosing which contractor to trust with their projects.
This article draws insights from the featured episode: Beyond the Incident: Real Crisis Management in Construction on the I'm The Gaffer podcast. Stay tuned as we explore the challenges and opportunities in construction—where success is crafted with expertise, innovation, and dedication.
