The effectiveness of Finnish Safety Training Parks

The construction industry covers about 7% of the employed labour in Finland (in 2012, 175 000 employees), and is male-dominated, as approximately 90% of the workforce are men (Oksa et al. 2013). According to the statistics of the Federation of Accident Insurance Institutions (FAII), the construction industry has the second highest accident figures in the comparison between the absolute accident numbers of different branches. The amount of accidents at work has remained quite stable in recent years, at approximately 14.000 accidents per year. Accident frequency is over 60 accidents/million working hours.
Traditional technical protection solutions, rules and supervision are often seen as the main methods for safety management, but safety at work can be improved by various other means. A novel approach to safety training has been introduced in Finland. Two Safety Training Parks have been constructed by stakeholders in the construction industry. The first Training Park of this kind in Europe, namely Rudus Safety Park, was constructed by multinational construction company Rudus in the city of Espoo in Southern Finland in 2009. This was followed by the Safety Training Park in Northern Finland in the city of Oulu in 2013.
The Safety Training Park concept is a unique safety innovation by which different actors of the construction industry and other branches can be trained on a practical level to perform different work phases safely at construction sites. Both Training Parks comprise different training points, which contain different practical, real working life demonstrations. The most notable difference between the two Safety Training Parks is that the Oulu Park was constructed jointly by several different stakeholders, whereas the Training Park in Espoo was originally constructed by the Rudus company. About 5000 workers are trained in the Espoo Training Park each year. The Oulu Training Park aims for a similar level of annual attendance.
Almost 70 companies and communities were involved in the joint effort of constructing the HSEQ Training Park in Oulu. The construction industry is strongly involved in the development of the Training Park. Other industry and service branches have also played a big part in the Training Park design and construction process. A full, updated list of the participants involved is available on the Training Park website (in Finnish; www.pstp.fi). The Park is governed by the Safety Training Park association of Northern Finland.
Objectives
The main objective of the project is to study the effectiveness of the two new Finnish safety innovations, i.e. Safety Training Parks. The project will be executed within three work packages:
i) Effectiveness of the trainings for target groups in safety Park Northern Finland (park established 2014)
ii) Effectiveness of the trainings for target groups in safety Park Espoo (park established 2009)
iii) Effectiveness of the Training Park Northern Finland for the members of the Safety Training Park association of Northern Finland (in total 70 members).