Construction Focus Four Hazard Awareness

Key Hazards

• Falls from elevations, openings, ladders, scaffolds, and roofs
• Workers struck by vehicles, equipment, loads, tools, or debris
• Workers caught in machinery, excavations, collapsing material, or pinch points
• Contact with overhead lines, temporary power, or energized systems
• Changing work conditions that create multiple Focus Four hazards
• Workers becoming accustomed to repeated high-risk exposure

2–3 Minute Talk Script

Construction Focus Four Hazard Awareness requires workers to recognize the task-specific hazards before work begins and to use the controls established for the project.

The daily plan should identify where each Focus Four hazard exists, who is exposed, which controls are required, how trades will coordinate, and who has authority to stop unsafe work.

Fall hazards should be controlled through guardrails, covers, safe access, scaffolds, lifts, restraint, arrest systems, or other approved methods before exposure begins.

Struck-by exposure should be reduced through equipment separation, exclusion zones, stable material storage, overhead protection, load control, guards, and eye and face protection.

Caught-in or between hazards should be controlled with machine guarding, energy isolation, trench protection, bracing, blocking, safe positioning, and keeping workers outside crush zones.

Electrocution hazards should be addressed by locating utilities, maintaining line clearance, inspecting temporary power, using ground-fault protection, and assigning qualified workers to electrical tasks.

Supervisors and crews should reassess the work whenever equipment moves, floors open, structures change, weather worsens, utilities are uncovered, or another trade enters the area.

Work should stop when any Focus Four hazard lacks an effective control, when site changes invalidate the plan, or when workers cannot explain how they are protected.

Safety Reminders

• Identify all four hazard groups before work.
• Control falls before exposure begins.
• Separate workers from vehicles, loads, and falling objects.
• Protect against pinch points, collapse, and entanglement.
• Locate utilities and control electrical exposure.
• Reassess hazards as the project changes.
• Use stop-work authority when controls fail.

Ask the Crew

• Where are today's fall hazards?
• What could strike a worker?
• Where could someone be caught, pinned, or buried?
• What electrical hazards are present?
• What site change requires a new Focus Four review?