Construction safety personnel's perceptions of safety training practices

•The effectiveness of safety training practices is investigated.•Contractors are sensitive to organizational, feedback, content, and process issues.•Contractors are sensitive to worker-related issues too.•Effective safety training strategies generate better safety outcomes in the field.•Differences in workers' native language constitute a challenge in safety training.

The effectiveness of safety training practices is an important part of safety management on a construction site. Safety professionals’ perceptions of the effectiveness of training practices in safety training sessions were sought in a survey administered to the top 400 contractors in the U.S. The study shows that contractors are sensitive to organizational, feedback, content, process, and worker issues. Whenever they encounter language problems, they use visual aids, and provide translators and safety guidelines written in workers’ own language. Very few statistically significant differences are observed when the findings are analyzed from the point of view of the demographic characteristics of the respondents. The contribution of this study is that it conveys the views of safety personnel about how safety learning can be achieved, sustained and improved by addressing organizational, feedback, content, process, and worker issues in training sessions. It provides project managers with best practices in safety training sessions.