Ad
Thursday, October 30, 2025

GKR Scaffolding launch Psychological Safety Programme to address industry’s blame culture

ADVERTISEMENT

At an industry event this month marking the company’s 25 years in business, GKR Scaffolding made a call to some of construction’s largest contractors to join their movement to change the blame culture that is stifling progress in our industry. 

Citing research from Harvard Professor, Amy Edmondson and also Google’s Project Aristotle which investigated team performance in high-risk and innovative industries, GKR highlighted why psychological safety builds high-performance teams. 

GKR defines psychological safety as creating an environment of trust where everyone feels comfortable discussing mistakes, asking for help and sharing ideas without fear of reprisals. 

Edmondson’s and Google’s research proves that high performing teams record-making more mistakes, creating a learning cycle for continuous improvement. Although this has obvious implications for improving safety, there are also benefits to productivity and innovation due to the openly sharing ideas. 

The non-operational by-product of this is an improvement in mental wellbeing due to staff feeling included and not working in a culture of fear, but it also aids diversity. Diverse workforces need psychological safety to create genuine inclusion. 

The business will be launching their #SpeakUp campaign internally in November based on their research into what makes people work safer, to a high technical quality and supports general wellbeing, whilst still driving people to work to extremely high standards. 

Workshops will run through the GKR Academy for all employees responsible for managing others both on-site and in offices. These workshops will simulate situations to highlight the benefits of building psychological safety into modern management styles as well as covering the tools and techniques to drive this. 

It is also integrated within staff communications sessions, appraisals and objectives, as well as promoted via the Share-Learn-Improve reporting process used by staff to highlight near misses and observations of good practice. 

Helen Gawor, Business Strategy Director, said: 

“We are addressing many challenges within our industry – a need for diversity, being slower to innovate, low productivity and poor mental health. We have historically focussed on these challenges through individual initiatives, but all these initiatives can only succeed if we improve psychological safety. 

Our blame culture is the elephant in the room. We want everyone to feel confident about speaking up. This could be to share great ideas and highlighting good practice as well as questioning work that may be wrong or reporting something that is unsafe.” 

Peter Cullen, Health & Safety Director, said: 

“Principal contractors have the huge task of bringing different businesses with different capabilities and different ways of working together as one team. Because of our legacy blame culture, we stifle learning and create a hero culture based on self-preservation. All because people fear the consequences of mistakes so don’t speak up. 

We hypothesise that psychologically safe supply chains will improve project performance, but it needs to be embraced by the principal contractor. We all need to change how we manage our people, communicate with each other and the KPIs used to measure success. Reporting RIDDORS, for example, actively discourages reporting due to the potential consequences faced. This discourages reporting for learning.” 

The initiative has been welcomed by industry representatives and GKR will be sharing their learning and resources with contractors to build momentum in removing the blame culture from construction. 

GKR believe that #SpeakUp initiatives take behavioural safety to a whole new level, driving culture change to improve productivity, safety, an ability to innovate and the mental wellbeing of our whole industry. Ultimately building the high-performance environment construction needs to create for the future. 

ADVERTISEMENT

Popular Categories

Latest news

Staht secures largest ever distribution deal with Leach’s

One of the UK’s leading testing technology firms, Staht, has announced its largest ever distribution agreement after joining forces with Leach’s. The partnership will expand...

Avontus to host free webinars on digital scaffold management this November

Avontus Software has announced a series of free, live webinars in November designed to help contractors overcome the everyday challenges of tracking and managing...

Scaff25 announces global line-up of industry leaders for Sydney conference

The Scaffolding Association Australia (SAA) has revealed an impressive line-up of international speakers for its upcoming Scaff25 Annual Conference & Awards Night, set to...

Demolition firm issues statement following Manchester building and scaffolding collapse

Manchester-based demolition contractor P.P. O’Connor has released an official statement following Friday’s partial collapse of a building surrounded by scaffolding in the city centre. The...

Building and scaffolding partially collapses in Manchester city centre

A building in Manchester city centre has partially collapsed during demolition work, with scaffolding and debris seen falling into the nearby River Irwell. Emergency services...

Benchmark Scaffolding wins Silver at national awards

Benchmark Scaffolding has been recognised with the Silver Award in the Specialist Contractor of the Year category at the 2025 National Building and Construction...

Construction leaders unite against government plan to shorten apprenticeships

More than 20 construction organisations, including the NASC, have signed an open letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer warning that plans to cut apprenticeships to eight months risk undermining skills, safety, and confidence in training.

HSE launches major construction site safety inspections in Manchester

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is carrying out a series of unannounced inspections at construction sites across Manchester city centre this week. Twelve inspectors...

JR Scaffold honoured with Ministry of Defence Silver Award

Paisley-based JR Scaffold has been recognised among a select group of leading Scottish businesses to receive the prestigious Silver Award from the Ministry of...

Brogan Group acquires Sunbelt Rentals UK hoist division

Brogan Group has announced the acquisition of Sunbelt Rentals UK’s hoist division in a deal that significantly expands its operations and fleet across the...

Latest news

ADVERTISEMENT

The magazine

Issue 27 | Past issues >>

Popular

Building and scaffolding partially collapses in Manchester city centre

A building in Manchester city centre has partially collapsed...

ScaffChamp 2025: Teams Gather in Vilnius for Opening Day

The international scaffolding competition ScaffChamp 2025 has officially begun,...

Demolition firm issues statement following Manchester building and scaffolding collapse

Manchester-based demolition contractor P.P. O’Connor has released an official...

Scaff25 announces global line-up of industry leaders for Sydney conference

The Scaffolding Association Australia (SAA) has revealed an impressive...

Benchmark Scaffolding wins Silver at national awards

Benchmark Scaffolding has been recognised with the Silver Award...

Related articles

GKR Scaffolding trebles profits as London projects drive growth

London — GKR Scaffolding has reported a sharp rise in profits as turnover surged by nearly £10m last year, signalling a strong recovery for the London-based specialist. According to the CN, the company’s...
ADVERTISEMENTS

Latest topics

House-building recovery delayed until 2029, industry warns

The Construction Products Association warns UK house-building will not recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2029 or 2030, urging government support for first-time buyers to prevent further insolvencies and job losses.

Staht secures largest ever distribution deal with Leach’s

One of the UK’s leading testing technology firms, Staht,...

Avontus to host free webinars on digital scaffold management this November

Avontus Software has announced a series of free, live...

Scaff25 announces global line-up of industry leaders for Sydney conference

The Scaffolding Association Australia (SAA) has revealed an impressive...
ADVERTISEMENTS