The role of a construction site supervisor is vast, with many areas of focus and expertise needed. This job involves monitoring projects, upholding safety regulations, ensuring compliance, supervising workers, overseeing subcontractors and a whole lot more.
Therefore, a site supervisor on a construction site will be someone who has various skills, such as leadership, communication, problem-solving, organisation and many more.
Throughout a project, it can be expected that a supervisor will ensure the completion in a safe and compliant manner, organising all areas of the job and delegating effectively to get the project done.
Day-to-Day Tasks for a Site Supervisor
As a site supervisor, your daily tasks will very likely revolve around the following:
- Supervision, supervising workers and subcontractors on the project.
- Organisation, organising work schedules and timelines.
- Management, managing orders and deliveries of construction materials.
- Responsibility, to attend management meetings and implement necessary changes.
- Strategic, complete records for site reports.
- Oversee, check on progress and work completion and that it is being carried out safely.
- Helpful, assist and aid project managers plan their work on site.
Construction Site Supervisor Skills
1. Health & Safety
Adhering to health and safety is one of the most important tasks on a construction site. As a site supervisor, this is a primary focus and responsibility of yours. Not only do you need to make sure tasks are carried out safely, but you need to uphold safety policies and set examples to be followed by all workers on the site.
A crucial part of health and safety is making sure that the entire workforce is educated on the matter, and that they understand the hazards on site and precautions needed to take, for example, as we approach summer, sun protection awareness is important in a construction site.
As a site supervisor, your time will be divided across many tasks, therefore, you cannot be everywhere and supervise everyone all the time, so educating and informing the crew is highly important.
2. Site Inspections
Risk assessments and site inspections allow site supervisors to assess and predict the likelihood of issues occurring. Basically, the purpose of site inspections and risk assessments allows for a preventative approach, spotting hazards before anything happens that may be irreversible.
In the case where hazards are found, site supervisors can find approaches to mitigate the risks and prevent potential disasters from occurring.
3. Support
Providing support, guidance and motivation for other on-site workers is an important role for a site supervisor. You will be expected to assist and guide workers into becoming more competent and stronger employees on-site.
This requirement means that as a site supervisor, you will need to be approachable, friendly and hold strong communication skills. You need to know the workers, who is on-site, what their roles are and where they are working, in order to best assist them. This will also support the educational side of health and safety; you will know who to inform with what about potential hazards on-site.
Site Supervisor Safety Training Scheme (SSSTS)
With Think Construction Skills, we offer the SSSTS scheme for anyone who is already a site supervisor or is soon to be promoted to the role.
This scheme is a two-day course that introduces site supervisors to their legal responsibilities, in reference to:
- Health & Safety
- Welfare
- Environmental Issues
Get your Level 4 NVQ
Alternatively, to become a construction site supervisor, you can get your level 4 NVQ and then be eligible for a Gold CSCS card, which entitles you to apply for site supervisory jobs across the UK.
A construction site supervisor has many roles and responsibilities such as:
- Overseeing site operations
- Ensuring onsite safety
- Coordination with management and teams
- Quality control of work
- Scheduling and planning abilities
- Resource management
- Communication with project managers, clients and stakeholders
- Problem-solving abilities
- Documentation
- Training and mentoring of other workers onsite
Learn everything you need to know about the level 4 NVQ as a construction site supervisor here.