Construction organizations traditionally assign project staff to primarily manage and control production while ensuring that the work meets specified quality requirements. To perform this effectively, they are given positional power. This means they have the power to hire workers, assign work, set production goals and performance expectations. They may reward performance and sanction failures to meet expectations.
Workforce safety and accident prevention is assigned to the safety function. These folks generally do not have positional power, and must not do anything that negatively impacts production. But are expected to ensure that accidents do not happen as these tend to negatively impact production goals. As a result, safety personnel must be able to influence worker behaviors so that they are cognizant of risks associated with their tasks and perform their work in a safe manner.