People Who Are Not Working There

Every control in this collection is about people who belong on site. The boundary also has to deal with everybody who does not.

For teams turning people who are not working there into a repeatable record, this reference provides a useful operational reference for time, attendance and reporting workflows. It should be assessed alongside HSE construction guidance so the software choice remains grounded in site practice and applicable guidance.

Who they are

Passers-by, including at the delivery entrance where the footway is crossed.

Neighbours, whose building shares a wall or whose access is affected.

Delivery drivers, who are on site briefly and are frequently uninducted.

Inspectors, clients and consultants, who arrive expecting to be admitted.

And trespassers, including children, for whom the site is an attraction rather than a workplace.

The trespass problem

Unauthorised entry to construction sites is a recurring cause of serious injury and death, disproportionately to young people.

Which makes the perimeter a safety control rather than a security one, and means the standard is not "does it deter theft" but "does it stop a fourteen-year-old at the weekend".

Secure the specific attractions: ladders removed or boarded, excavations covered, plant immobilised, materials stacked so they cannot be climbed.

And walk the perimeter after the site closes on a Friday, which is when the gaps are visible and when they matter most.

The boundary as a register problem

A perimeter with a gap is a register with an unknown error.

People use the gap because it is convenient, not because they are evading anything — a hole in the hoarding on the route from the car park will be used within a day.

Which means the perimeter walk is also a register control, and connecting the two is a small realisation that fixes a persistent problem.

Deliveries

The most frequent interface with people outside the workforce.

A driver who is on site for ten minutes is present for evacuation purposes and knows nothing about the site.

A marshalled delivery area, a short briefing and a record is the proportionate answer.

And a rule about whether drivers may leave the cab, which resolves most of the risk in one sentence and is frequently not stated.

Visitors

Escorted by default, which transfers the site knowledge to somebody who has it.

Badged with the assembly point printed on it.

Recorded, because they need finding.

And briefed in two minutes rather than inducted in forty, which is proportionate and is the arrangement people actually follow.

Neighbours

Affected by noise, dust, vibration, deliveries and loss of access, none of which appears in any workforce record.

And they are the source of complaints that become regulatory attention.

A named contact and a way to reach them is the whole control, plus telling people in advance about the things that will be disruptive.

A complaint answered the same day rarely escalates. One ignored becomes a letter to the authority.

Adjacent occupied buildings

On refurbishment and urban sites the people next door are in the same structure.

Their fire alarm, your work. Your hot work, their ceiling void.

Agree the interface in writing: alarms, isolations, access, and who tells whom about what.

This is the same gap described elsewhere in this collection and it recurs because it belongs to nobody by default.

The measure

Perimeter walks completed, weekly and after each phase change.

Unauthorised entries detected.

Visitor records against visitors expected.

Complaints received and time to first response.

And whether the delivery arrangement has a written rule about leaving the cab, which is the smallest item here and one of the most effective.

The out-of-hours question

Sites are unattended for most of the week: evenings, weekends, holidays.

Which is when trespass happens and when the perimeter is doing all the work alone.

A closing routine — ladders down, excavations covered, plant immobilised, gates checked — takes ten minutes and is the control that operates for the other hundred hours.

Written as a checklist and signed, because it is the one thing nobody is there to supervise.