Fred didn’t actually go to university until she was 25, when her construction firm decided she could probably do more than just make endless cups of tea! Part-time study meant Fred was able to directly apply learning to her day to day work, and when her company offered to sponsor their first ever PhD in construction safety she jumped at the chance. That PhD was also part-time and delivered whilst also working 6 days a week as a superintendent, so it certainly took some graft, but was well worth it in the end.
Basically, Fred knows what epistemology is but also how to fly shutters for shear wall construction – a fairly unique combination!
At Straight Talk Safety, Fred leverages her academic knowledge to bring the very latest in construction safety research from around the world into your organization. Her international network covers six continents and she has collaborated and co-authored with folks from around the world.
Her book Unpacking Construction Site Safety collates some of her Greatest Hits into one place, including exploring influential social contexts on safety, the consequences of using binary terminology in places where things can easily be ‘a bit unsafe’, and the differences that result from engagement or enforcement approaches to safety management.
Fred has also researched and written about a number of specific aspects of construction safety, including:
Safety as a Social Construct
Researching safety through a social constructionist lens means drawing out the discourses that surround a phenomenon. This approach reveals rich and nuanced insights about safety, exploring why things are as they are – as opposed to just accepting what they are.
Fred’s paper unpacking safety culture specifically within the US construction industry delves deeply into the ways different methodologies can be applied to research, and why culture really needs a social constructionist approach to make sense:
Sherratt, F., Szabo, E. and Hallowell, M. (2024) Seeking a scientific and pragmatic approach to safety culture in the North American construction industry, Safety Science, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2024.106658 .
Another project that broke ground with the first publication of discourse analysis in the ASCE’s Journal of Construction and Engineering Management was Fred’s research into the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, and the consequences that might have for construction safety. This project revealed myriad unintended consequences with influence for safety culture and safety management in legal states:
Sherratt, F., Welfare, K., Hallowell, M. and Hoque-Tania, M. (2018) Legalized Recreational Marijuana: Safety, ethical, and legal perceptions of the workforce, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29CO.1943-7862.0001502
Fred’s PhD research focused on the social construction of safety on UK jobsites. Her research revealed various discourses that surrounded safety in this context, including entangled discourses of enforcement and engagement with safety. The interactions between these two discourses revealed considerable insights about safety rules, punishment for violations and how both approaches within safety communication were received by the field.
Sherratt, F., Farrell, P. and Noble, R. (2013) Construction Site Safety: Discourses of Enforcement and Engagement, Construction Management and Economics, 31(6), 623-635. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2012.747689
Without retrospective consideration of how work is undertaken in construction and why, the same hazards, risks and SIFs will endure that always have; and no amount of zero-related safety propaganda can change that.— Sherratt et al 2024
The Zero Paradox
Fred was still working in industry when Zero Harm (and it’s many other iterations) landed on UK jobsites. And something didn’t sound quite right to her, or her work crews, so she decided to do some research. As well as discovering the Zero Paradox (the statistical fact that in the UK you were actually more likely to have a SIF on a ‘Zero Target’ site than not!) she was able to reveal that Zero (in any form) is fairly hollow. The new signs and hard hat stickers look great, but just saying it won’t make it so if that’s all you do!
Fred has presented her Zero Paradox work on many stages, and it was also cited by Todd Conklin and Sidney Dekker in their 2022 book, Do Safety Differently. Her most recent paper unpacking the US statistics was selected as the required reading for the National Safety Council’s inaugural and informal ‘book club’ in 2025.
Fred’s key papers unpacking the use of Zero in safety management are:
Sherratt, F. (2014) Exploring ‘Zero Target’ safety programmes in the UK construction industry, Construction Management and Economics, 32(7-8), 737-748. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2014.894248
Sherratt, F. and Dainty, A.R.J. (2017) UK construction safety: a zero paradox? Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, 15(2) 108-116. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14773996.2017.1305040
Sherratt, F., Harch, D. and Perez, A. (2024) Making Zero Work for Construction Safety in a Post-Zero World, Journal of Safety Research, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2024.08.016 .
Incident Investigations and Cognitive Bias
During her time at the Construction Safety Research Alliance, Fred led the project exploring the consequences of cognitive bias for incident investigations. This work not only revealed the common biases found in investigations, which generated a number of resources available through the CSRA, but also through discourse analysis revealed some unintended consequences of a blanket application of a ‘No Blame’ philosophy in construction safety management. This insight wasn’t expected, but it’s exactly the kind of super-interesting thing that taking a social constructionist research can reveal. In this study, the consequences of a ‘No Blame’ approach applied without discrimination were clear in the data. This is why a balanced responsibility and accountability approach is a better route for safety management to take.
Key papers exploring this phenomenon are:
Thallapureddy, S., Sherratt, F., Hallowell, M. and Bhandari, S. (2023) Effective information collection in incident investigations: A systematic review and narrative synthesis, Safety Science, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2023.106404 .
Sherratt, F., Thallapureddy, S., Bhandari, S., Hansen, H., Harch, D. and Hallowell, M.R. (2023) The unintended consequences of no blame ideology for incident investigation in the US construction industry, Safety Science, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2023.106247
Thallapureddy, S., Sherratt, F., Bhandari, S., Hallowell, M. and Hansen, H. (2023) Exploring Bias in Incident Investigations: An Empirical Examination Using Construction Case Studies, Journal of Safety Research, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2023.07.012
Other Selected Research Publications
(publications are also available on request)
Fred has a large back catalogue of peer-reviewed Greatest Hits of Construction Safety, some of the most relevant (and interesting!) are listed below.
Raheemy, Y., Sherratt, F. and Hallowell, M.R. (2025) What is safety? Contemporary definitions and interpretations across North America, Safety Science, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2025.106798
Sherratt, F., Wong, P. and Sherratt, S. (2024) What we really know about wearable sensor technologies for construction OSHW, Proceedings of the ICE: Management Procurement and Law, https://doi.org/10.1680/jmapl.23.00102 .
Sherratt, F., Szabo, E. and Hallowell, M. (2024) Added value in near miss reporting: A window to worker safety engagement. In: Adinyira, E. (Ed) Proceedings of the CIB W099 and W123 Annual Conference, 9-10 October 2024, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
Sherratt, F. and Raiden, A. (2023) Taking a New View for Researching Occupational Safety in Construction: Site Safety Practice, Construction Management and Economics, 41(7) https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2023.2172195 .
Hewlett, B., Sherratt, F. and Edmondson, V. (2022) Managing designing for safety: A framework to support whole-team decision-making and risk control, Proceedings of the ICE: Management Procurement and Law, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1680/jmapl.22.00030
Sherratt, F. and Aboagye-Nimo, E. (2022) Decolonizing occupational safety management: the case of construction site safety culture in Ghana, Safety Science, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2022.105732
Oswald, D., Ahiaga-Dagbui, D., Sherratt, F. and Smith, S. (2020). An industry structured for unsafety? An exploration of the cost-safety conundrum in construction project delivery, Safety Science, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2019.104535
Oswald, D., Sherratt, F., & Smith, S. (2019) How safety rewards can help and hinder: a case study, Journal of Professional Safety, July Edition.
Oswald, D., Sherratt, F. and Smith, S. (2019) Managing production pressures through dangerous informality: a case study, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 26(11), 2581-2596., https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-11-2018-0475
Sherratt, F. and Ivory, C. (2019) Managing ‘A Little Bit Unsafe’: Complexity, Construction Safety and Situational Self-Organising, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 26(11), 2519-2534, https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-09-2018-0376
Smyth, H., Roberts, A., Duryan, M., Sherratt, F., Jing, X., Toli, A.M. (2019) Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing in Construction: Culture, Systems and Procedures in a Changing Environment, Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management, UCL. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10195729/
Oswald, D., Wade, F., Sherratt, F. and Smith, S. (2019) Communicating health and safety on a multinational construction project: challenges and strategies, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29CO.1943-7862.0001634
Oswald, D., Sherratt, F., Smith, S. and Dainty, A.R.J. (2018) An exploration into the implications of the ‘compensation culture’ on construction safety, Safety Science, 109, 294-302, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2018.06.009
Oswald, D., Sherratt, F., Smith, S. (2018) Problems with safety observation reporting: a construction industry case study, Safety Science, 107, 35-45, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2018.04.004
Oswald, D., Sherratt, F., Smith, S.D. and Hallowell, M. (2017) Exploring Safety Management Challenges for Multi-National Construction Workforces: A UK Case Study, Construction Management and Economics, 36(5), 291-301. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2017.1390242
Sherratt, F. (2017) Shaping the Discourse of Worker Health in the UK Construction Industry Construction Management and Economics, 36(3), 141-152. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2017.1337916
Smith, S., Sherratt, F. and Oswald, D. (2017) The antecedents and development of unsafety. Proceedings of the ICE: Management, Procurement and Law, 170 (2), 59-67., DOI: https://doi.org/10.1680/jmapl.16.00021
Sherratt, F. Crapper, M., Foster-Smith, L., Walsh, S. (2015) Safety and Volunteer Construction Workers, Construction Management and Economics, 33(5-6), 361-374. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2015.1024269
Fred’s full catalogue of research can be found in her Google Scholar profile .