Assessing the Safety Climate of a State Department of Transportation through Its Highway Maintenance Crews

It is well known in the construction industry that an organization’s safety climate impacts its workers’ safety behavior and is associated with better safety performance. However, the perception of an organization’s management’s safety rarely coincides with that of its employees. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) is interested in improving their safety performance and, particularly, among their at-high-risk workgroup-highway maintenance crews by developing and implementing a positive safety climate. A cultural assessment was conducted by adopting and modifying a safety climate assessment tool, the “S-CAT,” created by the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR). The S-CAT tool was adopted to quantify the existing safety climate and assess the established safety programs and controls’ efficiency in reducing work hazard risks among KYTC maintenance workers. The state of eight safety climate factors and 38 leading indicators was investigated and assessed, and the overall safety climate was found to be compliant and transitioning toward proactive, targeted to reach an exemplary state.