Development and validation of safety climate scales for mobile remote workers using utility/electrical workers as exemplar.

PURPOSE The objective of this study was to develop and test the reliability and validity of a new scale designed for measuring safety climate among mobile remote workers, using utility/electrical workers as exemplar. The new scale employs perceived safety priority as the metric of safety climate and a multi-level framework, separating the measurement of organization- and group-level safety climate items into two sub-scales. The question of the emergence of shared perceptions among remote workers was also examined. METHOD For the initial survey development, several items were adopted from a generic safety climate scale and new industry-specific items were generated based on an extensive literature review, expert judgment, 15-day field observations, and 38 in-depth individual interviews with subject matter experts (i.e., utility industry electrical workers, trainers and supervisors of electrical workers). The items were revised after 45 cognitive interviews and a pre-test with 139 additional utility/electrical workers. The revised scale was subsequently implemented with a total of 2421 workers at two large US electric utility companies (1560 participants for the pilot company and 861 for the second company). Both exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were adopted to finalize the items and to ensure construct validity. Reliability of the scale was tested based on Cronbach's α. Homogeneity tests examined whether utility/electrical workers' safety climate perceptions were shared within the same supervisor group. This was followed by an analysis of the criterion-related validity, which linked the safety climate scores to self-reports of safety behavior and injury outcomes (i.e., recordable incidents, missing days due to work-related injuries, vehicle accidents, and near misses). RESULTS Six dimensions (Safety pro-activity, General training, Trucks and equipment, Field orientation, Financial Investment, and Schedule flexibility) with 29 items were extracted from the EFA to measure the organization-level safety climate. Three dimensions (Supervisory care, Participation encouragement, and Safety straight talk) with 19 items were extracted to measure the group-level safety climate. Acceptable ranges of internal consistency statistics for the sub-scales were observed. Whether or not to aggregate these multi-dimensions of safety climate into a single higher-order construct (overall safety climate) was discussed. CFAs confirmed the construct validity of the developed safety climate scale for utility/electrical workers. Homogeneity tests showed that utility/electrical workers' safety climate perceptions were shared within the same supervisor group. Both the organization- and group-level safety climate scores showed a statistically significant relationship with workers' self-reported safety behaviors and injury outcomes. IMPLICATIONS A valid and reliable instrument to measure the essential elements of safety climate for utility/electrical workers in the remote working situation has been introduced. The scale can provide an in-depth understanding of safety climate based on its key dimensions and show where improvements can be made at both group and organization levels. As such, it may also offer a valuable starting point for future safety interventions.

[1]  M. Scott Niederjohn,et al.  Regulatory reform and labor outcomes in the U.S. electricity sector , 2003 .

[2]  L. James Aggregation Bias in Estimates of Perceptual Agreement. , 1982 .

[3]  G.T. Homce,et al.  Trends in Electrical Injury, 1992-2002 , 2006, 2006 Record of Conference Papers - IEEE Industry Applications Society 53rd Annual Petroleum and Chemical Industry Conference.

[4]  L. James,et al.  rwg: An assessment of within-group interrater agreement. , 1993 .

[5]  J. M. Cortina,et al.  What Is Coefficient Alpha? An Examination of Theory and Applications , 1993 .

[6]  Neal Schmitt,et al.  Configurations of Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiency , 1993 .

[7]  Jill C. Bradley,et al.  Workplace safety: a meta-analysis of the roles of person and situation factors. , 2009, The Journal of applied psychology.

[8]  Dov Zohar,et al.  Safety climate: Conceptual and measurement issues. , 2011 .

[9]  D A Savitz,et al.  Lung cancer in relation to employment in the electrical utility industry and exposure to magnetic fields. , 1997, Occupational and environmental medicine.

[10]  Yueng-Hsiang Huang,et al.  Feedback by Technology: Attitudes and Opinions of Truck Drivers , 2005 .

[11]  Michael A Kelsh,et al.  Occupational Injury Surveillance Among Electric Utility Employees , 2004, Journal of occupational and environmental medicine.

[12]  Jeremy M. Beus,et al.  Safety climate and injuries: an examination of theoretical and empirical relationships. , 2010, The Journal of applied psychology.

[13]  D. Zohar A group-level model of safety climate: testing the effect of group climate on microaccidents in manufacturing jobs. , 2000, The Journal of applied psychology.

[14]  P. Bentler,et al.  Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis : Conventional criteria versus new alternatives , 1999 .

[15]  L. James,et al.  Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias. , 1984 .

[16]  Lawrence R. James,et al.  Psychological Climate: Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Research , 2013 .

[17]  Michael J. Ashworth Preserving knowledge legacies: workforce aging, turnover and human resource issues in the US electric power industry , 2006 .

[18]  Marc-David L. Seidel,et al.  Motivation and Opportunity: The Role of Remote Work, Demographic Dissimilarity, and Social Network Centrality in Impression Management , 2005 .

[19]  D. Zohar Safety climate in industrial organizations: theoretical and applied implications. , 1980, The Journal of applied psychology.

[20]  L. F. Hanes,et al.  Capturing undocumented worker-job-knowledge at electric utilities: the EPRI strategic project , 2002, Proceedings of the IEEE 7th Conference on Human Factors and Power Plants.

[21]  Dov Zohar,et al.  Thirty years of safety climate research: reflections and future directions. , 2010, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[22]  D. Zohar,et al.  A multilevel model of safety climate: cross-level relationships between organization and group-level climates. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[23]  M. Browne,et al.  Alternative Ways of Assessing Model Fit , 1992 .

[24]  J. Bartko,et al.  On Various Intraclass Correlation Reliability Coefficients , 1976 .

[25]  James M. LeBreton,et al.  Answers to 20 Questions About Interrater Reliability and Interrater Agreement , 2008 .

[26]  J. Hair Multivariate data analysis , 1972 .

[27]  Zohar Dov,et al.  Safety Climate and Beyond: A Multi-Level Multi-Climate Framework , 2008 .

[28]  John M. Jermier,et al.  Reactions to physically dangerous work: A conceptual and empirical analysis , 1989 .

[29]  P. Bliese Within-group agreement, non-independence, and reliability: Implications for data aggregation and analysis. , 2000 .

[30]  Diane E. Bailey,et al.  The advantages and challenges of working here, there anywhere, and anytime , 1999 .

[31]  J. DeCoster Overview of Factor Analysis , 1998 .

[32]  A Neal,et al.  Perceptions of safety at work: a framework for linking safety climate to safety performance, knowledge, and motivation. , 2000, Journal of occupational health psychology.

[33]  Alistair Cheyne,et al.  Modelling safety climate in the prediction of levels of safety activity , 1998 .

[34]  L. James,et al.  PSYCHOLOGICAL CLIMATE: IMPLICATIONS FROM COGNITIVE SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY AND INTERACTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY , 1978 .

[35]  H Kromhout,et al.  Assessment and grouping of occupational magnetic field exposure in five electric utility companies. , 1995, Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health.

[36]  Badrul H. Chowdhury Power education at the crossroads , 2000 .

[37]  K. Murphy,et al.  Statistical Power Analysis: A Simple and General Model for Traditional and Modern Hypothesis Tests, Second Ediction , 1998 .

[38]  Angela Garabet,et al.  Development and validation of safety climate scales for lone workers using truck drivers as exemplar , 2013 .