A NEW SAFETY CLIMATE ASSESSMENT TOOL FOR GULF CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

One of the methods which could improve the safety performance of construction organizations is the safety climate approach which is helpful to know the existing maturity level of the safety climate and to develop plans to achieve the required level of maturity. Most of the existing safety climate tools were developed considering different industries in developed countries while construction was based only on few tools. Construction projects in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries are at a peak. This article, therefore, attempts to develop a safety climate assessment tool for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) construction industry. A mixed research method consisting of a systematic review (N = 32), structured questionnaire (N = 102) and email interview (N = 19) was adopted in this research. A new assessment tool that has seven factors including (i) Aligning and Integrating Safety As Value (ii) Training At All Level (iii) Improving Site Safety Leadership (iv) Management Commitment (v) Empowering And Involving Workers (vi) Ensuring Accountability At All Level and (vii) Improving Communication has been finally developed. Each factor is supported by a number of simple questions that the participants have to answer on a Likert scale of 1 to 5 is finally developed. Although, the newly developed tool is validated through email interviews held with the construction industry professionals, however, longitudinal studies are recommended to gauge to the effectiveness of the tool.