Key Attributes Highway Maintenance Workers Need To Succeed In Their Career

by Ethan Jones

Monday, August 17, 2015

Washington State Department of Transportation

Highway maintenance workers maintain highways, municipal and rural roads, airport runways, and rights-of-way. Duties include patching broken or eroded pavement, repairing guard rails, highway markers, and snow fences. They may also also mow or clear brush from along road or plow snow from roadway.

The core tasks that highway maintenance workers are likely to carry out include:

Flag motorists to warn them of obstacles or repair work ahead.
Set out signs and cones around work areas to divert traffic.
Perform preventative maintenance on vehicles and heavy equipment.
Drive heavy equipment and vehicles with adjustable attachments to sweep debris from paved surfaces, mow grass and weeds, remove snow and ice, and spread salt and sand.
Drive trucks to transport crews and equipment to work sites.
Haul and spread sand, gravel, and clay to fill washouts and repair road shoulders.

In order to successfully forge ahead with their careers, analysts in a survey carried out by U.S. Department of Labor (via O*NET) have marked out the following as important attributes that highway maintenance workers would need. These attributes have been selected from characteristics and requirements strongly associated with the occupation. They are

Abilities: Enduring attributes of the individual that influence performance
Interests: Preferences for work environments. Occupational Interest Profiles (OIPs) are compatible with Holland's (1985, 1997) model of personality types and work environments. Six interest categories are used to describe the work environment of occupations: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. An OIP consists of six numerical scores indicating how descriptive and characteristic each work environment (or interest area) is for an occupation
Knowledge: Organized sets of principles and facts applying in general domains
Skills: These include basic skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate learning or the more rapid acquisition of knowledge. Plus cross-functional skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate performance of activities that occur across jobs
Style: Personal characteristics that can affect how well someone performs a job

We have listed out attributes which were scored 80% or more in terms of importance by the analysts.

Having a strong preference for realistic work environments. Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.
Attribute Type: Interests Score: 100%

Maintaining composure, keeping emotions in check, controlling anger, and avoiding aggressive behavior, even in very difficult situations.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 86.4%

Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 86%

Being reliable, responsible, and dependable, and fulfilling obligations.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 85.2%

The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%