Evaluation and Improvement of Employee Performance with respect to Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) Factors: A Case of Complex Transport Construction Project

Risk control in complex transport construction is complicated due to the dangerous nature of high variation and unpredictability. Most of the current research analysis focuses on the health, safety, and environment (HSE) risk assessment and employee performance evaluation, which neglects the impact of HSE risks on employee performance. Consequently, this research develops a framework to evaluate employee performance and identify key factors affecting performance. The employee performance indicators and HSE indicators are established by reviewing related literature. Using data from questionnaires, an artificial neural network- (ANN-) based model of employee activity effectiveness is then developed to evaluate employee performance. Sensitivity analysis is implemented to determine the key factors affecting employee performance. The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, a large-scale cross-sea channel project, is taken as a case study for validation. The model results show that the employees are satisfied with the effect of HSE management in general, but the psychological stress they perceive becomes large. The indicators of risk control and employee participation positively impact employee performance, while job satisfaction has a negative impact on performance. These findings indicate that operators should pay more attention to employees' psychological perception of work and form a standardized process management and control plan to prevent cumbersome processes from increasing employees' workload. This study helps construction systems and managers to identify the areas of strengths and weaknesses in their HSE management. The research only focuses on the impact of HSE risks on managers' performance in the complex transport construction project. In the future, further engineering projects and employee performance in composite scenarios can be investigated to improve the overall productivity.


Introduction
Te transport industry has proven to be an indispensable component in guaranteeing the smooth running of socioeconomic activities by providing public services for social production and people's lives.Complex transportation construction projects (such as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge) face great challenges in risk control and safety management due to the dynamic complexity [1], sudden and variable nature of risks, and uncertain weather conditions [2].Compared to other infrastructure construction (e.g., industrial sector), the workplace and production environment of transport construction is not fxed, and personnel and facilities possess mobility.Transport engineering construction is typically exposed to physical hazards (such as long-term exposure to hightemperature environments, noise, and vibration), chemical hazards (dust and fumes from emissions), and ergonomic hazards (such as prolonged sitting and repetitive motion of hands and arms) [3].In comparison to traditional transport projects (e.g., subway construction), the complex transport construction project (the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge) is a rare mix of sea-crossing channels, bridges, tunnels, and islands.Although its construction process is similar to that of civil engineering, the high variation and unpredictability of ground and hydrogeology make the construction process face many uncertainties and unknown factors.In addition, the long construction period, high construction cost, and complicated cross-operations make it particularly risky [4].All these characteristics bring great challenges to the risk management of complex transport projects.
Health, safety, and environment (HSE), as a systematic and integrative management system developed in the 1980s, aims to assure safe production, reduce risks, prevent accidents, and achieve sustainable development [5].Integrating occupational health risks, safety risks, and environmental risks in production processes, HSE has been gradually applied in high-risk industries, such as petroleum enterprises [6], paint manufacturing facilities [7], gas refneries [8], petrochemical plant [9], and oil and gas transportation plant [10].However, there is a shortage of research on whether HSE management systems can be applied to the unusual transport project with the cross-sea channel, bridge, tunnel, and island mixed.
In the feld of HSE risk assessment, scholars have done considerable efort using many mature methods and new technologies.Risk assessment techniques used in the feld of HSE generally calculate the risk value depending on the probability and severity factors [11].In the literature, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method has been frequently used to evaluate the factors in terms of contribution to the risk and analyze the priorities of these factors [12,13].To realize more accurate identifcation, some theories are combined in the risk assessment process, such as the fuzzy AHP [14], nonlinear fuzzy AHP [15], Pythagorean fuzzy AHP, and fuzzy inference system [11].Moreover, as a method supported by new technology, machine learning (ML) has obvious advantages in analyzing uncertain risk factors.To investigate the relative importance of risk factors, random forests (RF), stochastic gradient tree boosting (SGTB) [16], Naive Bayesian classifer [17], and support vector machine (SVM) [18] are applied to predict the risk and the possible impact.Additionally, artifcial neural network (ANN) has also been used to evaluate the risk factors because they can automatically adjust their weights and capture complex nonlinear relationships [8,19].In general, research on HSE risk assessment has focused on predicting the probability of risk occurrence and the impact caused by the risk, using classical or intelligent algorithms.
Minimizing human-caused risks is crucial to project construction and operation management due to the hazardous nature of complex transportation construction.Te performance evaluation is of great importance considering that it can help reduce human-caused risks [20].Performance evaluation aims to understand the positive and negative aspects of their performance, so as to maximize the organization's productivity.Based on monitoring of performance, it can be determined how risk management policy and plan must be improved [21].In previous works in the feld of performance evaluation, researchers have employed diferent approaches to identify key performance indicators [8,20,[22][23][24].However, there is a lack of research to assess the impact of HSE risk factors on employee performance, which is one of the purposes of this paper.HSE risk factors contain many indicators defned by experts (e.g., 28 indicators are defned by China National Petroleum Corporation).It requires much additional resources to evaluate each HSE risk indicator without identifying the key variables afecting performance.Te Pareto principle, commonly known as the 80/20 rule, states that just 20% of the elements have an important bearing on performance in comparison with the other 80% elements [6].Consequently, it is essential to develop a rigorous methodology to identify the key risk indicators that have an impact on performance.On the basis of this, this study examines the applicability of an HSE management system on an unusual and complex transportation project.Based on an intelligent methodology, the impact of HSE risk factors on employee performance is evaluated.Tis study helps managers to grasp the risk factors afecting employee performance and contributes to the improvement of risk management in complex transport construction projects.
Te rest of this paper is organized as follows.Some relevant research and methods will be reviewed in the next part.Tis is followed by methods of the employee HSE performance evaluation.Next, the results and discussions are presented in succession.Finally, the paper is summarized.

Complex Transport Projects.
In recent years, complex transport projects have been constructed in massive numbers as an essential tool to support society travel.Complex transport projects involve multiple disciplines such as roads, bridges, railroads, and tunnels.A very high level of longterm safety risk exists in construction since it requires the collaboration of thousands of workers and sophisticated technologies.Its construction process is generally a substantial, expensive, and one-time construction project with complicated and varied construction sites.In addition to complex engineering systems, the construction usually concerns complex hydrogeological conditions, fuctuating working environments, considerable employee mobility, and lengthy construction cycles.All of these factors increase the risk of safety incidents and work-related injuries during all phases of construction [25,26].Te Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, as a typical representative of a complex transport project in China, contains three navigable bridges, an undersea tunnel, and four artifcial islands.With a total length of 55 km (including 22.9 km of bridge and 6.7 km of undersea tunnel), the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is renowned for its enormous construction scale, exceptional execution difculties, and top-notch technology.Its entire length is 55 km, which includes 22.9 km of bridge work and 6.7 km of undersea tunnel.Due to complicated meteorological and hydrological conditions, crossing natural ecological reserves, the various technical standards of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau, frequent personnel movements, and intensive high-risk operations, the construction process is highly susceptible to safety and 2 Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience environmental accidents [1][2][3].Terefore, the search for efcient risk control and personnel management methods is a top priority for the construction of complex transport projects.

HSE Regulations.
Health, safety, and environment, usually referred to as HSE, was proposed initially by the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee in 1976.It aims to assure safe production, decrease accidents, and achieve sustainable development [6].
Based on the continuous improvement cycle of Deming, the HSE management follows the concept of plan-do-checkaction (PDCA) to boost system performance.By constantly learning from past experiences and efective benchmarking of competitors, the risk of human, environmental, and capital resources can be minimized signifcantly [27].Te International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has formulated a series of international standards (e.g., ISO-9000 and ISO14001) to strengthen the quality and environmental management in high-risk industries.Since then, HSE implementation has been prioritized in many countries.For example, the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) in the United States, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) initiative, encourages companies to prevent workplace injuries and illnesses through hazard prevention and control, worksite analysis, training, and collaboration between management and workers.Also, Chinese government promulgated some HSE standards (e.g., GB/T24001-1996, GB/T 28001-2001, Q/SY1002.1-2007,and Q/SY1002.2-2008)to ensure the management efciency [6].In some European Union (EU) member states, HSE management programs have also been developed to improve their safety performance [28].All these studies and applications have proved that HSE is frequently used in high-risk construction projects to eliminate or decrease safety injuries, adverse health infuences, and hurt to the environment [8].

HSE Practices in the Construction Industry. HSE system
has played an important role in risk and safety management in construction industry in past decades.Many researchers have studied the HSE implementation and evaluation to improve safety in construction.Saksvik and Nytro [29] presented an implementation of internal control (IC) of health, environment, and safety (HES) in Norwegian enterprises, involving systematic actions that reduce stress and occupational ill health to prevent injuries in workplace.Torp and Moen [30] presented the efects of implementing occupational health and safety (H&S) management system.Te results indicate that positively changing the occupational H&S management may positively change workers' satisfaction, psychosocial work environment, and health-related behavior.Duijm et al. [28] demonstrated that HSE management would beneft greatly from guidance on how to utilize current management systems efectively and also from the further development of meaningful safety indicators.Moreover, researchers have considered incorporating further elements to demonstrate the impact on HSE management.Azadeh et al. [31] have cooperated the ergonomics to the workplace including machine, job, and environment.Zarrin and Azadeh [32] evaluated and analyzed the impacts of resilience principles on HSE management system by using Z-number cognitive map.Te aim of their study was to gain insight into diferent aspects of HSE and how to improve safety by performing HSE.

Te Impact of HSE Risk Factors on Employees'
Performance.Nowadays, much attention has also been given to evaluating employee performance and identifying the HSE factors that afect performance because of the fact that more than 80% of incidents are attributable to illegal operations, low-security awareness, and poor technical skills of employees [33].In other words, accidents caused by employee errors can be reduced by improving the management of the risk factors that afect employee performance.Shikdar and Das [34] have reported that a signifcant correlation exists among productivity indicators and health and organizational attributes.Tis inspires that certain HSE risks may signifcantly infuence the overall employees' performance and therefore must be considered and designed with more attention.Yan et al. [6] applied the improved fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to identify the key HSE factors.Six factors of leadership and commitment; health, safety, and environment mission; competence, training, and awareness; control of documents; HSE management of contractor and suppliers; and incident/accident report, investigation, and management were identifed as key performance indicators.Considering the uncertain nature of incidents, data envelopment analysis (DEA) models were employed to identify the efcient units by Pashapour et al. [9].Results show that preparedness and planning is one of the most important factors in petrochemical plant.Using the fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) approach, Asadzadeh et al. [35] concluded that instructions and education, familiarity with organization's rules, and proper communications most contribute to improve workers' safety, satisfaction, and productivity.Besides, researchers have frequently used artifcial neural networks (ANNs) for performance evaluation in recent years because they are superior to conventional methods in determining complicated relationships and can automatically adjust their weights [36][37][38].Azadeh et al. [39] and Azadeh et al. [24] proved that ANN provides an excellent solution regarding the assessment of performance.
Understanding and structuring employee performance factors are very essential tasks for organizations to encourage productive behaviors of employees as well as discourage those that are unproductive.Tree factors are used frequently to refect the employee performance, whether positive or negative.Tese factors are job satisfaction [20,40,41], HSE awareness [32,[42][43][44][45], and work stress [11,20].Tese factors have been a reliable representation of performance.Te defnitions and importance of these factors in the felds of HSE and performance management are briefy described below.
Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience 2.4.1.Job Satisfaction.Job satisfaction has been defned in many forms.Te traditional defnition of job satisfaction focuses on the feelings that individuals have about their job experience [8].Job satisfaction is the level of contentment employees feel about their work, which can afect performance [46].2.4.2.HSE Awareness.HSE awareness refers to personnel that have a duty to be aware of both their own present status and the status of the defenses in their company [20].HSE awareness is considered to be an important indicator for predicting and assessing the performance that may afect the proper functioning of the system [20,47].Also, HSE awareness is signifcant for the evaluation of the trade-ofs between safety and production in HSE management.

Work Stress.
Work stress is an adverse physical and emotional response that occurs when the workload is excessive [31,48].Work stress is both a powerful motivator and a negative factor that afects employee performance and occupational health.Managing this factor is the responsibility of both employees and employers.Efective work stress management can help improve employee productivity [20].

Methods
In this study, we use an intelligent methodology to complete the evaluation of employee performance.Te whole methodology consists of three parts: (1) to establish employee performance indicators and HSE indicators; (2) to construct an ANN model to explore the relationship between employee performance indicators and HSE indicators, whose output is used as part of the employee activity effectiveness; and (3) to perform a sensitivity analysis to determine the key factors afecting performance.Te fowchart of the proposed methodology is presented in Figure 1.

Indicator Construction and Data
Gathering.Tis paper utilizes an intelligent methodology for employee performance evaluation in a complex transport construction project.Based on the literature review, three indicators refecting employee performance are established (i.e., job satisfaction, HSE awareness, and work stress).Te HSE indicators are selected to observe employees' responses.A total of ffteen items are derived, which include important elements in international standard practices and evaluation models developed by Zohar [42], McDonald et al. [49], Høivik et al. [50], Yan et al. [6], and Pashapour et al. [9].Table 1 lists the references from which the indicators are derived.
In designing the questionnaire, we tried to cover ffteen HSE indicators and three employee performance indicators derived from the references.Te preliminary questionnaire is distributed to a six-member group of experts.Te group of experts consists of four HSE experts and two managers from HSE administrative, safety and environmental department, and other research institutions.All of the experts consulted have more than ten years of experience in safety engineering, civil engineering, or structural engineering.Table 2 shows the brief description of six experts in the questionnaire presurvey.It should be noted that, based on the comments returned to managers in the presurvey, some questions are added, modifed, replaced, or deleted, and the fnal version of the survey questionnaire is shown in Table 3.
As a complex transportation construction project, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge covers several types of work, including bridges, island tunnels, and transportation engineering.As the project involves numerous aspects (including survey, design, consulting, construction, and supervision), with various types of risks, most of the grassroots personnel are responsible for the construction of the project and lack a thorough understanding of the HSE management system.In order to ensure the reliability and accuracy of the information obtained, we set the respondents as HSE managers of diferent departments, such as the Safety and Environmental Protection or Operation and Management Department, because the managers are relatively fxed and they were more knowledgeable about the HSE management implementation process.Te respondents were trained during the survey process to accurately capture the content of the questionnaire and improve the quality of questionnaire flling.Tere were a total of 149 HSE management personnel working on the project, and 120 of them flled out the questionnaires based on the respondents' willingness.Te margin of error determined according to the following statistical method is 0.089 (equation ( 1)), so the dataset size is considered reasonable.
where r is the margin of error or precision; σ is the standard deviation assumed to be 0.5; and Z 1− (1/2)α is the standard normal statistic corresponding to the (1 − α) level.Te questionnaires have been distributed in papers, and the required data are collected face to face.Te degree of each answer takes the form of a percentage system from 0 to 100 points (0 � quite disagree; 100 � quite agree).Te fnal 96 questionnaires are adopted after removing the inefective questionnaires.Despite the small dataset, the ANN-based model can still be applied because there are no strict criteria on the dataset size of ANNs.For example, in the previous studies of engineering management that used questionnaires as a data source for ANN, the dataset sizes were 250 in Patel and Jha [19], 115 in Azadeh et al. [31], 85 in [58], 70 in Azadeh et al. [8], and 40 in [59], respectively.
Te demographic profle of the efective respondents is presented in Table 4. Te dimensionless normalization is performed on the data collected, and all the data are transformed into the interval [0, 1], and the diference in the magnitude of the data in each dimension is eliminated.In order to evaluate reliability, Cronbach's alpha of the questionnaire is measured, as shown in the following formula: 4 Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience where n represents the number of problems; s i represents the standard deviation of the problem; and S t represents the total standard deviation.Cronbach's alpha ranges from 0 to 1. Generally, alpha greater than 0.8 refects a high internal consistency of the questionnaire; alpha in the range of 0.6-0.8refects a better internal consistency; a smaller value of alpha than 0.6 indicates that the internal consistency is poor [60].Tis paper analyzes the validity of the questionnaire through a content validity ratio (CVR).Experts are invited to evaluate the question to the evaluation of the indicator as "not essential," "useful but not necessary," or "essential."If more than 50% of the experts believe that the problem is essential, the item has certain content validity.CVR can be calculated using the following equation [61]: where n e is the number of experts who choose "essential" and N is the total number of experts.

Employee Performance Evaluation.
Research has shown that performance can be calculated by judging the efectiveness of activities, such as accomplishing goals and adopting strategies.Te US National Audit Ofce defnes performance as the efectiveness of strategies used to solve or mitigate targeted problems.Brown and Pyers [62] believe that performance evaluation is an activity that corrects the behavior of the subject by judging the efectiveness of activity.Te HSE performance was evaluated through the calculation of the employee activity efectiveness in this paper.Efectiveness is related to the difference existing between the actual value (i.e., target) and the maximum value [20,31].In other words, efectiveness is determined by comparing what a process or employee can produce with what they actually produce (the maximum and actual produce).Te maximum value refers to employees' behavior that exceeds the organization's requirements and job description [63].Te actual value can be obtained from the questionnaire data [20].

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Table 1: Sources of ffteen indicators.

Calculation and Analysis of the Efectiveness.
After fnding the optimal neural network, the model output is computed and the employee activity efectiveness is measured according to the following process.Te datasets were put into the optimal neural network model for job satisfaction, and the errors between the actual value (P actual(i) ) and the model output (P model(i) ) for all dataset were calculated as follows [20,24]:   Assume that k has the largest error E i and therefore: Te value of E k ' which is the most remarkable diference between the maximum job satisfaction and general job satisfaction is defned as E k : Terefore, the diference D i between the general job satisfaction and the maximum job satisfaction of each kind of data can be calculated by the following formula: Te job satisfaction efectiveness P i of data i is the ratio of the actual job satisfaction of the employees to the maximum job satisfaction of employees.Te actual job satisfaction is P actual(i) , and the maximum employee satisfaction can be determined by D i and P model(i) : Similarly, the work stress efectiveness W i and the HSE awareness efectiveness H i of employees can be calculated based on the optimal neural network model.Since it is difcult to determine the importance of the three indicators, we only need to simply weigh the efectiveness of these three indicators and fnally obtain the efectiveness of the employees' HSE activity A i : According to the research results of Amir-Heidari et al. [21], the value of employee HSE activity is divided into four levels: [0, 0.6) is unqualifed, [0.6, 0.8) is qualifed, [0.8, 0.9) is good, and [0.9, 1] is excellent.In other words, when the employee HSE activity efectiveness is between [0, 0.6), the performance level is unqualifed; when the employee HSE activity efectiveness is between [0.6, 0.8), the performance is qualifed; the performance is good when HSE activity effectiveness between [0.8, 0.9); the performance is excellent when employee HSE activity efectiveness is between [0.9, 1].

Sensitivity Analysis.
Diferent factors have diferent contributions to employees' performance.Identifying indicators that have a signifcant impact is benefcial to improve management performance, which can be achieved by sensitivity analysis.Sensitivity analysis identifes the degree to which each of the input variables contributes to each of the output variables [19,38].To determine the key factors afecting the employee HSE activity efectiveness, the 17 input variables in the model are deleted successively; the optimal model is applied to recalculate the efectiveness.In this paper, the confdence level α is set to be 0.05, and the degree of freedom is 95.To determine whether a variable has a signifcant impact on the efectiveness of employees' HSE activities (H 0 : μ F � μ i , H 1 : μ F ≠ μ i ), we use SPSS to compare the efectiveness of the entire variable (μ F ) and the efectiveness after deleting the variable (μ i ) to perform a paired-  [20,22].Te P value gives the probability of observing the test results under the null hypothesis.If the P value is less than 0.05, the null hypothesis is accepted, which means that the deleted variables' efect on the employee HSE activity efectiveness is not signifcant.On the contrary, it means that the deleted variable has a signifcant impact on the efectiveness.If the efect is signifcant, then the paired sample unilateral t-test is employed to determine whether the efect is positive or negative (H 0 : If the null hypothesis is accepted, it means that the corresponding indicator has a better efect, that is, the factor has a positive impact on the efectiveness because its deletion reduces the efectiveness; if the null hypothesis is rejected, it means that the factor harms the efectiveness of employee HSE activities.

Results
After descriptive statistical analysis of the questionnaire, the efectiveness of employee activities is calculated through the constructed model.Ten, sensitivity analysis is used to determine indicators that have a signifcant impact on effectiveness, which allows managers to determine the key factors afecting employee performance in complex transport construction projects.

Statistical Analysis of the
Questionnaire.Te fnal questionnaire designed was distributed to 120 managers of the project and the contractors in diferent positions, and 96 available copies obtained fnally with poor-quality questionnaires were excluded.After standardizing and unifying the questionnaire's data, Cronbach's alpha and CVR are calculated to verify the questionnaire's reliability, as shown in Table 6.Cronbach's alpha for all indicators is greater than 0.7, and CVR values are greater than 0, indicating that the fnal questionnaire has an acceptable level of reliability in complex transport construction projects.Ten, for each kind of data, the average value of the problem corresponding to each indicator is counted to analyze.A descriptive statistical analysis of each indicator is performed by SPSS, sorted by mean in descending order, as shown in Table 6.

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Table 6 shows that the average value of 15 HSE management indicators is basically above 0.9 (accident investigation report and handling excluded), refecting the excellent performance of the HSE management process in the project.Te average value of the accident investigation report and handling index is only 0.8, which is signifcantly lower than that of other management indicators.Te reason may be that the complex transport construction project involves much technology and personnel, and the accident analysis and the determination of responsibility are more detailed than previous management.Besides, the means of employee performance indicators (work stress, HSE awareness, and job satisfaction) are generally lower than those of the HSE management indicators, demonstrating that employees are not satisfed with the HSE management.In particular, HSE awareness and job satisfaction indicators are far lower than other indicators, refecting that employees are not aware of HSE management's importance and may not be adaptable after applying HSE management in complex transport construction projects.

Employee Performance Evaluation.
As discussed in the previous section, employee performance is divided into three components: job satisfaction, HSE awareness, and work stress, and employee performance is quantifed through employee activity efectiveness.We calculate the three performance indicators' efectiveness and the total employee activity efectiveness according to formulas equations ( 4)-( 9) as shown in Figure 2. Te efectiveness of job satisfaction and HSE awareness is mostly concentrated above 0.6, indicating that employees' actual job satisfaction and HSE awareness are efective.In other words, in the implementation of the HSE management system of the project, most respondents are satisfed with the psychological perception of work and have sufcient awareness to work in the HSE management mode.Tis suggests that the respondents' sense of work stress is rather high throughout the HSE management system's implementation.Tis perception may be a result of the increased efort brought on by more stringent safety management.
Although the three employee performance indicators show diferent levels of efectiveness, the employee activity efectiveness of 80.2% of employees is not less than 0.6; that is, the performance of most employees is above the qualifed level, indicating that employees psychologically identify with the implementation of the HSE management system in the construction of complex transport construction projects.
To verify the relationship between job satisfaction effectiveness, work stress efectiveness, and HSE awareness efectiveness, the Pearson correlation coefcient is used, as shown in Table 7.It indicates that the correlation between the efectiveness of the three employee performance indicators is weak, and their interaction is negligible, which demonstrates that the three performance indicators can objectively refect the level of employee HSE activity efectiveness.
To understand the employees' reasons for unqualifed activity efectiveness, their perception of the HSE management is reported statistically (Figure 3).Te results show that low-performing employees think that there are many disadvantages, such as few checks, insufcient training and education for new entrants, lack of incentive mechanisms, and no regular evaluation and reviews of the objectives.Likewise, Koehn et al. [67] suggested that continuous selfinspection at the site, education for employees, and use of a safety analysis are vital to maintaining a safe project.Azadeh and Zarrin [20] stated motivational works enable to increase their human resource productivity.Terefore, employees with unqualifed activity efectiveness may be caused by the focus on these factors in their job responsibilities.Te HSE administrators' perception of failure to conduct regular assessment and review of the goals may be the reason for the low activity efectiveness.Similarly, the low efectiveness of security ofcers may be due to their commitment to accident prevention and their responsibility for regular training and education.Besides, the supervisors' attitude to the low rate of spot checks implies that the project may not be strict with on-site supervision and inspection.
In particular, almost 66.7% of employees' work stress efectiveness is lower than 0.6, implying that employees are under greater pressure when implementing the HSE management system.To fnd out the cause of greater pressure, the employee perception characteristics with the efect of unqualifed work stress were proposed (Figure 4).Te results indicate that employees with heavy pressure mainly think that the project has not regularly updated and revised HSE laws and regulations, and the frequency of organizing emergency plan training and drills was low.Especially, employees from multiple positions of HSE administrators, security ofcers, ofce administrators, and ordinary management personnel all believe that the emergency plan training is infrequent, probably because employees

Sensitivity Analysis.
To identify the key indicators affecting employee performance, sensitivity analysis is employed by recalculating the efectiveness after deleting input variables successively.Te paired sample t-test results are shown in Table 8.
Te bilateral t-test results indicate that the p values of the risk control, employee participation, and job satisfaction are 0.375, 0.514, and 0.057, respectively, which are greater than the signifcance level of 0.05 so that they have a considerable impact on employee activity efectiveness.HSE organization, responsibilities, and authority have a little impact on effectiveness.Te remaining variables have little impact on efectiveness.Terefore, when applying the HSE management system to complex transport construction projects, full attention should be paid to risk control, employee participation, and employee job satisfaction.
Besides, the unilateral t-test results show that the risk control system and employee participation have a positive impact on the efectiveness of employee activities, as the efectiveness is reduced after removing the risk control or employee participation variables (μ F > μ i ).Tis implies that the HSE management system's introduction made the project more stringent for risk control and increased employees' sense of participation.However, job satisfaction has a negative impact on the efectiveness because the removal of job satisfaction variables increases the efectiveness (μ F < μ i ).Tis variation refects the lack of sufcient attention to job satisfaction in the project [20].Job satisfaction, as an important factor in improving efectiveness, usually refects the individual's response to the job experience and the contentment employees feel about their work [46].As a result, it can be inferred that the project did not pay enough attention to the employees' experience when implementing the HSE management system.Tis result gives us insights into managing employees.Knowing the physical and mental workload and stress imposed on employees can lead to more accurate planning in order to improve job satisfaction.By focusing on motivational works and reasonable workload, the employees enable to increase their productivity, which ultimately results in a notable improvement in work performance.

Employee Performance Evaluation.
Te fndings of the performance evaluation revealed that 80.2% of the employees performed at a qualifed level, showing that the majority of them thought the application of HSE management systems in complicated transport construction projects was efective.According to the responses provided by these employees in the survey, the implementation of HSE management has increased the efciency of project risk control and safety management.A precise control of the entire process is achieved in HSE management through the risk source identifcation, risk evaluation, and control.It was discovered that 19.8% of employees had unqualifed performance, frequently as a result of a perceived defciency in ongoing self-auditing and adequate training and education.In fact, in the dynamic work environment of the construction industry, the attitude of construction personnel towards safety directly infuences their behavior on site.Tere is a need for regular training and occasional spot checks on safety practices and risk prevention to reduce the occurrence of personnel-related accidents.Additionally, a large cause of unqualifed employee performance is the increased work pressure, as refected by the fact that nearly 66.7% of employees have a work stress efectiveness below 0.6.Tese stressed employees may consider the workload or work difculty during the construction of the project to be high.Considering the project background, the construction of the project faces complex conditions such as typhoons, rainstorms, thunder and lightning, high temperatures, and sea streams, causing operational difculties, and danger factors are higher than those of traditional transport construction projects.Tese could be the causes of the increased work pressure.

Key Factors Afecting
Performance.Sensitivity analysis identifed three factors (risk control, employee participation, and job satisfaction) as key indicators that afect employee performance.As one of the most important factors of project management, risk control is regarded as an infuential factor afecting system performance in industries such as gas refneries and power plants [27,35].Te main factors that afect the risks of engineering construction include personnel safety knowledge, efective risk management systems, risk identifcation and monitoring, and appropriate specifcations and standards [68].Te risk control has a positive impact on employee activities' efectiveness in this project, which means that the risks in the project are well controlled generally during the implementation of the HSE management system.Te project has signifcantly reduced the accident rate under the complex meteorological conditions and strict marine ecological environment protection requirements.Tis indicates that the subtle risk source identifcation, timely risk evaluation, and dynamic update of risk control management in the project construction process have efectively achieved risk prevention and control.
Employee participation, which is another signifcant factor according to the sensitivity analysis, has a positive impact on efectiveness in the case study.Tis is similar to the study by Alazzaz and Whyte [69], which stated a positive relationship between employee empowerment factors and productivity in of-site construction.It can be inferred that employees can recognize the importance of HSE management and actively participate in the HSE management process in this project.Tis may be because the project promotes full participation, encourages active management, and implements the HSE management concept at various stages.Te multiple construction teams from bridges, subsea tunnels, and artifcial islands are staggered in the limited sea environment, bringing signifcant personnel management challenges.In this project's HSE management process, the HSE concept is layered conveyed to each worksite and personnel through the method of publicity, training, inspection, and assessment, making employees grasp the HSE policy and objectives.In addition, commanders, professional technicians, and management personnel should participate in risk management and potential accident assessment and optimize HSE process management through uninterrupted practice and continuous improvement strategies of employees.
Interestingly, job satisfaction has a negative impact on performance in this project, which is inconsistent with the results of existing studies where job satisfaction has a positive impact on system performance and has been implemented appropriately in the petrochemical industry [70].Since job satisfaction is the result of a combination of factors such as workload, attitude, and mental and physical conditions, this abnormal result refects that the project lacks attention to the psychological state of employees during the implementation of the HSE system [71].Te cross-sea passage project strictly controls and inspects employees' operating procedures under the background of high construction risk and attaches importance to the occupational health examination of employees.However, the long-term monotonous ofshore construction environment and severe weather conditions can easily cause psychological imbalances among employees.Te project lacks direct and effective measures to alleviate psychological dissatisfaction during the construction process.In addition, during the construction of the project, severe education and economic punishment measures have been taken to control the unsafe behaviors of employees who violate the regulations, but the lack of incentives for outstanding employees may afect their psychology [71].

Development of the Framework for Evaluating
Performance.Tis paper develops an intelligent framework to assess employee performance on HSE management systems and to identify key infuencing factors in complex transport projects.As shown in Figure 1, the framework is composed of three stages.Te frst stage is to identify HSE indicators and performance indicators.Te frst stage of the framework is expected to determine the performance indicators and HSE indicators and gain responses about these indicators.In this stage, qualitative and quantitative knowledge about the details of HSE implementation in the organization is gathered, and performance-related employee perception is obtained.Although the selection of HSE indicators is mostly benchmarked against HSE regulations, the performance measurement of diferent construction felds may need its special considerations [21].Terefore, the establishment of indicators needs to consider the characteristics and diferences of construction projects.For instance, the hazards associated with transport construction projects are sudden and variable; therefore, HSE indicators and surveys should regularly identify the primary risk sources and shorten the time needed to control them.Additionally, there are other indicators (such as work security) that are taken into account in accordance with complex systems and dangerous circumstances, in addition to those mentioned in this research [20].Of course, it is necessary to assess the correlation between these evaluation criteria in advance.Te second stage is to construct an ANN-based evaluation model.Te ANN model was chosen as the tool due to its superiority over other similar models such as regression models.Performance indicators can have both positive and negative efects on performance, for instance, job satisfaction is positive and work stress is negative.It is signifcant to emphasize that further study is needed on how to more efectively weigh performance indicators and integrate both positive and negative efects on performance.Te identifcation of the crucial performance indicators is the third stage.In fact, most of the identifed key factors are mainly based on expert knowledge and experience, or according to the score ranking of all indicators which is too cursory and arbitrary.Te key factors identifed in this paper can achieve the maximum efciency improvement with the least cost.It should be noted that these identifed key performance indicators may change with the increase of statistical data.Tis makes HSE performance evaluation more adaptable to changing circumstances.16 Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience

Te Implications of Findings.
Te results obtained in this study have several implications for policymakers.Construction managers should be aware that the most crucial elements in ensuring safe construction are those that relate to employees' operational and safety knowledge.HSE management systems' more rigid management guidelines and regulated operational procedures afect employees' traditional work practices while also adding to their workload.Terefore, only a relatively good safety management process is not enough, and the management of transport construction projects should also pay attention to the psychological state of employees, which can afect the operational efectiveness.Several actions should be made in this regard.To reduce the risk of overwork, employees' physical and mental stress should be periodically assessed.
Additional means, such as psychological help and provision of personnel benefts and fnancial incentives, can also be used to increase employee motivation.Another important aspect is to strengthen employees' psychological acceptance of HSE management.As the management process implementers, employees must be made aware of the value and signifcance of the HSE management process.Moreover, it is important to understand the difculty and cumbersome degree of the implementation process for employees and allow them to make suggestions on the system process.Tis facilitates the execution of the HSE management system and lessens the employees' unfavorable psychological reactions.Construction projects should introduce information technology equipment and facilities to assist in process management, reduce redundant workload, and improve management efciency.
Te results of this study help organizations to improve employee performance by managing key elements.To better implement HSE management in transport construction projects, organizations have a basic understanding of the impact of diferent factors through this paper.Te fndings of this study evaluation assist managers in developing a thorough grasp of the elements that infuence worker performance and in enhancing their focus on the psychological well-being of workers.Te proposed methodology can be applied to other similar construction projects to identify the most important and critical HSE elements of the construction process.

Conclusions and Recommendations
In this study, an integrated method is proposed to study the impact of HSE risk indicators on employee performance in a complex transport construction project, which is a supplement to the risk management knowledge system.Based on the questionnaire survey of HSE management professionals, an employee activity efectiveness model with an ANN is established to evaluate employee performance.Ten, sensitivity analysis is applied to identify critical factors afecting performance for further reference.Te results indicate that most employees' performance reaches a qualifed level when implementing the HSE management system in the complex transportation construction project.Te performance of 19.8% of employees is unqualifed because they perceive that the project is not adequate for regular assessment of the objectives and new employee training, and the on-site inspection is infrequent.Sensitivity analysis fnds that the indicators of risk control and employee participation positively impact employee performance, indicating that risk control is paid enough attention during the construction process, and the employees can actively participate in HSE management.However, job satisfaction has a negative impact on performance, which means that employees' perceptions of work are not being paid enough attention.Tis evaluation's results provide managers and stakeholders with elements that HSE management needs to focus on in complex transport construction projects.Aspects like work pressure, incentive mechanism, and the usage of information technology are crucial for researchers and managers in terms of enhancing employee performance and efectiveness.Understanding the physical and mental loads and stresses of employees can help develop more accurate strategies to enhance health and safety conditions for employees [70].Managers can encourage employees to proactively provide feedback on the physical quality to demonstrate the organization's support.In addition, soft measures such as appropriate reward and punishment mechanisms are highly applicable and may fnd a compromise between controlling costs and guaranteeing safety.For instance, safety incentives, which can be monetary or nonmonetary awards, are one of the proactive strategies used by managers to motivate employees to work safely [48].Moreover, the application of diverse information and intelligent technologies may efectively address the safety issues in construction management.Information-based equipment and facilities should be introduced in transport construction projects to improve the quality and efciency of risk control and safety management.Managers can further optimize information turnover and responsiveness through systematic planning, organization, and control of information resources.
However, this study still has some limitations.On the one hand, the number of questionnaires collected is relatively fewer because the subject of this article focuses on the HSE full-time manager of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.In future research, grassroots employees can be used as survey objects to study the implementation of the HSE management system.On the other hand, it is important to further explore the obstacles while using the HSE management system for a construction project with a single scene.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Flowchart of the methodology framework.

Table 2 :
Brief description of six experts in the questionnaire presurvey.

Table 3 :
Clusters of questions in the survey.

Table 4 :
Te detailed demographics of respondents.
10E: health, safety, and environment.10ComputationalIntelligence and Neuroscience sample bilateral t-test

Table 5 :
102 kinds of neural network models and their MAPE.
Notes.Bold values mean selected neural networks with minimal MAPE

Table 7 :
Correlation of the efectiveness of various factors.

Table 8 :
Paired sample t-test results.