(54be) Safety Culture Assessment in Ten OIL Companies in Trinidad and Tobago

TOPIC: SAFETY CULTURE ASSESSMENT IN TEN (10) OIL COMPANIES
IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

MOST SUITABLE SELECTION: 20th Process Plant Safety Symposium (PPSS)
(T1A)

AUTHOR: MR. SHYAM DYAL – MANAGER HSE, PETROTRIN

YEAR: 2015

KEY WORDS: Safety Culture; Safety Culture in Trinidad Lease
Operators

ABSTRACT TEXT:

An assessment of the safety culture of ten (10) petroleum companies in
Trinidad and Tobago was conducted in 2015 with the following objectives:

Conduct a comparative study on safety culture

Benchmark safety culture results against an international industry benchmark database
Identify strengths and weaknesses in the safety culture and provide recommendations for improvement.

A Safety Culture Survey was developed using the Health and Safety
Laboratory’s (HSL) Safety Climate Tool which adopted eight (8) safety culture elements. The
study was conducted for a
six month to determine the status of Safety Culture within each of the ten (10)
petroleum companies. Ninety percent (90%) of the companies surveyed met the 30%
response rate standard.

The companies were benchmarked against the
international industry benchmark database. Comparing the HSL ‘All Industry
Average’ it was seen that only one company obtained benchmarks consistently
above the HSL’s average International Benchmark in all eight (8) elements and
also obtained the highest benchmark of the ten (10) companies in five (5) of
the eight (8) elements assessed. All ten (10) companies exhibited wide fluctuations of benchmarks between the eight (8) elements.
These fluctuations between the eight (8) elements within each company and
differences in trends between the ten (10) companies illustrate the uniqueness
of the safety culture characteristics of each individual organization.

It was
concluded that for several companies, the employees’ perception of safety
culture is average and there is room for improvement. Recommendations were
provided to improve safety culture in all ten companies as well as the industry
in general.

Key
recommendations for improving safety culture in the companies were provided as
follows:

·        
Introduce incentive
programs, visible leadership by management through participation in
inspections, tours, tool-box talks and committee meetings.
·        
Provide communication
programs geared to all levels of the workforce; implementing hazard
identification / risk management programs that are supported by incentives for
motivation.
·        
Develop and implement
a detailed Disciplinary Procedure; recognizing the role of human error during
investigations.
·        
Make procedures more
easily understood through the use of diagrams and pictures and focusing on
training to ensure systems and expectations of procedural compliance are
clearly understood.
·        
Foster a supportive
work environment where workers feel empowered, valued and equal and able to
challenge each other concerning unsafe behaviors.
·        
Ensure systems for incident reporting are
clearly communicated, providing feedback to workers concerning the outcome of
reports and devoting significant efforts to the collection of near miss data.
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