(55bp) Integrating Culture into Process Safety Assurance

Purpose: PETRONAS Chemicals Group Berhad (PCG) has embarked on a group-wide culture transformation, introducing the concept of the Results Pyramid® and a Culture of Accountability® i.e. a workplace culture where people take accountability to think and act in the manner necessary to achieve results.

Methodology: This paper will discuss two such activities anchoring on the Results Pyramid® that have been deployed across several plants and units within PCG.

The first activity is an enhancement of existing assurance programmes, where culture subject matter experts are assigned to observe plant leadership teams and front-liners during interviews and site verifications conducted by the technical assessors. The observations are synthesised into belief statements, which are presented together with the technical findings.

The second activity is Power Up, a session designed to incorporate powerful and specific feedback exchange between various teams, culminating in a specific list of actions to improve delivery of each team’s activities in order to achieve the shared key results. This workshop can be done either as a follow-up to an assurance activity, in preparation for a project/turnaround activity or as a part of a periodic performance review.

Results: Examples of observations, feedback exchanges and specific actions from these activities will be shared, together with the impact on process safety leading and lagging indicators. Recommended practices and lessons learnt for continuous improvement will also be included.

Conclusion: Applying the Results Pyramid® concept to the design and implementation of Process Safety-related programmes has helped to identify the underlying leadership, mindset and behaviour issues impacting their success. By doing so, more specific interventions can be put in place to ensure full compliance to safety requirements and maximise effectiveness of these programmes.