Improving Safety Cultures

(A personal perspective)

Paul Eyre CMIOSH

35+ Years working in a Petrochemical Environment
Branch Chair: Manchester and Northwest Districts (IOSH)
Networks Committee Member (IOSH)

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 Agenda

The purpose of the presentation is to explore and determine your individual

perception and understanding with respect to the Safety Culture within your
working environment.

This will be achieved by providing information, examples

and interactive discussions. We will cover the following steps,

Step 1. What are the Barriers which may undermine the Safety Culture?
Step 2. Where do you believe you are in the Safety Culture Journey?
Step 3. What are the opportunities for improving the Safety Culture?
Step 4. How can we Sustain the Safety Culture going forwards?

Questionnaire: Please provide feedback as appropriate. Thanks

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 Step 1. What are the Barriers which may
undermine the Safety Culture
• Poor and/or ineffective leadership
• Management visibility in the Organisation is either low or non
existent.
• Organisational structures are unclear.
• Ineffective systems and procedures.
• Custom and practice routines considered the norm.
• Communication and feedback mechanisms do not work or
non existent
• No engagement with employees and/or contractors
• A state of un-happiness (low moral) exists in the workplace
Do you recognise any of these in your workplaces?
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Step 2 -Where do you believe you are in the Safety Culture Journey?

• HSE Climate / Culture Surveys

• Behavioural Based Surveys
• In House Arrangements

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 Safety Culture Model
How does safety culture fit in with
reducing accident rates?
Process/Plant Equip
Where do your Values, Beliefs,
Attitudes and Behaviours fit?
Injury Rate

Systems/Procedures
HASAWA – Section 7

Safety is the I can prevent I can prevent my colleague

Responsibility of my own injury! from being injured!
Management!

Little employee Increased employee 100% employee

involvement involvement involvement

Dependent Independent Inter-dependent

1 2 3 4 5
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Step 3 -What are the opportunities for improving the HSE Culture?

•Leadership
•Systems and Procedures
•Engagement of all stakeholders
•Empowerment of Individuals
•Communication (Two way feedback)
•Competence and Training
•Behavioural Based Safety
•Human Factors
•Contractor Management
•Just Culture
•Learning Culture – incident reporting, workplace observations investigation, inspections, audits

Remember that Safety Cultures do not happen overnight. Be vigilant, and monitor very
carefully. Even small changes within the organisation can have far reaching consequences!!

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LEADERSHIP

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 Leadership Quotes

• "Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in

actions.”

• "Leadership is a process that involves: setting a purpose and direction

which inspires people to combine and work towards willingly.”

• "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you

want done because he/she wants to do it."
— Dwight D. Eisenhower

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 Leadership Definitions
• Leadership examples are:
– Responsibility
– Visibility
– Accountability
– Commitment
– Believing
– Taking Action
– Motivation
– Selecting the Right People
– Perseverance
– Vision
– Credibility
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 Who are Leaders?
• Clearly, Leadership from the top is not only important but also sets the
agenda for how the Safety Culture will develop now and into the future.
• It is also important to have strong, effective and underpinning Leadership
platforms at all levels throughout the Organisation to ensure a solid support
structure is in place.
• So the question was “who is a leader?” In my view everyone is a leader.

Leadership, accountability and ownership. It’s about

finding the way to make the right thing happen.

A typical example is a CDM project. The success of the project very

much depends on the people involved at every level, from decision
makers, to those that carry out the work.

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MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS

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 Operational Management System
PLAN

• Operational Standards EXECUTE

UPDATE
SYSTEMS
ACT
• Recognition
• Action Item Resolution
• Technical Directives
• Technical Advisories
• Lessons Learned Library
• Standard Revisions
ANALYZE
• Engineering Design Standards
• Process Technology
• Process Safety Information
• Competency and Expectations
CHECK
• Incident Investigations
• Audits
• Self Assessments
• Internal & External Reviews
• Benchmarking
DO
• Risk Assessment & Management
• Hazard Identification
• Facility Siting
• Operating Procedures
• Alarm Management
• Operations Communications
• Life Critical Standards
• Management of Change / PSSR
• New Manager PS Review
• Training & Coaching
• Asset Integrity Standard
• Stationary Equipment
• Rotating Equipment
• A I & E Equipment
• Emergency Response & Management
MEASURE

• Metrics & KPI’s

• Management System Reviews

HSG65 Successful health and safety management is changing to reflect the model
Plan, Do, Check, Act approach from POPMAR (Policy, Organisation, Planning,
Measuring, Audit). Improved integration process, rather than standalone model 12
 All for one – The
MeerKat way

Together, We can get home Safe

& Healthy Everyday
Main Menu 13
BEHAVIOURAL
BASED SAFETY
PROCESS
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 Behavioural Based Safety Process

• Inventory of Critical Behaviours.

• PPE / Equipment / Vehicles / Housekeeping.
• Criteria to support the Critical Behaviours.
• Observer training / role play.
• Observation Process – Safe and At Risk Behaviours
• Two Way Discussions – Critical element of the Process
• Data Collection / Trends
• Action Planning (Reduction of At Risk Behaviours)

How might this work in the Public Sector /Health Care/Industrial

based working environment?

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 ABC Human Performance Model
(Triggers / Behaviours / Consequences)

Anything that results

from a behaviour

Can be positive or
negative consequence

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 Effective Consequences
Type
– Positive / Negative

Timing
– Immediate / Future

Consistency
– Certain / Uncertain

PIC (Positive, Immediate, Certain) – Most effective

NIC (Negative, Immediate, Certain) – Second most effective
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HUMAN FACTORS
You cannot change the human condition, but
you can change the conditions under which
people work.

(James Reason)

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 Human Factors
HSG48 – Reducing error and influencing behaviours
• Everyone can make errors no matter how well trained and
motivated they are.
• Sometimes we are ‘set up’ by the system to fail. The challenge
is to develop error tolerant systems and to prevent errors
from occurring.
• Failures arising from people other than those directly involved
in operational or maintenance activities are important.
• Managers’ and designers’ failures may lie hidden until they
are triggered at some time in the future.

Consider the last bullet point in terms of the CDM Co-ordinator

and the designer. (active and latent failures)
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 Action not as planned Slips of Action

Skill –Based Errors

“Action”

Inadvertent Lapses of memory

Errors
Rule Based
Mistakes
Hu Mistakes
ma
“thinking”
n
Knowledge based
fail Action as planned
ures mistakes

Deliberate Routine

Violations Situational

Exceptional

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 Human Factors
Slips are failures in carrying out the actions of a task.
Lapses cause us to forget to carry out an action, to lose our place in a task or even to
forget what we had intended to do
Mistakes
Rule-based mistakes occur when our behaviour is based on remembered rules or
familiar procedures.
Knowledge-based mistakes including over reliance on personal experience which might
not be the correct course of action
Violations
Routine violation, breaking the rule or procedure has become a normal way of working
within the group
Situational violations breaking the rule is due to pressures from the job
Exceptional violations rarely happen and only then when something has gone
wrong.

Human Factor assessments are very useful for Process Safety Critical Tasks carried out in a
Petrochemical environment. How may they fit within other types of organisations.
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Construction, Public Sectors etc?
 Step 4 – How would you Sustain the Safety
Culture going forwards?
Examples for Sustainability
• Effective Leadership throughout the Organisation.
• Effective Engagement with all Stakeholders (employees and contractors)
• Effective Change Management (plant equip/processes/personnel)
• Effective Systems and Workplace Processes.
• Effective ‘Learning Culture’ System
• Effective Inspection and Auditing Programmes (internal and external)

Examples: Checks and Balances

• Leading and Lagging Indicators (what’s important to you?)
- Developing metrics
- Workforce involvement ( everyone has a part to play)
- Effective communications/engagement/empowerment
- Others??

It is important to identify and tailor the elements within your organisation which will ensure that
the Safety Culture is not only maintained, but is sustained now and into the future. 22
 Summary

Today we have :-
• Identified some of the Barriers which may undermine the
Safety Culture.
• Identified (perceived) where we are in the Safety Culture
Journey.
• Identified and discussed opportunities for improvement.
• Identified some factors which may assist us in Sustaining the
Safety Culture.

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