SAFETY, ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT AND RISK MANAGEMENT

KOG 11303
SEMESTER 1 2015/2016
________________________________________________________________

ASSIGNMENT TITLE :
Project Journal
Preliminary Study of Challenges to successful Implementation of the Safety Culture in
Oil and Gas Management
___________________________________________________________________________

BY:
NORASIAH AB KASIM (MK1512008T)
AND
NORFAIZAH JATLEE (MK1512009T)
 Acknowledgement

Firstly, we would like to show my gratitude to Mr. Zakaria Aris, for sharing his pearls
of wisdom with us during the course subject of KOG11303 Project Management, Master of
Engineering (Oil and Gas Engineering), Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).

We thank to all our fellow classmates for the stimulating discussion, working together
before deadline and for all fun that we had for this semester. Last but not least, we would like
to thank to our family members for continuous supporting us throughout writing this project
journal study.

-A.K. Norasiah and J. Norfaizah-

7th January 2016

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 LISTS OF CONTENT

Page Number

Acknowledgement ii
List of content iii
List of table v
List of figure vi
Abstract 1

1.0 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Working environment in oil and gas industry 1

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Leadership 5
2.2 People 6
2.3 System 7
2.4 Communication 7

3.0 METHODOLOGY 9

4.0 DISCUSSION 9

4.1 Leadership 10
4.1.1 Executive Buy-In 10
4.1.2 Leader Behaviour 10
4.1.3 Leadership Development 11
4.2 People 11

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 4.2.1 Ownership and Participation 11
4.2.2 Behaviour 12
4.2.3 Training 12
4.2.4 Recognition 12
4.3 System 13
4.3.1 Integration 13
4.3.2 Organisational Alignment 13
4.3.3 Vision and Values 14
4.3.4 Sustainability 14
4.3.5 HR System 14
4.3.6 Traditional Safety Strategies 15

5.0 CONCLUSION 15

6.0 REFERENCES 16

iv
 LIST OF TABLES

Table No. Page Number

1 Top Offshore Incidents Listed in Decreasing Order of Fatalities Involved: 3

Worldwide, 1970 2007
2 Top 10 Causal factors assigned to fatal incidents (20102014) 4

v
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure No. Page Number

1 Causal Factors Assigned to high potential events (2013-2014) 4

2 Illustration of the concepts, the levels at which they operate, and their 9
relationships in the hypothesized model.

vi
 Preliminary Study of Challenges to successful Implementation of the Safety Culture in
Oil and Gas Management

Norfaizah Jatlee, Norasiah Ab. Kasim and Zakaria Aris

Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, 88450 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
Email: norafaizah_jatlee@gmail.com and norasiah.ak@gmail.com
___________________________________________________________________________
Abstract
Every company desires safe operations, but the challenge is to translate this desire into action.
Written rules, standards and procedures while important and necessary, are not enough.
Companies must develop a culture in which the value of safety is embedded in every level of
the workforce. This study revealed factors that contribute to the unsuccessful implementation
of safety culture among the oil and gas industry. The preliminary study had shown that
leadership, people, system and communication are key elements of the safety culture in
organization and close related to each other. Behavioural behaviour was also reflected in both
conceptual and operational of the safety culture improvement and implementation. Therefore,
as part of a broader strategy targeting multiple levels of the oil and gas organisation
Behavioural safety program, sufficient safety training, communicate every results and celebrate
success in the organisation are important are highly recommended in order to sustaining safety
culture effort.

___________________________________________________________________________

Keywords: Behavioural Safety Program, Safety culture, Leadership, People, System,

Communication

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Working in oil and gas industry exposed worker in the high risk and hazardous
environment especially for people who works at upstream sector. Previously there are many
accident had been reported subject to the oil and gas industry such as explosion at Macondo
Well (2010), Piper Alpha (1988) and Petrobras P-36(2001) involves many fatalities, injuries
and properties damage. Table 1 shows top offshore incidents of fatalities involved since
1970-2007. Major causes of accident due to poor communication between the owner and the
contractor, bad safety culture among the operators and contractors, failure of safety system
and leader fail to perform their role. Therefore to minimise accidents and properties losses
safety culture implementation is a must in every organisation.

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Table 1: Top Offshore Incidents Listed in Decreasing Order of Fatalities Involved: Worldwide, 1970 2007

2
 Report from IOGP safety performance indicators (2014) shows top 10 causal factors
assigned to fatalities in oil and gas industry; such as inadequate work standards or procedure,
lack of awareness, improper decision making and etc. (Table 2). This report also presented
major causes of accidents/incidents occur are due to unsafe act and unsafe working condition.
Faridah et al (2012) sighting several publications from Connor (1992), Sawacha et al. (1999),
Stranks (2000). Thanet et al (2007) regarding on accidents at work occur either due to unsafe
working conditions and unsafe acts. More than 80 percent of all the workplace accidents and
incidents are attributed to unsafe behaviour (Choudhry et al.,2007, Faridah et al., 2012).
Figure 1 shows percentage of unsafe act and working condition that contribute to causal
factors that assigned to high potential events from year 2013 to 2014 as reported by IOGP
Safety Performance Indicators (2014).

Based on previous reviews, it is expected that in the organisation needs strong safety
culture in order to minimise incidents, accidents and properties losses/damages. Therefore,
there are some essential elements required in a safety culture in organization which will
discuss in this paper.

Table 2: Top 10 Causal factors assigned to fatal incidents (20102014)

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 Causal Factors Assigned To High
Potential Events 2013 & 2014
Year 2013 30 70
2014 35 65
Unsafe Conditions (UC)
0 Unsafe Act (UA)
50
100
Percentage of Causal Factors

Figure 1: Causal Factors Assigned to high potential events (2013-2014)

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected against physical,
social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational, psychological, educational, or
other types or consequences of failure, damage, error, accidents, harm, or any other event that
could be considered non-desirable. Safety can also be defined to be the control of recognized
hazards to achieve an acceptable level of risk. This can take the form of being protected from
the event or from exposure to something that causes health or economical losses. It can
include protection of people or of possessions.

What people see, hear, feel, and say influences culture. Perhaps most importantly, it
influences the decisions and actions (behaviours) of people in an organization, and these
behaviours ultimately drive safety outcomes and performance. National Energy Board states
that a strong safety culture is one in which leaders demonstrate that safety is their overriding
value and priority; everyone is aware of known hazards while remaining vigilant to new
threats; every employee feels empowered and recognized for making safe decisions;
employees feel encouraged to report safety hazards, including instances where they have
committed an error and introduced a threat themselves; everyone, including the most junior
employee would not hesitate to take action in response to a safety concern without fear of
disciplinary action or reprisal; people work safely regardless of whether or not someone is
watching; and the organization is continually learning from its own and others experiences
with the goal of advancing safety.

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 The term safety culture was first introduced to the nuclear industry as part of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessment of the causes of the 1986 Chernobyl
accident. (Stephanie L. Morrow). Safety culture means the attitudes, values, norms and
beliefs, which a particular group of people shares with respect to risk and safety (Mearns, K.,
Flin, R., Gordon, R. & Fleming, M. (1998). Safety includes safety of workers and the
public, process safety, operational safety, facility integrity, security and environmental
protection.). The NEB, C-NLOPB, and CNSOPB defined Safety culture means as the
attitudes, values, norms and beliefs, which a particular group of people shares with respect
to risk and safety.

Analysis of interview transcripts identified the existence of four common themes in relation
to the elements of a safety culture - leadership, people, systems and communication. With the
exception of communication, each of these themes was highly diverse in content, leading to
the development of a number of subthemes. Relationships were observed reflecting an
understanding of the interactions between leaders, people, systems and communication within
a safety culture.

2.1 Leadership

Leadership is key to establishing, fostering and maintaining a healthy safety

culture. The attitudes of executive and senior management, their actions and decisions
serve to shape corporate culture. Leadership uses its management systems policies,
priorities, processes, and procedures to formally communicate its values and
expectations. Through these mechanisms, executive management establishes the
initial framework of the corporate culture. Where an organization is strongly in tune
with establishing and maintaining a positive safety culture, it scrutinizes, as a normal
business function, every decision to ensure that risk is considered and managed
appropriately. It sets performance measures that provide a complete picture of the
organizations current state in order to identify areas of weakness and to proactively
manage safety in advance of an incident. Leader language and behaviour, and the
ability to gain the trust of employee were both identified as critical to the role of
leaders in creating and driving safety culture.

Leader language and behaviour was the most frequently identified subtheme
within conversations about the contribution of leadership to safety culture. Employees

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expressed an understanding that leaders shape the beliefs and subsequent behaviours
of their employee through what they say and what they do. Leader behaviour and
language was recognised as a factor that can either promote or detract from a positive
safety culture. In particular, employees spoke about the need for consistent behaviour
both from individual leaders and from the leadership team as a whole, and the
importance of leaders demonstrating that safety is a priority.

Earning the trust of employee was identified as an important aspect of a

leaders ability to create and drive improvements in safety culture. That is, that a
higher level of trust in leadership should lead to more frequent proactive challenges,
and more transparent reporting of incidents.

2.2 People

People was identified as a high-level theme, encompassing a number of

subthemes. Employees frequently identified workforce behaviour as an outcome of
safety culture, and also as a challenge to achieving a positive safety culture. In
particular, safety behaviours such as compliance and stopping the job were mentioned
by a number of employees.

Workforce ownership and participation was identified as another factor

influencing safety culture. The attitudes and beliefs of the workforce were identified
as an outcome or indicator of culture. Workforce attitudes and beliefs were recognised
as a significant barrier to effective safety culture improvement. In some cases
employees were able to describe the way that beliefs and attitudes can reflect basic
assumptions formed through past organisational decisions and practices. A competent
workforce was a contributing factor to the development of a positive safety culture.
Workforce must be able to competently interact with safety systems in order to
comply and to achieve positive safety outcomes.

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2.3 System

The contribution of organisational systems to the development of safety

culture was identified as in continuous improvement systems, reporting systems,
safety management systems, integration of safety, human resources systems and
organisational performance measurement. Employees identified the need for
organisational systems that allow and promote organisational learning. Particular
emphasis was placed on making system modifications as a result of findings from
incident investigations and other sources of organisational data, to ensure that learning
is not lost. Systems that allow and encourage reporting were also identified as
contributing to a positive safety culture. Similarly, poor reporting was understood to
detract from a positive safety culture.

A robust safety management system (SMS) and the role of human resources
(HR) systems was identified as contributing to a positive safety culture. The SMS was
typically in relation to its role in driving frontline workforce safety behaviour. Safety
issues within the recruitment process, the role of training and competency in
developing a safety culture, and the importance of effective workforce planning and
retention in maintaining a safety culture shall take into account as in safety culture of
organisation. The role of organisational performance measurement shall be discussed
in relation to driving continuous improvement in safety culture. Employees
commented on the importance of measuring accurately, measuring the right things,
and also on the need for appropriate analysis, interpretation, and actions arising from
measurement.

2.4 Communication

Communications management is the systematic planning, implementing,

monitoring, and revision of all the channels of communication within an organization,
and between organizations; it also includes the organization and dissemination of new
communication directives connected with an organization, network, or
communications technology. Aspects of communications management include
developing corporate communication strategies, designing internal and external

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communications directives, and managing the flow of information, including online
communication.

The communication between different levels of a professional organization

relies on use of different types of media, so reception analysis will be useful to
research how and why different interpretations and even misunderstandings occur
(McQuail, 1997; Morley, 1992, Wold et al., 2014). Internal communication in a
professional organization is about communication to an intended audience, where
there is (or at least should be) no doubt what the preferred meaning of the mediated
text is. In our ordinary lives it is quite common that we send a message, believing it
was clear and unambiguous, but then responses and reactions indicate totally different
and unexpected interpretations (Drottz-Sjberg, 2012). This happens within
professional organizations as well. The meaning structure constructed by the receiver
of the message is not necessarily the same as the meaning structure intended by the
sender (Hall, 2002, 1980; McQuail, 1997, Wold et al., 2014). The Safety Management
System is mainly constructed at an executive level in the organization and distributed
to the lower levels, and at the lower levels, it must be interpreted order to make sense.
There is no guarantee that it will be interpreted as intended.

There is considerable evidence in the safety literature that leaders'

commitment to safety and the degree to which employees perceive that leaders in the
organization prioritize safety have strong links to the safety behaviors and injury rates
of its employees (Bosak, Coetsee, & Cullinane, 2013; Cohen, 1977; Hofmann, Jacobs,
& Landy, 1995; O'Toole, 2002; Zohar, 1980). In line with these findings, Zohar
(2002) showed that safety priority communicated by higher superiors moderated the
relationship between leadership style and injury rates in organizational subunits.
Based on these and other theories regarding leadership, communication, safety
behaviors, and safety outcomes, an integrated model of the relationship between
leadership communication and patient safety is proposed (Fig. 2). In the following
sections, the paths through which leader communication may affect safety behaviors
and outcomes are considered and the corresponding hypotheses are described.

8
Figure 2: Illustration of the concepts, the levels at which they operate, and their relationships
in the hypothesized model.

3.0 METHODOLOGY

This study is being done based on several research papers, reports and others finding.
From the issue, it is being suit up with the practicability, and relevancy with the global oil
and gas safety culture situation. The methods used for the data collection among the safety
and health practitioner include questionnaire survey, semi-structured interview, and
observation. The literature review underlies the development of this exercise. We sought
previous research methods approach with interviewees selected among those involved in the
safety program which includes the Safety and Health Manager, Facilitator, Safety and Health
Officer/Supervisor, Project Manager and Project Engineer in each of the case study.
Questionnaires survey were distributed within each case study to seek the current
implementation of safety and the barriers towards its implementation from safety officers,
safety supervisors, project managers, project engineers, supervisors and other managerial and
technical staff.

4.0 DISCUSSION

Many of the elements that employees identified as important to the development of a

safety culture are reflected in their safety culture improvement strategies. This is to be
expected and demonstrates alignment between individual mental models of culture and
practical culture change strategies. In particular, the themes of leadership, people and systems

9
were repeated, with a larger number of subthemes appearing. Employees also spoke about
triggers for change, the theories and models that their improvement strategies are based upon,
issues of organisational identity, and the concept of continuous improvement. The identified
themes and subthemes are described in detail below.

4.1 Leadership

Leadership was one of the most frequently occurring themes during employees
discussions about their conceptualisations of safety culture. Given this prevalence, it
is not surprising that leadership should also form one of the key themes identified
during employees descriptions of safety culture improvement initiatives within their
organisations.

4.1.1 Executive buy-in

The importance of executive buy-in to the success of safety culture

improvement initiatives was highlighted by a number of employees. The
impact of executive buy-in was discussed both in terms of the need for
executives to commit to strategy, as well as the impact that perceived
executive buy-in was likely to have on the workforce. It was further identified
that, for executives to genuinely commit to safety culture improvement, they
needed to have a sound understanding of the safety issues being faced by the
organisation, and the factors contributing to those issues.

4.1.2 Leader behaviour

Many employees identified the active role assigned to leaders in driving their
safety culture improvement initiatives. Particular leader behaviours discussed
included proactive engagement with the workforce, leaders managing their
own behaviours which set the standard for employee, and behaving in a

10
 consistent manner. Employees also spoke about the implementation of tools
and processes to assist leaders in engaging effectively with the workforce.

4.1.3 Leadership development

Leadership development was identified as a core component of safety culture

improvement strategies. Employees recognised that leaders require coaching
and training in order to demonstrate the behaviours required to create and
drive a positive safety culture. Interestingly, the type of training and coaching
spoken about did not appear to be limited to safety-specific leadership, many
employees spoke about providing leaders with general leadership skills
development as part of their safety culture improvement initiatives.

4.2 People

As with leadership, the people has been reflected in employees descriptions of

their safety culture improvement initiatives. The behaviour and ownership and
participation were identified again. Recognition and compliance have also been
identified within this theme as people-related elements of safety culture improvement
initiatives.

4.2.1 Ownership and participation

Workforce ownership and participation was identified as an important

contributing factor to the development of a positive safety culture in
employees conceptualisations of safety culture. This understanding appears to
have been incorporated into the development of subsequent safety culture
improvement initiatives, with many employees describing workforce
ownership and participation activities as a key element of their strategy. In
particular, employees spoke about involving the workforce in the development
of aspects of their safety culture improvement initiatives, and also in risk
assessment and control activities.

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4.2.2 Behaviour

As with the ownership and participation subtheme, workforce behaviour was

also reflected in both conceptual and operational discussions. While from a
conceptual perspective, employees discussed behaviour as an outcome of
culture, operationally behaviour was typically discussed in relation to the
implementation of behavioural safety programs. Behavioural safety programs
can contribute to safety culture improvement when implemented as part of a
broader strategy targeting multiple levels of the organisation. However, they
should not be used as the sole or primary mechanism for safety culture
improvement. Given that safety culture is created and driven through
executive decision-making and subsequent leader behaviour, strategies
targeting workforce behaviour in isolation are unlikely to result in safety
culture change.

4.2.3 Training

Workforce training was frequently identified as an element of safety culture

improvement programs. Training at the workforce level was typically
discussed in relation to behavioural safety initiatives and the use of risk
management tools. A large proportion of those organisations delivering
personal and process safety training as a means of improving safety
performance identified that this training includes frontline personnel, both site-
and office-based.

4.2.4 Recognition

A number of employees identified the use of formal positive recognition

programs within their safety culture improvement strategy. Recognition
strategies ranged from verbal feedback through to peer mentoring
opportunities, and issuing of material rewards. A range of reinforcement
strategies were also identified in the interim report, in relation to achievement
of injury frequency rate targets.

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4.3 Systems

Systems was identified as a theme during conceptual discussions about safety

culture, and as with leadership and people, this theme was reflected in employees
descriptions of implemented safety culture improvement approaches. The conceptual
subthemes of continuous improvement and HR systems were also identified in the
practical safety culture improvement strategies described during the interviews. Other
subthemes identified within this theme have theoretical similarities to their conceptual
counterparts, but display practical differences. Conceptually, employees spoke about
the importance of reporting to safety culture, while in practice they described the
implementation of just culture approaches.

The requirement for a good quality SMS was identified during conceptual
discussions, which has translated into the inclusion of traditional safety strategies
and simplification in implementation. At a conceptual level, employees also spoke
about integration of safety responsibilities and activities across all areas of the
business, which in implementation appears to be focused on integration of specific
safety culture improvement strategies across the business. In addition, organisational
alignment, vision and values, and sustainability were identified as new subthemes
within participant descriptions of systems.

4.3.1 Integration

The majority of employees spoke about efforts to integrate their safety culture
improvement strategy within their existing organisational systems. This
approach was focused on ensuring sustainability of change over time, with
many employees speaking about a desire to improve existing systems rather
than creating something entirely new.

4.3.2 Organisational alignment

The need for organisational alignment was identified as an element of

successful safety culture improvement by a number of employees. While this
subtheme appears to be similar to the integration subtheme discussed above,
integration was discussed in relation to organisational systems, while this

13
subtheme relates to alignment of people within the business. Specifically,
employees commented on the need to drive culture change through various
business units, departments, locations, contractors, and phases of work, to
facilitate consistency across the organisation.

4.3.3 Vision and Values

Some employees described the development of their safety culture

improvement strategies as being based on their organisations safety vision
and values. Typically, vision and values were used to frame a set of desired
behaviours, sometimes targeting only the workforce level and sometimes
across multiple job levels including management. Comments relating to vision
and values often also spoke about winning over the hearts and minds of the
workforce.

4.3.4 Sustainability

Sustainability strategies were identified by a number of employees as a critical

part of their safety culture improvement approaches. Employees discussed the
importance of sustaining positive changes achieved through safety culture
improvement initiatives. There was a recognition that initial implementation of
strategies and programs may be relatively easy to achieve, but that sustaining
those changes posed a greater challenge.

4.3.5 HR systems

HR systems were identified as increasingly important to safety culture

improvement. In particular, employees discussed the incorporation of safety-
related content into recruitment processes, including safety leadership and
values-related behavioural interviewing. Employees also discussed the need
for improved workforce planning to allow sufficient time for work to be done
safely, the role of competency matrices in facilitating safe performance, and
inclusion of safety items in personnel development plans. In using unproven

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 screening tools, organisations may unnecessarily limit their candidate pool.
Within an employment market currently characterised by skills shortages,
organisations basing recruitment decisions on such instruments may recruit
people with fewer competencies or less experience, with the expectation that
this will be offset by an improvement in safety behaviour. Unfortunately the
research to date does not appear to support the ability of existing instruments
to ensure this expected offset. Organisations considering the use of such
instruments should closely investigate the predictive claims made by
instrument providers, particularly in relation to the percentage of unique
variance in safety behaviour explained by the instrument.

4.3.6 Traditional safety strategies

Some employees identified the use of traditional safety improvement

strategies, in the absence of other safety culture improvement strategies such
as those discussed above, which their organisations had labelled as safety
culture improvement. Such strategies included the implementation or
improvement of risk assessment tools, safety observation programs, SMS
elements, safety meetings, action tracking systems, and crew-focused
behaviour based safety programs.

5.0 CONCLUSION

Safety culture is an international topical issue that has been talk in organisation for
many years. Exploring the way safety culture is understood and implemented within
Malaysia Petroleum industry is highly recommended. Based on discussion above there are
four (4) elements in the effective implementation of safety culture (leadership, people, system
and communication). These four elements are closely related to each other. Lack of one
element will affect the implementation of the safety culture. As an example of a leader who
has good leadership but have less effective communication will cause the information to be
conveyed is not received correctly, especially to the workers at subordinate level. Same like
fire if not enough elements so it does not turn it.

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 Behavioural behaviour was also reflected in both conceptual and operational of the
safety culture improvement and implementation. Therefore, it is also recommend for each oil
and gas company to practice Behavioural safety program as part of a broader strategy
targeting multiple levels of the organisation. Other than that establishment of safety steering
committee, sufficient safety training, develop site safety vision, continually measure safety
performance, communicate every results and celebrate success in the organisation are
important to sustaining safety culture effort. Lastly, on-going support from every level of
ordinates and subordinates are vital to sustaining continuous safety culture improvement.

6.0 REFERENCES

Biggs S. E., Banks T. D., Davey J. D. & Freeman J. E. (2012). Safety leaders perceptions of
safety culture in a large Australasian construction organisation. Journal of Safety
Sciences. 52, 3-12.

Faridah Ismail, Ahmad Ezanee Hashim, Wan Zuriea Wan Ismail, Hikmah Kamarudin &
Zarita Ahmad Baharom. (2012). Behaviour Based Approach for Quality and Safety
Environment Improvement: Malaysian Experience in the Oil and Gas Industry.
Journal of Social and Behavioral Sciences. 35, 586 594.

Graces M. I. (2014). Strategy, culture and safety. Journal of Progress in Nuclear Energy. 76,
81-87.

Hivik D., Tharaldsen J. E., Baste V. & Moen B. E. (2009). What is most important for
safety climate: The company belonging or the local working environment? A study
from the Norwegian offshore industry. Journal of Safety Sciences. 47, 13241331.

Mearns K. & Yule S. (2009). The role of national culture in determining safety performance:
Challenges for the global oil and gas industry. Journal of Safety Science, 47, 777-
785.

National Energy Board. Advancing Safety In The Oil And Gas Industry Statement On Safety
Culture.

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National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority. (2013).
Report: National Program: Safety culture improvement initiatives in the Australian
offshore petroleum industry.

Wold T. & Laumann K. (2015). Safety Management Systems as communication in an oil and
gas producing company. Journal of Safety Sciences, 72, 23-30.

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