Configure safety communication to unleash your safety culture’s true potential

Communication has always been considered the most pivotal concern in all aspects of human interaction. It is essential for organizational and managerial performance, and it can be argued that communication is the primary driver of success.¹ 

From an industrial perspective, effective communication is an integral part of achieving an injury-free workplace. Most incidents are due, in part, to risky behaviors, yet employees are often reluctant to provide safety-related feedback to their coworkers.² While the “7Cs” of communication (clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete and courteous) have been in practice for a long time, things are still not completely in order.  

A tank truck containing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) was being flushed out before being sent for repair. The laboratory staff was asked to analyze the atmosphere in the tanker to determine if any hydrocarbons were still present. The laboratory staff regularly analyzed the atmosphere inside the LPG tank trucks, mostly for oxygen. Due to a misunderstanding, they assumed that an oxygen analysis was required on this occasion and reported over the telephone, “none detected.” The operators assumed that no hydrocarbons had been detected and sent the tank truck for repair. Fortunately, the garage performed its own check analysis, and more than 1 ton (t) of LPG was found. 

In another facility, a team member at the warehouse received an order for TEA, using only the abbreviation. At the team members’ previous job, TEA was the abbreviation of tri-ethanol-amine, but the operator who placed the order requested tri-ethylamine (also abbreviated as TEA) for in-plant dosing. Luckily, the team member at the warehouse picked up the difference before the wrong material for dosing was issued.³ 

While the above incidents cover personnel- and team-level issues, safety communication in an oil and gas setting encompasses various aspects (FIG. 1). 

FIG. 1. Effective safety communication encompasses everything and everyone for operations to continue safely. 

As illustrated, effective safety communication encompasses everything and everyone so that operations can continue safely. It is unrealistic to expect that these various interconnected and intraconnected communications aspects will operate independently and effectively.  

Safety leadership must develop a management system to ensure that the following are in place: 

• Guidance documents that oversee the entire program with clear accountabilities, resources, roles and responsibilities 

• Communicating safety content, including initiatives (planned campaigns, networking events) and mandatory safety engagements [risk studies, investigation reports/lesson learned, hazard and operability (HAZOP) studies] 

• The medium of information transfer (virtual/in-person) and location (meeting room/control room/operator shelters) 

• Frequency of engagements 

• Gauging the efficacy of safety communication in the organization 

• Continuous improvement mechanisms. 

The management system is recommended to comprise the following aspects: 

1. Guidance document development: The system should be developed to provide the requisite guidance, key deliverables, resources, tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs) and a responsible, accountable, consulted and informed (RACI) matrix covering all stakeholders. 
2. Safety content: A site’s safety communication plan should include the following safety content:⁴ 

• A safety policy mission statement to help communicate an organization’s vision and guide its leaders to make health, safety and environment (HSE)-related decisions accordingly. It also serves as a compass to align safety objectives with overall business strategies. 

• Developing a plan of leadership site visits provides leaders an opportunity to use their judgment to evaluate safety culture, validate what is being reported, engage field teams with effective two-way communication and use their influence to reinforce desired behaviors.  

• An organization can share its safety/process safety performance through graphs of lost time injuries, process safety metrics and other performance indicators. The primary purpose is to enhance the entire team’s safety culture and facilitate continual improvement through ownership and accountability.  

• Employees and visitors should receive thorough safety induction training outlining site safety rules and requirements, specific hazards, emergency procedures and incident reporting. This helps project a positive safety-conscious image of the organization and lays a foundation for the future integration of safety-conscious professionals. The orientation should be re-developed in case of any changes to the site in a control of major accident hazards (COMAH) report. 

• A site’s safety manual consolidates the mandatory safety procedures required for working safely. Checklists can be used as assisting tools to help prevent mishaps and increase incident reporting. The manual should point to relevant maintenance and operations procedures to encourage awareness and compliance. 

• A safety training plan must be developed for new and existing employees as refreshers. It should target gaps in knowledge of high-risk groups and frequently re-adjust the perception of risk (before the normalization of deviance sets in). Training in safe work methods should include case studies, previous site-specific incidents and past audit findings. 

• A well-functioning HSE intranet website can provide a one-stop-shop that includes the safety manual, policies, incident and audit reports, leading and lagging indicators, and other relevant data. Available resources must always be kept updated and available to enhance awareness and ensure compliance. For an HSE website to be effective, personnel must know of its existence, be motivated to access the information and have access to feedback mechanisms from competent HSE resources and regularly updated information.  

• Plan to conduct safety briefings weekly on various topics throughout the year to promote a happier and healthier workplace—this raises the level of awareness among employees and demonstrates visible leadership from management. Such events provide an excellent opportunity to showcase best practices in occupational and process safety. Engagement can be enhanced through various activities (e.g., seminars, videos, evacuation drills, health checks) and promotional competitions.  

• Various publications on HSE matters should be consolidated from the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB). These publications can range from simple instructional leaflets on particular topics such as safety critical defeat (override), safe lifting, electrical safety and risk-based inspection (RBI), to general items such as checklists and guides to legislation and sources of further information to more detailed reports, books, etc. Small instructional leaflets can be suitable for general distribution, with copies available for the relevant workforce in different languages. Posters can help overcome language barriers through the use of illustrations and symbols. Posters should be kept on a special display board (not cluttered with other notices) to draw attention and changed at frequent intervals (FIG. 2).  

FIG. 2. Key safety critical communications. 

 

3. Implementation details: Face-to-face (F2F) communication is always preferred over virtual engagements in all safety communications. However, differences in time zones and physical distances between various assets make F2F communication challenging and costly for all safety events. 

Relevant leaders should plan all safety engagements at the workplace (e.g., control room, operator field shelters, maintenance workshops, meeting rooms). This will give the team the impression that management prioritizes safety over production, thereby shifting their focus from schedule and work pressures to prioritizing a safer outcome every time. 

Ideally, the engagements should be opened by the most senior leadership member in the venue to reiterate management’s commitment to HSE, with every team getting a chance to contribute afterwards. 

4. Frequency of engagements: While the frequency of training/refresher courses has been clearly outlined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), COMAH reports and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), it is recommended to develop internal guidelines and embed them in local databases to enforce compliance. While HSE takes the lead for safety-related training [e.g., permit to work (PTW), work at height, confined space entry], operations and maintenance should implement mechanisms to refresh awareness of critical procedures, systems and processes. 

5. Gauging efficiency of safety communication in the organization: Developing a thorough plan is only half  of the equation: effective communication requires transparency and a positive acknowledgment to confirm the transfer of real intent between involved parties. Many large organizations devote the necessary resources to ensuring that the message is transmitted, but they do not devote comparable resources to ensuring that it is received. The arrival of an email in an inbox does not guarantee two-way communication. There must be a resource at the receiving end—comparable to the resource at the transmitting end—dedicated to receiving incoming "lessons learned" and converting them into actions. Those actions themselves may involve additional resources.5 

An audit is a valuable tool to gauge the effectiveness of critical safety communication. Management site visits can also serve as an informal, economical and effective tool for leaders to gauge the effectiveness of the entire process. Closing discussions should discuss discrepancies and route the issues to the responsible authorities for rectification. 

6. Continuous improvement mechanism: Best practices to enhance safety communication include coaching leaders in active listening and effective communication, involving organizational middle management and young engineers in management site visits, frequently targeting safety messages for the right audience, and automated employee engagement tracking through internal databases. Feedback is essential for all safety discussions and internal databases should be developed to visibly trickle down the response to most, if not all, safety concerns that have been raised. 

Takeaway. Safety communication is a critical aspect of a site’s safety culture. While most management systems have communication tasks embedded within, it is important to have a dedicated management system overseeing the correct information flow with the right team at the right place at a manageable frequency. Management's job is to ensure safety messages are affective (triggering the right emotions) and effective (achieving the desired results) in the long-term pursuit of excellence.  

LITERATURE CITED 

1 Krivonos, P., et al., “Communication in aviation safety: Lessons learned and lessons required,” Australia and New Zealand Societies of Air Safety Investigators. 

2 Williams, P. and Geller, E., et al., “Communication strategies for achieving a total safety culture,” EHS Today, 2008. online: https://www.ehstoday.com/safety-leadership/article/21910153/communication-strategies-for-achieving-a-total-safety-culture 

3 Kletz, T., et al., “What went wrong,” IChemE, 2019. 

4 Angelica, M., et al., “Enhancing safety culture through effective communication,” CSIRO Process Science and Engineering, 2003. 

5 Hopkins, A., et al., “Disastrous decisions: The human and organizational causes of the Gulf of Mexico blowout,” CCH Australia Ltd., 2012. 

About the author 

AAMISH J. KHAN is an Operational Safety Consultant who has supported various renowned companies in the oil and gas, petrochemical and utilities sectors in their safety culture enhancement journeys for two decades. He has a multifaceted exposure to operations leadership, occupational safety, process safety management (PSM), integrity assurance and audit, enabling him to identify, analyze and treat risk effectively throughout an asset's lifecycle. Khan is now involved in co-authoring the Center for Chemical Process Safety’s (CCPS’s) “Safe work practices,” guidelines to enhance the sharing of lessons learned across the global industry and soften the safety impact on workers' lives. Khan earned a BS degree in chemical engineering and an MS in enterprise risk management from Boston University (U.S.). 

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