An exemplar case of achieving exceptional safety performance by addressing attitudes in an extreme operational oil and gas environment.

Statement

The oil and gas industry has spent over $35 Billion annually on safety since 2011 (Lux Research, 2013), markedly improving performance over the last decade. This success has changed industry attitudes, to the extent operating companies now believe, zero worksite injuries is a realisable target. This step change is echoed by CEO’s industry wide with campaigns like Exxon’s “Nobody Gets Hurt” (Chairman’s Message, 2018). Unfortunately, despite the investment, the industry is not reaching these expectations. In 2019 a “notifiable” incidence rate of twelve (12) (NOPSEMA, 2020) and five (5) (OGUK, 2019) per million man-hours was recorded in Australia and the UK, respectively.

In 2020, COMPANY X outperformed industry averages, completing a highly technical and critical operation with a comparable incident rate of 2.9 per million man-hours. The operation was in PNG, an extremely remote and challenging environment. Union-related local content requirements added issues regarding the integration of an unskilled, uneducated local workforce into an already diverse mix of cultures and personalities. 

Mid campaign COVID-19 caused major resource management disruptions, impacting the rotational schedule of operational personnel. Rotations are typically governed by regulations and company policies with fourteen (14) days on, twenty-one (21) off typical in Europe, whilst Australia administers a twenty-eight (28) day on/off rotation (Parkes, 2012). Despite studies indicating the correlation of extended schedules with increased incidences (Parkes, 2012), the onset of COVID-19 required individuals to work in country for over 200 continuous days, far exceeding any documented rotational periods. Opportunities to delay operations were limited, as deteriorating operational conditions combined with a high likelihood and consequence of incidence, increased corporate risk.

Engineers supported the operation, developing programs and providing engineering direction to support Supervisors. Supervisors, the most senior individuals on the worksite, represent the interests of the operating company, managing, reporting, and supervising operations, ensuring compliance to industry standards and best practices. Acting as a communication conduit, supervisors disseminate engineering plans to the workforce. Workers are entrusted to follow the procedures outlined in the operational plans, completing the laborious manual work and maintenance tasks distributed through numerous daily meetings to review and plan critical operations. 

Operations affected by fatigue (Parkes & Swash, 2000), utilising an unskilled (Kao et al., 2019) and culturally diverse workforce (Zotzmann et al., 2019) or with language and communication barriers (Loney et al., 2012), have historically had increased incident rates, demanding an alternate management approach to achieve the safety performance target. Addressing attitudes proved key to outperforming industry benchmarks despite the documented challenges. This case study discusses the initiatives implemented, targeting key work-related attitudes to affect behaviour and ultimately safety performance.

Attitudes are the propensity of an individual to consistently evaluate an object, thing, or person positively or negatively. (Eagly & Chaiken 1993). Attitudes consist of a perceptual response component (cognitive), an emotional attitude component (affective) and a behavioural component (Rosenberg and Hovland, 1960). Evidence suggests attitudes bias behaviours (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977), are inclined to change over time (Greenwald, 1968), can be moderated by environmental conditions (Glasman & Albarracín, 2006) and correlate to performance (Bohner & Dickel, 2010). Within the larger, broader context of attitudes sits a subset, ‘Work Attitudes’, an individual’s evaluation of job characteristics resulting in an overall feeling, belief, or attachment towards their job (Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012).

Safety Coaches

In 1988, 167 people died in an offshore incident known as Piper Alpha. Investigation findings released in The Lord Cullen Report (1990) had over 106 recommendations, focussing on improving situational strength throughout the industry. 100% of the recommendations were implemented industry wide, to moderate safety related behaviour (Lee & Dalal, 2016). COMPANY X supplemented the situational strength baseline with additional operational safety coaches, increasing supervision and supporting a safe environment conducive to positive discussions. This promoted knowledge transfer by maintaining a consistent, open dialogue throughout the campaign advocating attitude formation, change and strength creation (Howe & Krosnick, 2017) building an effective safety culture.

Situational Strength: The ability of the situation to restrict an individual’s expression reducing variability in response (Mullins and Cummings via Meyer, 2009)

Cultural Awareness and Communication

PNG has an estimated 1000 different cultures, over 850 spoken languages and multiple value systems (Wikipedia, PNG) culminating in a cultural complexity requiring strong communication skills to navigate. With over 40% of the nation being self-sufficient (world bank) there is an absence of local industrial skillsets and with some of the highest illiteracy rates in the world (UNDP) the importance of communication skills and knowledge transfer is amplified. Cultural awareness trainings were conducted to improve the cultural understanding amongst all stakeholders, improving channels of communication and ensuring inclusivity amongst operational teams. This supports effective operational feedback (Rockstuhl et al, 2012), intrinsic social support, and the positive interaction of team members which research indicates strong correlation to job satisfaction (Humphrey et al, 2007).

Job Satisfaction: The overall feeling that an individual has about their job based on evaluating the individual job characteristics.

Knowledge Transfer

The ability to articulate personal tacit knowledge is a skillset required for the effective transfer of essential knowledge (Welch & Welch, 2008) resulting in improved organisational performance (Fang et al, 2010). Contributing to the effective transfer of knowledge is PNG’s culturally proud nation with proud people, when, given the opportunity, embrace challenges, contextually offering distinctive solutions. Building this skillset supports local communities, builds trust, and assists in maintaining social order. Knowledge initiatives targeting the efficient progress of the national workforce promoted independence, increasing responsibility, and job satisfaction (Humphrey et al, 2007) reducing counterproductive work behaviour (CWB) (Runcie, J. 1980).

CWB: Behaviour that negatively affects the company, through actions that may include stealing, absenteeism, being late and aggressive behaviour.

Whilst attitudes are moderated by environmental factors (Glasman,2006), strength factors such as importance, certainty, longevity, and accessibility (Boninger et al, 1995) are key to attitude-behaviour conviction or dissonance behaviour especially in weak situations (Festinger, 1957). Knowledge, training, rewards, and involvement initiatives proved beneficial to building safety attitude importance and strength throughout the campaign.

Attitude Strength: The attitudes tendency to persist and resistance change, affecting cognitive information processes such as judgements and influence over an individual’s behaviour. (Petty, 2014)

Attitude Importance: The degree of subjective importance that an individual places on the attitude. (Boninger et al, 1995).

Cognitive Dissonance: Is a difference between an individual’s behaviour and attitude or between two attitudes. 

Every morning an individual chosen the previous day answered an operationally appropriate safety question. This non-discriminant process consistently generated positive discussions about upcoming operations, generally evolving into retrospective discussions of previous experiences. Initiatives utilising consistent cognitive function have shown to build attitude strength in both accessibility (Bohner, 2011) and persistence (Petty et al., 1995) components. Accessibility supports the change, and formation of attitudes (Schwarz, 2007) and through participating in behavioural interactions, future attitude-behaviour consistency is improved (Regan & Fazio, 1977) especially if such actions are consistent with one’s belief (Keisler, 1971).

Additional operational and safety competency campaigns supported operations, equipment usage and emergency situations. Group recognition of learnt skills improved engagement, and bolstered individuals’ psychological empowerment which a meta-analysis by Diefendorff (2002) indicates a strong correlation to increased job involvement and job performance. Building attitudes through the aggregation of knowledge can aid in the construction of attitude strength with individuals more likely to perceive the events as attitude consistent (Petty, 2014) promoting future attitude-behaviour consistency (Fabrigar et al, 2006).

Job Involvement: How much an individual identifies with the job, and the level of importance in the individual’s self-worth (Lodahl & Kejnar, 1965)

Psychological Empowerment: The belief to the amount one can affect their work environment across four cognition processes; meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact.

COVID Initiatives

As the impact of COVID-19 materialised an operations quarantine bubble was implemented establishing a safe environment for international and indigenous workers. Once recognised normal rotations were no longer possible, critical individuals were approached about their continuing availability. Scenario specific visas were granted, and those who were unwilling or unable to remain were flown home via diplomatic means.

To support the required operational numbers, individuals were contracted from three competing companies, merged, then split into three even teams, and a domestic rotation 2 on, 1 off was implemented. Contracting aircraft and hotels for sole usership ensured appropriate separation from the public whilst supporting fatigue and the mental state of workers. Individuals progressed to senior roles with limited prior experience, drawing on the leadership characteristics of the group, entrusting the success of the operation to the professionalism of the team. Significant growth of team spirit, psychological empowerment and perceived organisational support was observed with individuals. Studies indicate this increases levels of commitment, organisational and safety citizenship behaviour (Loi, 2006) (Reader et al., 2017) and correlates to reduced safety incidences (Erdogan et al., 2018).

Perceived Organisational Support: The perception an individual has of the level the employer values their contributions and cares about their wellbeing.

Organisational Commitment: The level to which an individual in emotionally attached (Allen and Meyer, 1990), identifies, and is involved within an organisation (Mowday et al., 1979)

Monetary Benefits

Monetary benefits and socially responsible prizes were provided to individuals who participated in safety discussions and displayed proactive safety behaviour. This motivated the local workforce and improved perceived fairness, influencing work attitudes and behaviour (Rockstuhl, 2020). Positive experiences of participation increase attitude accessibility leading to positive correlations of future attitude-behaviour consistency (Cacioppo et al, 1986). Meta studies have indicated accessibility increases the frequency of cognitively acknowledging attitudes resulting in their construction and strengthening (Glasman & Albarracín, 2006).

Supervision and Management

Supervisory commitment (Reason, 1997) and the effective promotion (O’Dea & Flin 2001) of safety culture provides the foundation for a constructive work environment. Deliberate and consistent distribution of feedback (Anseel, & Lievens, 2007) and encouragement, to direct operations, motivate, stimulate, and reward superior safety performance (Saracino et al., 2015) promotes job satisfaction and operational performance. Literature discusses the benefits in training supervisors to manage these psychosocial operational aspects to build positive atmospheres and team environments (Frese and Fay, 2001) empowering (Harris et al., 2014) and building trust to moderate safety citizenship behaviour (Conchie & Donald, 2009).

Achieving 200 days hurt free was recognised by management further strengthening the participative levels and commitment to operational safety (Geller, 2002 via Curcuruto, 2018). The enduring effort resulted in significant personal sacrifice including the absence of family events, births, and funerals. This display of the highest levels of organisational citizenship ultimately resulted in above industry standard safety performance.

Discussions and Suggestions

Building a safety culture is a social equation, built over time requiring the successful implementation of situational dependent supportive initiatives (Reader et al, 2017). The success of this operation suggests there is merit in developing a documented approach to the implementation of a social safety program targeting attitudes moving forward.

The initiatives implemented were directed towards previously identified areas of risk, targeting cultural awareness, communication, and individual engagement. As COVID-19 influenced the environmental situation, focus shifted to fairness to keep operations progressing whilst developing perceived organisational support promoting citizenship behaviour. In future operations it would be beneficial to track work attitudes via anonymous surveys to proactively address any developing operational social risks.

The communication and knowledge transfer initiatives focussed on the social aspects of teamwork promoting SCB (Parker, 2014) resulting in individuals supporting others beyond job scopes indicating SCB development (Curcuruto & Griffin, 2018). The daily question participation ensured the accessibility of attitudes combining knowledge and behavioural experiences, ensuring persistent and resistant attitude development (Hovland et al., 1957). Trust proved crucial due to the environmental constraints forced on operations, however individuals stepped up where required proving beneficial to the campaign, increasing engagement, POS, and OSB.

Understanding this social exchange progressively develops, it could prove useful to strengthen safety efforts during initial campaign periods, until attitudes, and attitude strengths have had the opportunity to develop. There is evidence that commitment strategies are effective in certain circumstances, especially in the short term, and could be considered for supporting safety compliance early in the program. (Lokhorst et al., 2013).

The implementations suggested would complement those initiated in future campaigns. Documenting these for consistency would be a cost effective and quick way to capture the lessons learned, and assist future operations implementing similar initiatives. Sharing lessons and maintaining continuous feedback loops would help to build the organisational safety culture to continuously achieve “record safety and reliability performance” (Woods, 2021).

John Tranfield

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