Think Over- "Management HSE Negligence will never spare you a second chance"

HSE is NO NONSENCE Business.

But human priorities change as fast as their short memory. Human life is only that cheap – yes that cheap for some unforgiving human beings. Here is a forecast to one such impending disaster. Time gone, lets change our HSE moto, HSE commitments and HSE policy as a whole.

This story dates just a few years back, not to mention who was involved. There is nothing in the name.

So we were on a high profile project before the pandemic and it should have originally ended just before the pandemic. It prolonged; not because of the pandemic but due to other reasons which do not relate to this story.

In the run up to the preparations for such a major project (worth millions of Dollars) the initiation and planning phases ran into months. For ten thousand plus people belonging to many entities, huge preparations were made including extremely crucial HSE commitments from all stakeholders. Plans, inductions, trainings, commitments, teams, policies, slogans, shows, banners ……. you name them. High profile office bearers from the performing company walked in on their leisure trips one by one. I vividly remember a GM walking in ( Now holding a Directors position – perhaps he was rewarded for his hard work after the project and the pandemic) and attending one of the initiation stages HSE meets. Session happened and the GM Saab made his presence felt. After all he was a high profile office bearer and had to make an announcement to suit his position. Don’t know if he had the approval then but he categorically announced incentives post successful completion of the project. Unfortunately the project completion was followed by a long pandemic era and perhaps that was enough for his memory and actions to retract.

Most important is the fact how the HSE team comprising of a few dozen worked tirelessly during the planning and execution phases of the project to uphold the pre-planned commitments. NO LTIs were reported to say the least. All the more Reasons to thank God. Some really acute scenarios envisaged. A Vivid incidence of how the HSE team averted a loss of life by alerting and self-engaging a falling worker who had slipped almost near 90m height inside a confined space cannot go unmentioned in all records. Likewise, as one can expect there were few such instances where the preparedness, professionalism and alertness of HSE performers came handy in ensuring smart and safe completion. Not to forget that the pandemic prolonged their tireless involvement before they could return home after a delayed exit. The team deserved all accolades for a superb HSE performance to say the least.

But the story is not all that encouraging as far as HOW the Management Commitments were corroborated for such a superlative performance. Its close to three years since, all done and dusted. The pandemic gone; teams moved over, perhaps some already walked past few more projects in such a time. You don’t document lessons learnt after 3 years but in some unwritten records, a lesson is waiting to be recited by the almighty that such a superb performance went unrewarded, unrecognised and forgotten. The pre-commencement management commitment was never looked back into. None of the performers of that HSE Team were even offered a token of appreciation by the execution company; not even an email. Plant Owner did offer appreciation certificates to some very few members. The Big Question here is the GM who got promoted as a Director after the project and who never kept his commitments to incentivise the good performers, did he do the bare minimum to honour his word which he had given on behalf of his management? Will the HSE performers take pride in repeating their performance in future projects? Will luck spare a second chance to such poorly committed execution companies on projects of similar size in maintaining a clean LTI record?

For once the readers of this article should focus on an all important reason why HSE failures are not purely attributed to performing teams – they are just humans. The stage of poor HSE performance is more attributed to poorly performing managements of executing companies and their selfish work cultures. ?How Many Would agree????