Why Do We Have Safety Professionals?

When I was a young safety professional (the HSE guy) in the late 1980s, my not-very-soft-spoken mentor would almost always yell during his leadership speeches, “We never seem to have time to do a job or task well the first time, but we always seem to have time to do the same job twice!” 

Obviously, his point was that our default position is speed over quality. His solution? Eliminate safety professionals. That’s right, get rid of the Safety Professional and make the Line or Operating Engineer responsible for the procedure responsible for all safety procedures.

My mentor felt – as I did then as I still do now - that safety measures should be embedded in every activity, task, or job. Procedural safety should not be a separate specialty, to whom the blame can be passed after the fact. Safety should rather be included in the scope of responsibility of the engineer or the professional responsible for that job. This responsible party should possess knowledge regarding planning the job – the entire job – including the safety items. In fact, when we take a step back, isn’t it obvious that the process engineer should know well the hazards of the fluids or gases processed and the measures to prevent an incident or accident?  He or she would also know hazard identification techniques such as HAZID or HAZOP and should be able to conduct the exercises as part of a process safety design. The bottom line, there should not be a safe or unsafe job, but a good job or a bad job.  Simple as that.

In a broader commercial and social context, safety has clearly become more important as the desired outcome - think of our post 9/11 and Deep Horizon world. However, it still stands apart as a costly consideration in the face of financially driven operational efficiencies (“Get it done TO-day!”). While safety considerations rise up the priority list after tragic events, we still do not require all training programs and educational institutions to make safety a mandatory subject. If safety were made as important finance and engineering considerations in hiring decisions and performance reviews, we would have “ordinary” professionals developing safety cultures across organizations, everywhere – and lickety-split!

However, 30 years later, the reality is still that the need for safety professionals continues to be essential for all businesses, from hazardous activities in the field to even the front office. While we should certainly recognize that the industry has taken good and firm steps to make systems safer, we are still struggling with the lack of knowledge, divided responsibilities, unsafe cultures, and as a consequence, high potential incidents and major accidents.

So, while I agree that safety is a higher priority than ever before, it must be restated that safety is still seen as separate and outside scope of efficient completion of tasks.  

Here is how we can close this gap:

• Leadership and Commitment. - Senior Management must demand that any work be completed against appropriate safety metrics. Performance reviews must include safety as a measurable and achievable and promotable goal.
• Better Engineering Design - More inherently safe design facilities and products have reduced the number of incidents and injuries. This must continue and be enhanced.
•  Procedures, Processes, and Systems. - The commitment from Senior Management has led to the development and implementation of better systems and specific procedures for the job well.  But, we must go the “last mile”: The safety metrics need to come down to much lower levels.
• Improving the Safety Culture within current Teams - We must train the mid-career professional personnel who manage our current engineering infrastructure to more aggressively implement safe procedures as a part of their daily activities. 

The above four points may seem simple, but they are the start for safety improvement and the four pillars of improving safety for any organization.   

Bottom, bottom line: As long as the safety discipline is not considered as an inherent part of a job well-done, safety professionals will be around for a long while ahead.