Plan for improvement

A drilling organisation developed a plan to promote leadership visibility, individual accountability, and highly visible actions to improve HSE performance. This was in conjunction with roll out of a HSE Management System and specially focused contractor safety initiative.

Leadership visibility

The drilling vice president clearly communicated the emphasis on safety and that managing safety is no different from managing any other performance variable. He consistently asked about HSE within the normal course of business discussions with his team leaders. A team leader was designated as the safety champion to ensure proper data collection and analysis, to discuss HSE issues during team leader meetings, and to supervise a group of HSE professionals.

Individual accountability

The drilling vice president established safety goals to halve incidents in the first year and to achieve/maintain top quartile performance. The HSE management system spelled out roles and responsibilities for team leaders and rig supervisors, and performance reviews based on these expectations. Safety metrics were included in incentive programmes throughout the organisation.

Highly visible actions examples

Team leaders were required to report all lost time incidents to the drilling vice president. Rig supervisors, translators or specialised training were allocated to ensure work was performed safely. Common management actions included returning bids because of unacceptable safety performance on prior job, hosting an interactive safety forum for contractors with involvement by management, and suspending drilling operations when a rig experienced a high level of recordable incidents.

Benefits

• Since 1998, combined incident rates for employees and contractors were reduced by 70% for lost time incidents and by 60% for total recordable incidents
• Embedded HSE considerations in the business process
• In 1999, moved from 4th quartile to 1st quartile in safety performance

Lessons Learned

• Implement focused safety management systems with special emphasis on leadership visibility, line management accountability, and the achievement of tangible goals.