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Australian Energy Producers Journal Australian Energy Producers Journal Society
Journal of Australian Energy Producers
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Non peer reviewed)

Putting safety leadership thinking into practice

Mariana Carvalho A D , Simon Robinson B and Martin Anderson C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A IOGP, 40 Basinghall Street, London, EC2V 5DE, UK.

B BP Chertsey Road, Sunbury-on-Thames, Ashford TW16 7LN, UK.

C Woodside Energy Ltd, Mia Yellagonga, 11 Mount Street, Perth, WA 6000, Australia.

D Corresponding author. Email: mc@iogp.org

The APPEA Journal 60(2) 409-412 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ19193
Accepted: 4 March 2020   Published: 15 May 2020

Abstract

The International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP) is a global forum in which member companies identify and share best practices to achieve improvements in many areas, including upstream safety. In 2013, IOGP published Report 452: Shaping safety culture through safety leadership. Written collaboratively by a team of industry experts, the principles of academic and theoretical work from authors such as Andrew Hopkins and James Reason were used to produce a short guide for industry leaders to explain how their leadership characteristics can shape the culture of their organisation. This report has been the most popular of the IOGP reports, with requests for over 1500 hard copies despite the report being publicly available to download at no cost. This level of industry interest prompted the authors to create a complimentary guidance document aimed at senior and middle management as well as supervisor levels to support their application of safety leadership characteristics in developing and maintaining a workplace culture with safety as a core value. The guidance uses the recent experiences of IOGP member companies in how a positive, safety-oriented organisational culture is formed and maintained. Using a straight-forward, storytelling approach, the reader is introduced to the theoretical concepts using practical workplace examples, aimed to resonate with the reader. This paper will provide a summary of the IOGP guidance as well as example good practice case studies from IOGP member companies.

Keywords: collaboration, culture, safety.

Mariana Carvalho is the Occupational & Process Safety Manager for the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP). Having started working for IOGP 8 years ago supporting its safety work, Mariana has managed the publishing process, organised external events and is closely involved with the global safety data-collection process. In her current role, she is now responsible for all health and safety projects and coordinates two standing technical committees and all related subcommittees and task forces. She has been instrumental in coordinating Project Safira, which aims to eliminate fatalities in the Upstream industry through work in the following four areas: life-saving rules, aviation, process safety and motor-vehicle crashes. Mariana holds a Chemistry degree from Imperial College London and a Masters in The Technology and Analysis of Archaeological Materials from UCL.

Simon Robinson is the Senior Human Performance Advisor at BP. Simon is a chartered engineer and graduate psychologist with a strong operations pedigree, pursuing a career in safety with a special focus on how organisations help people make safer operations. With 30 years of experience in BP and the oil and gas industry, Simon has gained a reputation as a thought-leader in Organisational Learning and Human Performance. He is currently the Senior Human Performance Advisor at BP, and chairs both the IOGP Human Factor Subcommittee (International Oil and Gas Producers Association) and the OCIMF Human Factors Focus Group (Oil Companies International Marine Forum). He likes to explain complex issues simply and is pursuing a lifetime goal to convince people that ‘human factors are easier than you think’. He has written for and edited several popular and accessible industry guides, including IOGP 621 ‘Demystifying Human Factors’, IOGP 453 ‘Safety Leadership in Practice’ and IOGP 552 ‘Components of Organizational Learning’. Many of these are being translated into multiple languages and are available free-to-all from the IOGP bookshop.

Martin Anderson is the Principal Adviser Human Factors at Woodside Energy Ltd. Martin is a graduate in psychology with over 28 years of experience in human factors and safety management in relation to major hazards and complex systems. He has two Master of Engineering degrees, in human factors, and in process safety. Prior to joining Woodside in 2013, Martin played a key role in developing human factors within the UK Health & Safety Executive (UK HSE). He was a Specialist Inspector for 12 years, regulating human, management and organisational aspects on over 150 major hazard sites, both on and offshore. Martin is currently providing oversight and governance of human factors in several major capital projects. He has been an active member of the IOGP Human Factors Subcommittee since 2013, contributing to several published IOGP reports. Martin is a Fellow and Chartered Member of the UK Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors (CIEHF) and was a non-Executive Director of the CIEHF for 10 years.


References

IOGP (2013) Report 452: shaping safety culture through safety leadership, 2013. IOGP.

IOGP (2019) Report 453: safety leadership in practice: a guide for managers, 2019. IOGP.