Step Change targets worksite safety
6 Sep 2012
Aberdeen, UK – Step Change in Safety, an organisation dedicated to improving safety in the UK oil and gas industry has launched a safety guidance ‘toolkit’ which, it claims, can positively transform the way oil and gas companies interact with staff and improve safety at worksites.
The Workforce Engagement Toolkit has been designed to help companies measure workforce engagement at individual worksites, identify areas of improvement and provide practical guidance on how to make these improvements.
Developed by Step Change’s workforce engagement steering group, the toolkit is intended to help companies enhance their ‘safety culture’ at worksites, by helping foster a culture where the workforce is not just following rules but is encouraged to actively lead efforts to improve safety performance.
The toolkit contains a worksite survey, which can be completed online or on paper by every employee at a worksite, regardless of their employer, with all input confidential.
The questions encourage the person completing it to think about a number of factors which can then help determine the level of workforce engagement at a site. These include, for example, how visible they think leaders are, how much they feel they are encouraged to participate in safety and how well they think leaders communicate and act to address safety issues.
Data is submitted directly to Step Change and a summary report is then issued back to the worksite. The results will help leaders understand areas of strength and weakness and develop improvement plans and allow them to benchmark performance against other worksites across the industry.
Co-chair of the Step Change steering group, Ian Sharp, said: “Improving workforce engagement is a fundamental part of Step Change’s long-term vision of making the UK the safest place to work in the worldwide oil and gas industry.
“The workforce has to feel able and willing to challenge and participate fully. Therefore influential people such as supervisors, site leaders and senior managers have to be visible, communicate effectively, encourage involvement and provide support in order to create a culture of engagement in health and safety.”
Step Change in Safety was formed at the Offshore Europe expo in 1997, with the ethos of bringing together oil and gas companies, regulators and the trade unions to work collaboratively in the interests of improving offshore safety.
