Creating a Culture To Deliver Sustainable HSE Performance

Abstract

Summary Demands on the petroleum industry are driving continual improvement of health, safety, and environment (HSE) performance. It has become widely recognized that the deliberate and structured creation of HSE culture directly affects HSE performance. Developing HSE culture is a complex recipe that combines values, leadership, management systems and processes, behavioral and cognitive psychology, technology, equipment, and HSE expertise. This combination creates a culture or "way of working in the organization." There are many theoretical and practical papers on the creation and assessment of HSE culture. For a leader in E&P operations, the distillation of this large body of knowledge into an appropriate course of action can be a daunting task. A generic HSE cultural-maturity model is provided in this work. HSE culture is further defined in terms of cultural dimensions. To improve HSE performance, development of culture cannot be confined within an E&P operator's organization. Contractors, partners, service providers, and suppliers must also be included in the development of HSE culture. Guidance is provided to help the E&P practitioner work collaboratively with contractors to develop, sustain, and improve HSE culture and performance. Pragmatic examples are provided for diagnosing HSE culture.