Greetings and salutations from the safety world! I hope the holidays were safe, memorable, and happy! Word has it that the oilfield is slowing down a bit. Hopefully, the slowdown is just a small correction. I’ve noticed over the years, the oilfield has changed in the sense that the calendar 4th quarter tends to slow down due to shorter days. Companies tend to take off more during the holidays. Some companies in recent years have shut down operations for the last 2 weeks of the year. Except for the actual turndowns like in the ’80s, this was unheard of. I often told my wife that when the oilfield was good, even during the holidays, the oilfield didn’t care what day it was; we had to go out and get it while the getting was good.
One thing I have experienced on a regular basis throughout the years, is that when a downturn does transpire, safety is first… to go. Usually when cuts in payroll start to transpire, the safety team takes the first wave of hits. Afterwards, the remaining safety professionals often face a cut in pay. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not whining. Operational personnel face the same dilemma. Afterall, profitability is the name of the game and companies have to survive,
However, slowdowns are inevitable. Slowdowns are also an opportunity to increase the effectiveness of a safety program, with proper planning. It is also an opportunity to further train supervisors and mid-management in Leadership, Accident investigation, and Root Cause analysis with the operational side involved. That makes a strong company that is safe, even stronger. You can have the best degreed, most qualified safety department in the oilfield but if it is fragmented and dissolved during a downturn, you can expect starting over each time you start hiring up for the next upturn, which is costly for retraining.
I’ve noticed that there is quite a disparity in the oilfield regarding safety. There are numerous companies where the whole company is involved in all aspects of safety. Kudos to those companies that see value in a strong integral safety department that involves operations and vice versa. Conversely, there are companies that are only interested in the minimum requirement of safety. They are willing to roll the dice with a safety performance with minimum involvement for safety and with safety. The two departments (operations and safety) are clearly separate entities in most cases. There is virtually no interaction. If safety is involved or invited to operational meetings, their input is seldom asked for.
There is a saying among safety professionals, “Safety is the last to know and first to respond.” Sad but true. There are probably hundreds of legitimate near-misses each day in the Permian Basin that could have catastrophic results. Most of them are probably a manifestation of shortcuts, improper training, or lack of proper supervision. I’ve witnessed these events and I’ve seen the workers go “Whew! That was close! That could’ve killed someone.” Then they laugh, thank their lucky stars, and move on. The old timers called it OJT, On Job Training. It is usually followed by, “I’ll never do that again until the next time.” This mentality has to go away.
The fact of the matter is Operations must lead safety. The safety department must truly support operations. Safety has to get rid of the “Gotcha” mentality and support and train where it is needed the most. Truth be told, the ratio of workers to supervisors is a daunting challenge. The ratio of workers to safety personnel is even worse. One supervisor may have more than 100 people. The safety specialist may have three supervisors, each with 100 people in each area. All the more reason why operations should drive safety and have strong support from safety.
This is why supervisors and mid-management should have increased training during any slowdown or downturn. With supervisors that drive and believe in safety, one would actually be increasing the safety culture without hiring additional safety personnel. If there are bad weather days and operations are suspended, we can be ready to launch innovative refresher courses. If a job finishes early, instead of sending everyone home, have some round tables with frank conversations. You’d be surprised of the input you get when you ask the guys in the field.
During a downturn, safety personnel can go back through all of the canned training courses and update training material to make it fresh and real. It is an opportunity to get rid of the 10 bullet points per slide in the PowerPoint presentations that are read to them. You could actually discuss obstacles that prevent proper performance and seek out what the battles are in the field. Have the safety people go to the field and experience or observe what the real battles are. Inspect what you expect. Ask “why” they are deviating from proper procedures; maybe there’s not a procedure.
So let’s try to land this plane. Slowdowns are an excellent time to re-evaluate, revamp, and plan on how to give safety a shot in the arm without additional expense. Most of the canned training programs are unnecessarily long, redundant, death by droning on and on, and capable of testing the patience of a saint. We wonder why it goes in one ear and out the other—just for the sake of documented compliance. I am not undermining the importance of training, just the way it’s presented. We should be creating value and meaning. So if the oilfield is slowing down, it is an excellent opportunity to push safety programs to be more effective.
As always, it’s not how many hits you make in baseball; it’s how many times you reach home safely that counts. Be safe and do the right thing.
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Dusty Roach is a safety professional based in Midland. He is also a public speaker on subjects of leadership and safety, and he maintains a personal website at dustyroach.com.