Common Sense...how dare you mention it!

If there has been something important and considered missing from the safety industry over the last 10 to 15 years, I would say with some confidence and based very much upon the many discussions I have personally held with groups and individuals offshore, that it is a popular feeling of 'common sense', and the ability to use it as having been removed from our available options table.

Please don't get me wrong, if someone falls from a ladder they have sited and accessed while stretching to achieve a task rather than repositioning it then the wrong option was taken and there may be several reasons 'why' that individual elected the method they adopted. What is certain is that these moments of incorrect decision taking and practices will never cease to occur irrespective of how much training we provide, how many days of training we insist are undertaken and how many course exams we require our personnel to undertake and complete.

The consensus is that Common Sense for the majority has been slowly squirreled away from choice and we now find ourselves having to undertake almost patronizing measures for the most basic of tasks and activities to comply with the direction of (in many cases), misconceived and poorly made decisions from others who have influenced decision making by way of personal opinion rather than tried and tested methods of analysis...or, dare I say the application of 'common sense'.

The appearance of making upscaled decisions following events and not looking objectively at the details and facts there appears to be an almost 'I have to do something significant to be seen to be doing something at all' feeling. I can certainly attest to sensing a strong feeling of resentment among many I have worked and interacted with recently because of this.

So is it justified to consider resentment is evident...I would say 'yes'!

Purely as an example to this blog I can attest that in more than 9 cases over the last 15 years of my career I have had almost carbon-copy incident investigations needed where individuals have been working on an activity that required nut-n-bolt removal of an item of equipment, and ended up requiring assistance of the platform/rig Medic to address a facial or hand injury caused by their own actions and hand (quite literally in all cases).

In one such case the ensuing investigation identified that the correct work-pack was present, the Permit To Work was complete, technical drawings were present and accordingly marked up, correct PPE standards were identified and applied and, of some significance, all of this was supported by a 25 year experience of the person doing the work...in some circles this individual would be regarded as an 'expert'...so what went wrong leading to the injury?

For those others that operate in a HSE capacity that I dare say may have also come across this type of scenario will already be voicing the answer...the person used the open end of the spanner to slacken a series of bolts that have been in place and undisturbed for the last 15 years and the spanner slipped while exerting pulling forces toward themself. The over spray of magic formula WD40 to the work area merely supported the slippage of the tool.

Because there was a need of Medical intervention the situation dictated an investigation process be undertaken.

An investigation was achieved and a report developed, images were taken of the location and equipment, statements were obtained from the Injured Person, their Supervisor, and anyone who walked past the location who may have seen something or not (certainly a case of the more the merrier these days with regard to gathering statements). A timeline was developed and a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) populated as best we knew of the details. Depending on wherever we are operating in the world we may need to cordially 'invite' a Safety Representative to the investigation procedure and have a need to remove this person from their primary work activities to show our process is being correctly managed and procedures followed.

Then came the inevitable Teams Call presentation to the management group who are certainly far too busy you would think to justify warranting such a time and resource allocation for this event based upon what we had already found out and actioned. Never-the-less, we go over the case once more while awaiting some form of 'godly' decision to be made that is believed to be of value, provide a corrective and one that will negate this type of event from ever happening again...in many cases I have been involved in we are more likely going to be disappointed with the outcome based upon its over elaborated scale and mis-appointment.

And so it was...

1. Immediately cease all further bolt removal activities and re-assess the condition of hand tools being utilized by the team.

2. Take a stand-down of all work party teams and reiterate the safe practices of hand tools when undertaking such activities

3. Generate a Safety Aware Notification to communicate this event to all other operating asset locations

4. Review all activity associated documentation to ensure safe practices are identified i.e.

   1. Risk Assessment

   2. Work-pack

   3. Method Statement

   4. Service Company TRA

   5. Tool Box Talk check sheet

5. Increase Supervisor work site visits and document frequency (minimum 2 per shift) with endorsement of task documents for verification purposes

6. Develop an event slide pack for roll out at the forthcoming Safety Meetings

7. Amend the task activity related Procedure to reflect correct selection and use of the ring spanner type tooling etc...etc...etc...and on it went while some are left cowering in a corner of the office awaiting the executive decision that will certainly be monumental...brace, brace, brace...here it comes...

Option 1 - All of the above and...notify the IP's sponsoring company to remove them from our operations...'we don't need people like that on our operations'

Option 2 - All of the above and...have the activity Supervisor assess the work method of the teams prior to commencing - work site visits required for each separate working party going forward (additional work responsibility/perceived as a burden by those already busy offshore)

Option 3 - All of the above and...Source and purchase only ring ended spanner sets for issue to work activity teams during shutdown scopes (throw more money at it)

Isn't it easy to lose sight of the event and a sensible and appropriate address from which to learn and hopefully improve.

Worse still is the impact of having a number of events in either relatively short succession or across a number of assets, it is possible to end up with what appears to be a career of incidents, a continuous investigation stream and an endless string of document updates and presentation drafting where depending on how all of this is rolled out, the collective teams now feel somewhat blamed for the poor practice/s of just 1 or 2 others. Furthermore, the generation of additional signature and site visit processes required of senior crew members allocated additional ownership of their core crew team and visitors behaviors has become heavily debated and resented...its a bear trap that many have fallen into.

What I omitted from the event investigation detail described above but had obviously been included in the investigation report was that the Injured Party (IP) in this case had been onboard for 17 days of their assigned 21 when the event occurred. External weather temperatures ranged between -3 and 2 degrees for the last 5 days prior to the date and time of the event and the IP had been sharing their cabin with a colleague on the same shift due to bed space limitations during the planned shutdown period...you may sense where I am going with this?

Additionally, please spare a thought for the 'occurrence frequency' of this incident type not just on this asset but also across the company...records showed there had not been any reflective events reported over the previous 3 planned and completed shutdown periods which encompassed many thousands of hours of physical and practical working with a safe achievement outcome.

Ultimately, the removal of the IP from the operations generated the biggest debate between the offshore crews, closely followed by the 'more additional responsibilities' landed on the shoulders of the senior personnel and what would then be undoubtedly cascaded down. Because the actions that came from the event and its investigation were perceived as a penalty to the many who were in no way directly involved in the original task planning and execution, the over-riding sense was one of resentment and a further fueled disappointment.

Significantly, this event had been another opportunity for the collective offshore team to sense an unfairness of the reporting and investigation process we so heavily advocate and rely upon them using with 'impartiality' and 'confidence'.

While we continue to handle situations such as this and in such a manner of unnecessarily needed elaborate and micro-managing styles, we run the chance of creating a greater divide between the onshore and offshore teams and from those we are so heavily reliant upon as our first responders.

I believe the level of resentment is currently so high now that we may in fact be bordering on a lesser level of engagement and purposeful intervention and reporting than previously seen.

Over and unwarranted reactions to events and safety observations has forced our teams down a hole that I feel is very difficult to recover from...we have removed both the ability and opportunity to apply common sense of our wealth of experience and skilled teams at the cost of but a few.

My personal recommendation would be to leave the management of this type of event in the hands of the offshore team (OIM/Area Authorities/Team Leads/Safety Reps & HSE Representatives), these disciplines are after all considered competent and carrying sufficient experience and capability to correctly manage them. Liaison between the respective disciplines and their onshore reporting lines would not alter but it would provide the operational assets an opportunity to be seen as 'steering their own ship' far more than some do presently.

Ultimately, trust and faith in the systems we use and rely upon so greatly would start to be regained and with that would come accountability and responsibility that is still measurable...a return to the sense of ownership is in my opinion invaluable but certainly much needed at this time.