Measuring safety climate on offshore installations

The human and organizational factors affecting safety were examined on 10 o ffshore installations using the Offshore Safety Questionnaire. The question naire contained scales measuring work pressure and work clarity, job commun ication, safety behaviour, risk perception, satisfaction with safety measur es and safety attitudes. A total of 722 UK offshore workers (33% response r ate) from a range of occupations completed and returned the questionnaire. The 'safety climates' on the various installations were characterized by mo st respondents feeling 'safe' with respect to a range of offshore hazards a nd expressing 'satisfaction' with safety measures. Respondents reported lit tle risk-taking behaviour and felt positive about levels of work clarity an d job communication. There was a wider diversity of opinions on the safety attitudes scale, indicating a lack of a positive, concerted 'safety culture ' and more evidence for a range of fragmented 'safety subcultures', which v aried mainly as a function of seniority, occupation, age, shift worked and prior accident involvement. It is suggested that the interaction between th ese differing subcultures partly determines the prevailing 'safety climate' on any given installation. The UK oil and gas industry is now trying to im prove its safety culture through the 'Step-Change' initiative, which has se t itself three main targets for the year 2000: a 50 % improvement in the in dustry's safety performance; safety performance contracts demonstrating lea dership's personal concern for safety as an equal to business performance a nd encouraging industry members to work together to improve sharing of safe ty information and good practice. It is-suggested that the existence of a s trong, cohesive culture with respect to safety is not necessarily beneficia l, possibly leading to 'dry rot' and complacency. A healthy culture may be represented by a range of assumptions, values, norms and expectations as re flected in employees' differing experiences of safety climate.