The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that more than 230,000 people are killed in road accidents in India every year, the equivalent of a life lost every five minutes. A large number of these deaths could be avoided; WHO states that the simple act of wearing a seatbelt can reduce the risk of serious and fatal injury by between 43% and 65%.
In the oil & gas industry, risks to human life are high relative to other sectors—perhaps an inevitable consequence of the challenging environments in which it operates. The occupational fatality rate was one of the highest globally from 1993-2010 compared with other professions, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 2014.
Thankfully, since 2010, important lessons have been learnt. The sector has redefined its approach to safety with clear protocols established to reduce accidents.
But whether we are talking about road safety or the more complex environment of oil & gas sector operations, one key factor is ever present: human behaviour.
Human error has been a key factor in many large-scale incidents, including the Bhopal gas tragedy, the Uphaar cinema fire and the recent gas leak in Andhra Pradesh. The truth is that we need to establish a culture of safety across both work and home life.
Organisations must ensure that safety is kept at the forefront of everyone’s mind so that people instinctively recall the rules. If safety is embedded in our work culture, it will help us to ask the right questions and make the right choices at every step—whether in engineering design or implementation, during maintenance or to prevent accidents at work. Our goal should be to make safety a part of people’s daily habits.
History has much to teach us. In 1988, the post-accident review of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster significantly influenced many organisations’ approach to safety. It highlighted the importance of safety culture and how managerial and human factors can affect safety performance. Since then there has been a trend towards ‘safety culture’ being understood and expressed both in terms of people’s attitudes and their behaviour; behaviour which can be shaped and reinforced by simple daily actions.
At Shell, we treat the need for constant safety awareness as a top priority. Each year we designate one day globally as ‘Safety Day’. This is when we reflect on experiences and safety performance over the year, reassess and scrutinise our own safety-related behaviour. In every Shell office you’ll see a ticking clock recording ‘safe man hours’. Every work injury, however small, resets the clock and staff are asked to report every near-miss. Twelve simple life-saving rules are mandated for every Shell employee around the world. These include wearing helmets on motorbikes and seatbelts both in the front and back seats of vehicles, and not using mobile phones while driving—even ‘hands-free’. Other simple rules like holding the handrail while climbing stairs are compulsory in every office. On an oil rig, holding a handrail can mean the difference between life and death.
Of course, it is easier for organisations to implement safety-related rules within a business environment; it is more challenging to implement in our homes and personal lives. And that’s just as important a place for us to start making safe practice not the exception but the rule.
At the house where I live, a corner of the parapet on the top floor recently fell to the ground, fortunately not injuring anyone. My landlord sent several construction labourers to make the necessary repairs. Three workers turned up wearing flip-flops. They were prepared to climb nearly two floors to complete the repairs armed with a rickety wooden ladder. Their only safety equipment was a short length of rope to be used as a harness. I refused to let them work under these conditions, and told them to return when they had the appropriate safety equipment.
If only such incidents were rare, but we Indians are all too proud of our ‘jugaad culture’—a way of doing things which sometimes leads to brilliant innovations, but when applied to health, safety, security and environment, more often simply results in compromise. No safety helmet? Let’s wear a baseball cap. No shoes? Oh well, flip-flops will do. Unfortunately, we fail to realise that these improvisations all too often lead to disaster.
For some in India, life is just too cheap. We need to change our culture to create a society where every life matters. Safety should be front of mind in our daily actions; it needs to be embedded in our cultural DNA.
So, how do we build a culture of safety first? With small steps. It won’t be easy but we all have a responsibility to act. Together we can make our homes and places of work much safer places. And success—if we manage it—won’t just be rewarded with peace of mind that everyone in our care is safe, but in livelihoods secured and lives saved.
Yasmine Hilton
The author is chairman, Shell India Markets Pvt Ltd