Safety is still not being accorded a high enough priority in the North Sea, according to the CEO of change management specialist Optimus Seventh Generation.
Steve Marples also claims those companies that insist on people holding handrails may have their boardroom priorities the wrong way round.
Aberdeen-based Marples, whose speciality is bringing about significant corporate change and improvement in safety performance and operational excellence, is worried that today’s North Sea managers don’t understand the goal-setting culture advocated by Lord Cullen in the Piper Alpha report published some 20 years ago.
“There is too much reliance on bureaucracy and telling people what to do and expecting them to follow the rules, and not enough investment in getting them to make their own decisions,” he told Energy.
“It means prescription has set in … holding the handrail is prescription.
“But is that fundamental to the safety of the North Sea? It’s a useful habit to have but in the bigger picture of safety and what could go wrong, is it that important? There are bigger issues that need to be addressed.
“I’ve got no problem with people holding the handrail, so long as the other issues are addressed as well … especially safety critical backlogs on offshore installations.
“Why should any company have a backlog on safety critical equipment in the first place?
“When it comes down to prescription, what’s really important? Do you fire somebody for not holding the handrail but allow 100 hours of maintenance not to be done on safety critical equipment. I know where I put my emphasis.
“Where you want prescription is in doing the things that will address the bigger issues.”
Marples claims there is still too much “tick-box safety” in the North Sea.
He said Optimus walked away from one customer this year because the client company was production focused at the “expense of almost everything else”.
“I know we were achieving some very good work on their assets offshore. But we felt it wasn’t going to be sustainable because of leadership of the organisation.”
Marples said the firm concerned was listed on the stock exchange and acknowledged that such companies could be so focused on keeping “the Market” happy that issues such as safety might not receive the appropriate level of boardroom attention.
But he warned that this was something the companies had to deal with.
“I’m sure they’re seeing that in the Deepwater Horizon, the impact that it has had on BP’s share price and what has had to be done to put right some of the problems in the Gulf of Mexico.
“There were decisions made that focused on cost and time rather than safety and maybe even at the expense of safety.
“If some companies were more proactive with safety than they appear to be, they would be looking for what could go wrong and address it.”
Marples is clear that safety culture starts in the boardroom with management behaviour. It sets the stage for employees.
“They give permission as to how people should behave in their organisation by what they do, the decisions they take and the organisational culture that they create,” he said.
“It starts in the boardroom. If they say safety is the foundation of their decisions, do they really mean it? People will judge that by what they do, not what they say.
“There is too much emphasis on ‘you, follow the rules or you’re in trouble’. But, by the way, when it suits us (management) we’ll turn a blind eye; we won’t be there when we know you’re breaking the rules.
“What you want is for people to be doing the right things when you’re not watching.”
As for the business that Marples leads as CEO, the firm recently moved to a new, purpose-designed headquarters outside Aberdeen, at Westhill.
The firm has some 25 people on staff plus a network of 45 associates. However, the plan is to bring a number of associates on board as staff … five to 10 over the next few months.
“They’re going to have more opportunities as employees than as associates,” said Marples.
“The aim is to have at least 50% of our people in-house, but we will always need to keep a float of associates who are not wholly dependent on Optimus for work.”
Turnover for the current year will likely come in around £5.5million, according to Marples. This compares with £4.4million in 2009.
“We’re sort of disappointed with that increase though it’s still reasonable. But due to economic factors it’s not as good as we would have liked. It’s still good but down on the 50% the year before (2008).”
The projection for 2011 is £6.5million.
Some 70% of income is derived from the North Sea. However, the objective two to three years from now is to achieve a 50:50 North Sea versus rest of world balance, while sustaining growth on the home patch.