Clearly Defined Expectations for Success

It took me many years to fully understand what exactly is required to succeed in the offshore environment. I grew up in the drilling industry in the 80's where you were expected to do as you were instructed without question and often without a full understanding of the consequences. Don't get me wrong, the industry in the UK was young, we were all learning a new trade and the expectations were to get the holes drilled as quickly as possible and move onto the next. Mistakes were made, guys got hurt, they got replaced, guys got run off, they got replaced, not a problem as long as we got the job done.

This attidude in the UK continued until Piper Alpha blew up in 1998 with the loss of 167 lives. That was 30 years ago and the legacy from that disaster continues to drive the pursuit of safety in our industry and beyond today.The Cullen Report recommended many changes that were implimented and have been developing since. I have grown up with these changes and watched the various stages of development of safety offshore. UKOA and NORSOK Guidelines, API Recommended Practises and most recently API Standards, BSSE Rules and Regulations and so on and so on have been developed and implimented.

Out of these rules and regulations and the need for improvements in our health, safety and environmental standards as well as maintaining or indeed improving our performance, expectations of our workforce grew and grew. With every new, rule, policy or procedure that was implimented, another expectation was added to the list that was soon to become as long as your arm.... Great, the rules were there, the management expected full compliance without sacrificing performance and the poor offshore workforce was expected to remember this "list" like they were learning a script for the school play. Not only had they to remember it, compliance was mandatory. The managers had done their job by producing this work of art and now it was up to their workforce to put it into practice.

Now, the offshore workforce are usually an isolated bunch of guys sitting on a potential bomb in the middle of some ocean somewhere with not many places to run if the shit hits the fan....excuse my French. And, another thing - they are primarily male and as my spouse often has the pleasure in pointing out to me, males can only concentrate on one thing at a time. I can testify to that, as not five minutes after I heard this list of expectations from the OIM or Senior Supervisor on arriving at my installion, I had forgotten most of what they had said. It was like a diatribe being preached to a bunch of tired guys who had an early morning check in, a long wait at a heliport and a long uncomfortable helicopter ride to the rig.

I listened to this for years and the list was getting longer and longer. I even spouted it on my managers insistance when I became the senior supervisor offshore. Talk about sheep.Throughout the next few years I often wondered why I had to speak with many of the workforce due to non compliance with one of my listed expectations that I clearly explained to them on arrival. I then thought about a quote I had seen sometime before from a wise scholar - William Shakespeare. "expectation is the root of all heartache". These guys would forget what I spouted to them at their welcome onboard greeting just like I did when I was listening to my supervisor. I looked for an analogy and a solution and I found the Gartner Hype Cycle which dealt with the introduction of new technology, however the graph could easily represent the development of expectations after Piper Alpha.

I had gone through the peak of inflated expectations as I was rising through the ranks, witnessed the trough of disillusionment as a young supervisor and was looking for that slope of enlightenment as I developed. Years passed and I still continued to pass on the companies expectations to the workforce as they arrived, however I attempted to summarise these into just a small amout they could try and remember. I was getting better at it then one day, I realised management expectations were no different from mine even though they were listed individually. All the expectations I have seen and heard over the years on arrival at the rig can be easily summarised into two simple statements that even the dumbest of us could remember.

EVERYONE ONBOARD PARTICIPATES IN THE RIGS SAFETY CULTURE - this includes attending drills and safety meetings, getting involved in audits, taking the required training to partake in the permit system, actively taking part in whatever STOP type program is operating, reporting any conditions you may think requires attention and looking after your own housekeeping with respect to your worksite.

EVERYONE COMMUNICATES WELL - good and timely instructions from supervisors, routine meetings to pass on day to day information to all personnel, good handovers - written where required, clear discussions, verification of understanding, planning meetings with key personnel to ensure everything is ready, feedback from service companies as to any requirements, clear references and compliance with policies and procedures.

So in conclusion, the key to a successful offshore operation (or indeed any operation) is to take part in the safety sytems in place and communicate well.......simple and as a bonus, most people remember my two expectations.