Safety Culture
incident
Prevention
In the continued quest to eliminate all incidents and sources of harm to its staff and assets, Pacific Radiance is now implementing the Harm & Incident Prevention (HiP) programme. HiP will assist to mature our organisations safety culture.
Pacific Radiance commenced its journey to meet its Zero Incident Objective in 2002 by addressing the processes that were undertaken and investing time and effort to create a sustainable safety management system (ISM code compliant). The Management System provides the process based controls and defences to prevent human error and safeguard personnel and the assets from major incidents. These defences however are not fail-safe! When human behaviours are involved the processes can be forgotten, ignored or circumnavigated. When this happens the environment in which an incident can occur is created.
Behaviour can be defined as an action or inaction that is taken due to some form of activator. For example, a phone ringing: this is an activator and the human response (behaviour) is to answer it. Individual’s behaviours are normally influenced by their knowledge, experience, environment, beliefs and values. For example a person can choose to cut a corner, which they may know to be wrong, in order to save time. If nothing goes wrong this behaviour may be rewarded (praise or saving face), thereby increasing the chances of that behaviour being repeated and the wrong organisational norms forming.
The HiP programme therefore aims to develop the organisations safety culture in a clear and effective way by looking at behaviours of the work force, promoting good behaviour and allowing for accountability (if mistakes or violations are made) where necessary. It is not a replacement but an addition to the existing systems and defences.
Before we could embark on this custom behavioural programme, we had to first take stock, and measure our current safety climate. This included identifying where the organisation currently stands on the safety culture ladder. We then addressed how to get from where we are to where we want to be by creating a set of bespoke tools to adapt our present safety culture. The result of this hard work is the Harm & Incident Prevention Programme based around five core principles which set clear expectations (organisational norms).
Guardianship Is understanding the duty of care you have for your shipmates or colleagues and for the safety of anyone onboard or on company premises. It’s about being able to make the difficult decisions between commercial gains versus the safety of people, environment and assets; SAFETY FIRST! |
Steadfastness Being able to speak your mind in the discussion but then supporting the end decision as an integral part of the team. Dedication of your full abilities in every task you complete. It’s leading by example. |
Morality Acknowledging that all incidents are preventable. It’s about our ethics, principles and morals and knowing right from wrong. It’s being dependable: what is said, is what is done. Never allowing our weaknesses to create unnecessary risk. |
Humility Listening, sharing and being open to change. Being able to acknowledge mistakes and be accountable when something doesn’t go as intended. Recognising ethnic and cultural diversity and embracing its strengths. |
Pride To be proud of your position and value in the group. Doing the job right every time, even if nobody is watching. It’s about projecting the image that allows our clients to distinguish us from the competition. |
HiP is not a onetime exercise aimed at improving the company’s HSE statistics but a heartfelt attempt to permanently adapt our work forces’ culture.
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