Attitudes to safety culture among professional divers and offshore workers

This report investigates the importance professional divers and offshore workers give to safety culture in reducing accident probability. Using a conjoint analysis method 'accident risk' scenarios were used to estimate weights for influence of safety culture, quality of workplace supervision, time pressure and worker competency. The 'expected' weighting, if all factors were equally significant was 1.0 for each factor. All four factors contributed significantly to participants' assessment of accident probability but highest weighting was given to quality of supervision (1.48). Safety culture was given significantly lower weighting by offshore divers (0.74) than offshore workers (0.97). Time/financial pressure and worker competency were given close to expected weightings. Weightings were not influenced by supervisory status, accident history or being in current offshore industry employment. Participants were also asked to define safety culture in their own words. Definitions of safety culture were associated with the role of the organisation/company, the role of management, individual safety awareness, equipment and team/group interaction. This report and the work it describes were funded by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Its contents, including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed, are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect HSE policy. ISBN 0 7176 2763 2 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. ii SUMMARY The aim of this two-year study was to investigate worker attitudes to safety culture as one of the factors in controlling accident risk within the UK Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Industry. 233 professional divers (70% of whom had worked in the Oil and Gas Industry) and 120 non-diving age matched offshore workers (all of whom had worked in the Oil and Gas Industry) were surveyed. All participants were taking part in the Examination of the Long Term Health Impact of Diving (the ELTHI Diving Study) at University of Aberdeen in 2001/2002. These participants had been selected on the basis of either having a valid fitness to work offshore certificate in 1990-2, or a diving certificate before 1991. This means that those taking part, who were working in the offshore industry, were doing so around the time of a significant change in safety management in the wake of the Piper Alpha disaster. A preliminary 'expert discussion' identified three attributes …