Quantifying HSE Culture – A Leading Indicator of HSE Performance: An Energy Industry Case Study

Abstract This paper presents the results of an HSE Culture survey administered to employees and managers at an energy company. HSE culture can be defined as the value and priority placed upon HSE by every individual in an organization, and can be seen as the shared values and norms of personnel within a company, their perceptions, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes about the HSE risk to which they are exposed, and their beliefs regarding the necessity and success of HSE control systems. The HSE perception survey is a commonly-used technique for assessing HSE culture. HSE perception surveys provide leading-indicator information on safety performance and can identify areas and activities with the potential to undermine HSE performance. Furthermore, perception surveys can measure effectiveness of HSE systems as described by individuals within an organization, reveal strengths and weaknesses in current systems, and can identify what needs to be done to correct identified deficiencies. The aim of this study was to evaluate HSE culture within the selected company using a technique that is well-documented in the literature. An 8-parameter, 5-element per parameter, Likert scale survey instrument was developed and administered to 108 employees and managers at an energy company. The collected responses were analyzed using Minitab. The results showed that, overall, the company's HSE culture was rated as positive by both employees and managers. In addition, further study of individual parameter groupings revealed that system safety and risk management made the greatest contribution to the positive HSE culture for the company. This was interesting, as it suggests that the average employee has a sense that engineers can play an important role in affecting the overall HSE culture of a company, as they are the usual implementers of system/process safety in the company. This has implications for the importance of creating an HSE-Through-Design culture within the engineering organization at a company.