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Forbes38694  
#1 Posted : 17 January 2014 14:22:00(UTC)
Rank: New forum user
Forbes38694

Hello, I'm putting together a board paper on what Level 4 from the safety maturity matrix looks like in our organisation, and have been asked to show some examples of companies who have achieved Level 5. Does anyone know of any exemplars I can cite? I have used the usual sources but to no joy. Thanks!
KieranD  
#2 Posted : 17 January 2014 19:08:21(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
KieranD

Du Pont is an obvious example. Many of the oil and gas companies listed under 'The Leadership Team' at this URL: www.stepchangeinsafety.net Since you're working on a board paper, it's worth thinking through answers to questions about the validity of the Safety Maturity model: the original research was done with BP before their heroics in Deepwater Horizon which challenges the validity of differences in outcomes (dependent variables) in relation to the inputs (independent variables) at Level3 upwards. Arguably, Reason's model of preventing organizational accidents allows much better scope for validation of the process and outcomes and may well be a much better bet if you're going to be accountable for loadsa money, or even a modest outlay.
boblewis  
#3 Posted : 18 January 2014 12:52:45(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
boblewis

I am with Kieran on this but would add that the BP situation does show how unstable even mature organisations are when the leadership weakens or changes. Which I suppose suggests most management of change models are deficient in some way. Even Dupont had wobbles when Peter McKie left so all is not necessarily "mature" in even what are regarded as among the leaders. Bob
KieranD  
#4 Posted : 19 January 2014 10:37:31(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
KieranD

Serious risks of citing any company as a 'Level 5' (or 4) are illustrated in the book 'Safety Performance in a Lean Environment. A Guide to Building Safety into a Process', P English, CRC Press, 2012 The author has plausible qualifications and corporate level experience as a safety practitioner and university lecturer ('associate professor' in the USA). Yet in his choice of Toyota as the main company to illustrate his arguments, he shows profound disregard for the collapse in driver safety care by Toyota, as the reviewer of his book in 'Ergonomics' made plain. When a company's safety system fails so badly, it illustrates how even well-honed procedures and state-of-the-art statistical controls are vulnerable - a reality commonly disregarded in the eulogies of 'safety maturity' and, unfortunately, of 'behavioural safety'. There are invariably some degrees of marginally controlled risks of harm in human enterprises, beyond nurseries which language like 'maturity' glosses over, as if the options are 'immature' or 'declining'.
imwaldra  
#5 Posted : 20 January 2014 09:45:14(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
imwaldra

Sustaining level 5 is tough, as others have pointed out. Also, in large organisations, the culture is likely to vary significantly by location, work team, etc. - that was certainly the case in BP post Texas City where some of the resulting culture changes hadn't reached the GoM Drilling group. Several years ago I did a culture project for a large wildlife charity and, very surprisingly initially but not so much in retrospect, found a culture pretty near to level 5 throughout the two Divisions I surveyed, amongst both permanent staff and short-term contractors. The key factors seemed to be: they provided strong basic OSH systems, well integrated with other aspects of organisational management; genuinely cared about and treated all employees equally; above all, nearly everyone was 100% committed to the organisation's wildlife-related objectives and, as a result, seemed almost unaffected by workplace factors which elsewhere I would have expected to significantly lower morale and, ultimately, OSH and personal performance.
imwaldra  
#6 Posted : 20 January 2014 10:05:02(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
imwaldra

Oh, and I should also have listed the Shell Pearl GTL construction project in Qatar. From what I've read and heard (not personal experience), that was clearly at level 5, and involved a multi-national construction workforce of 10's of thousands. Their OSH injury results were at least an order of magnitude better than London Olympics, and I don't believe the stats were fiddled. One factor in this was probably that all the workers were immersed in the project culture 24/7 as they were accommodated in camps. The contrast with recent construction sector data from Qatar is notable.
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