You may be under the impression that the oil and gas industry is extremely dangerous. And it’s true that there are a lot of risks in this kind of industry. But what you may not know is that this industry is one of the safest around. The industry often gets a bad image because of a few disasters that receive a lot of media coverage. It’s worth noting, however, that these events tend to happen only once every few years. In general, the oil and gas industry is actually incredibly safe.
But how exactly is this achieved? If you’re taking up a management position in this industry, then it’s crucial that you know. After all, health and safety is the ultimate priority in any business. Even if you think profit comes first, health and safety failures will always risk that! So you need to be sure you’re implementing the important elements that help keep these workers so safe.
Vigorous training
You can’t just pick someone up off the street who looks strong and energetic and put them to work in the oil and gas industry. You may think that it’s mostly physical labor that pretty much anyone can do. But this is incredibly far from the truth. A good worker has been given in-depth training, especially when it comes to safety measures. You need to ensure that every worker – including you! – is given great oil and gas industry training.
Communication culture
You have to ensure that everyone is able to talk to people at any level. If workers can’t get messages across to one another with ease, then this can create a lot of trouble. Let’s say there’s a faulty piece of equipment on-site. How is this communicated to the higher-ups who can deal with it? How is this, in turn, communicated to every other worker on-site? Great communication is essential.
Optimized access
Someone in the oil and gas industry isn’t always going to be working on sturdy, solid ground. The variety of environment you may find yourself in is truly astonishing. You need to ensure that all of your workers are able to move around safely. This is especially true when it comes to the people out there drilling. You could look into rig mat rentals to ensure workers can walk around with ease on any surface.
Emergency procedures
So what exactly are workers supposed to do if something goes wrong? When it comes to health and safety, a lot of business owners forget to consider such procedures. The default solution tends to be “inform management immediately.” But this isn’t always practical. As part of the training process, workers should know exactly what to do in an emergency.
Increased data
You may not think that big data has affected the oil and gas industry much. But it has, and in a big way. These data gathering and analytics skills aren’t just there to increase profits. They’re there to help you keep your workers safe. Better data gathering can help you detect seismic problems, for example.
