Within risk management constructs, external risk is as equally valid as internal risk. Natural disasters, external hazardous materials releases, and workplace violence from outside the organization can harm employees and affect organizational operations as much or more than inter-workplace hazards.
The union steward had just recounted an incident where a supervisor asked one of his workers to step into standing water to work on corroded gauges near the coker. The work needed to be done immediately as it would delay ongoing maintenance on the fractionator to take on different stock feed.
A serious movement is afoot to systematize the concept of “safety culture.” The International Labour Organization has put forward a definition of a “preventative safety and health culture,” and ISO is apparently discussing prospective prescriptive requirements for a “positive culture.”
Dr. Tom Krause and Kristen Bell have joined forces to form the Krause Bell Group. Dr. Krause is a pioneer in organizational safety and a thought leader in the development of new methods for organizational performance improvement.
Prominent leadership expert Jim Collins has studied and written about companies that were “OK” for a long period of time, and then surged to increase stock value and overall performance excellence.
Four years before BP’s Deepwater Horizon became global news, ExxonMobil walked away from a $187 million investment in a similar deep sea well called Blackbeard.
There is a lot of emphasis placed on the importance of creating a “safety culture” within an organization – but what does this mean? And how do you do it?
