Safety Culture: From Black Art to Real Improvements

A significant amount of effort has been devoted in BP to improving Safety Culture. A project started 6 years ago identified, through statistical analysis, a correlation between culture and incidents in the work place.

Once BP had used the project to characterise a strong Safety Culture, BP developed a series of tools to assess and improve it. [I wouldn't want the paper to give the implication that BP has no understanding of safety culture prior to the project.]

Currently these tools have been applied to a wide range of businesses and offices across the Group in all the Segments (Upstream, Downstream and Alternative Energies). [My suggested change may be incorrect - it is to avoid the implication that the tools have been applied literally everywhere in BP: unless they have!]

Safety Culture as a key topic is included in the main competences development programs both for First Level Leaders and for Senior Leaders in the organization.

The Operations Management System includes specifically operating culture and behaviours as one of the elements to manage risks and achieve a strong operating discipline.

The objective of this paper is to explain, through some case studies, some aspects of BP's Safety Culture journey so far.