Jim Watson Says Safety Culture Begins with Executive Commitment

Safety is a priority for many companies in the offshore and marine sectors and has become over time not only good practice, but good business. But how do companies move from believing in the value of safety to making it the cornerstone of operations?

This was the primary question answered by ABS Americas Division President and COO Jim Watson, who was invited to talk on 10 October 2014 about offshore safety at the 4^th Houston Shipping & Offshore Conference, where stakeholders and policy makers from around the world gathered to discuss challenges and opportunities for shipping and offshore.

At ABS, safety is at the core of the organization’s value system, Watson said, explaining that as a classification society, ABS considers safety to be the single most significant motivator for everything the organization does.

“The ABS-classed fleet is one of the safest fleets in the world – exceeding industry averages in all areas of measured casualties,” Watson said. But while this is an achievement ABS is proud of, it is not the end of the road. As operations move into more demanding areas, achieving consistently safe operations will be one of the top industry challenges.

ABS is making an impact by refocusing on safety internally. “We realized that we spent so much time helping the marine and offshore industries focus on safety that we simply assumed this focus passed along in how we do our jobs every day,” Watson said. What the organization came to realize is that this is something that cannot be taken for granted. “We as an organization had to invest in our own global safety awareness,” he said.

Part of that investment was the “Always Be Safe” campaign, which three years on has helped ABS achieve several important milestones. ABS has received accreditation to the OHSAS 18001 – the global standard for safety management systems – and has seen a dramatic increase in employees reporting “near miss” safety incidents from around the world, indicating a global awareness in workplace safety. And, most importantly, Watson said, “We have seen a reduction in lost time incidents on the job by 50% or more each year for the past four years.”

According to Watson, one of the keys to success is the commitment of executive leadership, which means not only C-suite level, but buy-in from the global leadership team. The second critical component is communication and recognition. Finally, he said, “When operating at a global level, you must institutionalize the policies and procedures of your organization. No matter where in the world your client is interacting with your organization, the experience must be the same.”

The bottom line, Watson said, is that as an organization, ABS must be a global safety leader. That is a commitment that is nonnegotiable. “Nothing is more important,” he said.