Supervisión Efectiva En Hse En Industrial Oil & Gas

Health & Safety Executive

HSE

Effective supervisory safety leadership behaviours in the offshore oil and gas industry
Prepared by the Robert Gordon University for the Health and Safety Executive

OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY REPORT

1999/065

Health & Safety Executive

HSE

Effective supervisory safety leadership behaviours in the offshore oil and gas industry
Mark Fleming The KeilCentre 5 South Lauder Road Edinburgh EH9 2LJ United Kingdom

HSE BOOKS

© Crown copyright 2001 Applications for reproduction should be made in writing to: Copyright Unit, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, St Clements House, 2-16 Colegate, Norwich NR3 1BQ First published 2001 ISBN 0 7176 1974 5 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

This report is made available by the Health and Safety Executive as part of a series of reports of work which has been supported by funds provided by the Executive. Neither the Executive, nor the contractors concerned assume anyliability for the reports nor do they necessarily reflect the views or policy of the Executive.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The first line supervisor has been identified as having a critical role in the management of safety. It is therefore important to identify which aspects of supervisor behaviour are associated with effective safety management. A study by Mearns, Flin, Fleming and Gordon (1997)appears to be the first published study carried out in the UK offshore oil industry, which investigated the factors associated with effective supervisor safety management. This study identified eight different factors, which separated supervisors that managed safety effectively from those that were less effective. There were of a number of weaknesses in this study, such as the low sample size (23) andthe qualitative nature of the research. To have confidence in the findings, it was necessary to replicate the study using a different method and to increase the sample size. The first stage of the current study involved the development of two self-completion questionnaires, one for offshore supervisors and one for their subordinates. The subordinate questionnaire consisted of four sections,demographic information, safety climate scale; self-report safety behaviour and supervisor safety leadership behaviour. The safety leadership scale contained 15 items, designed to measure the eight safety leadership factors identified in the previous study. The supervisor questionnaire consisted of a demographics section, a safety climate scale, a safety management attitude scale, the Fleishmanleadership style scale and a 16-item safety leadership behaviour scale. The ‘safety management attitude scale’ measured attitudes that corresponded to factors identified in the previous study. The ‘safety behaviour leadership scale’ mirrored the safety leadership scale in the subordinate questionnaire. The supervisor questionnaires were sent to 140 first line supervisors on the nine participatinginstallations. The subordinate questionnaires were distributed at safety meetings to the work group members of the participating supervisors. The overall response rate for the study was 33%, which is low, but it is similar to other offshore studies using self-completion questionnaires. In general, both supervisors and subordinates indicated that they had a positive perception of the safety climate on theirinstallation. Subordinates reported very low levels of risk taking behaviour and high levels of proactive safety behaviour. In general, they reported that their supervisors displayed high levels of positive safety leadership behaviour. The majority of supervisors tended to report that they had a ‘considerate’ style of management but they were more divided about the statements referring to...