March 1, 2017 | Ken Reed

Avoid the Danger of New Hires

Is your safety program ready?

There is a feeling of cautious optimism in the oil sector, as the price of oil seems to have stabilized above $50/barrel. Rig count in the Permian has more than doubled since last spring. US EIA and JPMorgan are forecasting US production at near record levels of over 9.5 million barrels per day by the end of next year. US exports are up, with China ramping up oil purchases from the US, while OPEC production cuts are holding.

This all sounds good for the US oil sector. It is expected that hiring will start picking up, and in fact Jeff Bush, president of oil and gas recruiting firm CSI Recruiting, has said, “When things come back online, there’s going to be an enormous talent shortage of epic proportions.”

So, once you start hiring, who will you hire? Unfortunately, much of the 170,000 oil workers laid off over the past couple of years are no longer available. That experience gap is going to be keenly felt as you try to bring on new people. In fact, you’re probably going to be hiring many people with little to no experience in safe operation of your systems.

Are you prepared for this? How will you ensure your HSE, Quality, and Equipment Reliability programs are set up to handle this young, eager, inexperienced workforce? What you certainly do NOT want to see are your new hires getting hurt, breaking equipment, or causing environmental releases. Here are some things you should think about:

– Review old incidents and look for recurring mistakes (Causal Factors). Analyze for generic root causes. Conduct a TapRooT® analysis of any recurring issues to help eliminate those root causes.
– Update on-boarding processes to ensure your new hires are receiving the proper training.
– Ensure your HSE staff are prepared to perform more frequent audits and subsequent root cause analysis.
– Ensure your HSE staff are fully trained to investigate problems as they arise.
– Train your supervisors to conduct audits and detailed RCA.
– Conduct human factors audits of your processes. You can use the TapRooT® Root Cause Tree® to help you look for potential issues.
– Take a look at your corrective action program. Are you closing out actions? Are you satisfied with the types of actions that are in there?
– Your HSE team may also be new. Make sure they’ve attended a recent TapRooT® course to make sure they are proficient in using TapRooT®.

Don’t wait until you have these new hires on board before you start thinking about these items. Your team is going to be excited and enthusiastic, trying to do their best to meet your goals. You need to be ready to give them the support and tools they need to be successful for themselves and for your company.

TapRooT® training may be part of your preparation. You can see a list of upcoming courses HERE.