Abstract
The analysis done on actual and direct experience on the majority of past events occurred within the Company, in particular fatalities or serious injuries, showed that among the main contributing factors, the two most recurrent are inadequate supervision and incorrect perception of actual exposure to operational risks.
Supervision shall be ensured by all functions in charge of supervising and coordinating the individual activities as well as a broad supervision of the whole operative site.
The incorrect perception of risks is usually caused by a lack of training and lack of knowledge of minimum basic principles on how to execute an activity.
If supervisors are lacking in these aspects, their leadership and the transfer of knowledge to front-liners is ineffective.
Therefore, Eni Upstream developed a simple tool with the aim to determine the level of safety knowledge and competencies of all supervisory personnel, thus identifying all safety areas that might need a specific, customized, and effective training approach that could fill competencies gaps and strengthening safety supervision at work site. Increased competence would, in turn, improve the perception of risk.
The "Safety Competence Assessment - SCA" is a web-based, two-phase tool that allows users (supervisors involved in the program) to assess their knowledge and competencies in a number of safety aspects ranging from safety leadership to basic content of safety procedures, HSE Integrated Management System (HSE IMS) principles, SIMOPS and emergency response.
During the first stage, the selected employees (or candidates hereafter) are confronted with open and closed questions that allow for the customization of the answers based on the working environment they are assigned to at the time of the assessment.
The second stage requires the involvement of HSE Managers and HR representatives to review all answers during a face-to-face discussion with the workers. This stage is aimed at the final consolidation of the user's assessment results (with possible amendments and incorporations by the Managers) and the identification of customized training paths that are facilitated by the HSE function.
Through the SCA tool, all Managers have access to valuable statistical information that could effectively help in determining areas of strengths and areas of improvements of single individuals as well as homogeneous groups or specific sites, further enhancing the effectiveness of the training that will be provided to the workforce and ultimately supervisory competence and knowledge.
