Erik Green, Green-Jakobsen A/S explaines how to measure real safety performance, considering that TMSA3 requirements and industry stakeholders are increasingly turning their attention towards safety performance that is driven by people’s enhanced soft skills.

In recent months large oil majors have been promoting the idea of developing more resilient safety cultures. Resilience is described as a company’s positive ability to adapt to the consequence of change, whether this change is initiated (caused) by market changes, innovation or even natural disasters.

Erik Green, Managing Director and Partner, Green Jakobsen, provides an insight on what an organisation can do to ensure that their efforts to build a more resilient safety culture are embedded and sustained. He comments that 'initiatives without effect are basically a waste of time and money'.

When we ask the overall question: How is your safety culture? 80% will give the above mentioned answer. So ‘above average’ is justified from these two parameters, but they hardly explain the truth about what is going on onboard the vessels. Safety performance is often evaluated from the outside, audits, inspections, etc., which is OK, but cannot stand alone.

During the 2023 SAFETY4SEA Athens Forum Erik Green, Managing Director and Partner, Green-Jakobsen, pointed out that human performance is context dependent. Erik Green went on to explain that performance is influenced by many factors, but some are more important than others.