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Case Study: HR faces complex challenges in high-risk environment

First published by Hr Director, [http://www.thehrdirector.com] magazine, Issue 42, December 07. Reproduced with permission.

Aberdeen-based Production Services Network (PSN) has put together a programme which responds to specific challenges by assessing the risk to employees in any given situation, in conjunction with an emergency plan to cope with every eventuality  from workplace accidents to natural disasters.

There can be few more complex challenges for the modern HR executive, than those posed by maintaining a constantly moving workforce in the high-risk environment of the oil and gas industry. As well as the risks inherent in the production of highly flammable materials, employers working in this sector must also negotiate the pitfalls of sending workers into unfamiliar and often politically sensitive, even dangerous, areas.

This, combined with the enactment of the UK’s new corporate manslaughter legislation, has increased the pressures on those responsible for the safety and wellbeing of employees.

PSN, an independent international service contractor to oil and gas production companies, is one of the top ten privately owned businesses in Scotland and has a global workforce of around 8,000 employees in 23 different countries. Of them, around 3,500 will, at any time, be in a situation which demands careful risk assessment and emergency planning.

“an effective tracking system”

For HR director Dean Hunter, that means ensuring the workforce is prepared for working environments as diverse as Kazakhstan, sub-Saharan Africa, Vietnam and the USA. "What we have found is that it is important not only to do all the planning and risk assessments before the staff go to a country, but also to have an effective tracking system in place so you know where all of your people are at any given time," he says. "Once we have people in the country, we check proactively every day so we know what is happening, whether there are new and specific risks and, if so, what they are.

"If something is flagged up to us, we can work with our clients to ensure they are always kept safe." In striving to maintain that aspect of control and stay ahead of any potential risks, PSN uses International SOS, the world’s leading provider of medical assistance, international healthcare and security services.

Hunter continues: "We tend to work hand in hand with companies like International SOS, and use their people on the ground who know the area. That knowledge cannot be underestimated. "We have seven core values, and numbers one and two on the list are safety and people. But we also put a high value on localisation. "If you are going to manage risk then you must have a local approach. And we avoid thinking that we have all the solutions for all locations, just because we have worked in the North Sea for 30 years.

Under the new legislation, employers will also need to have taken every reasonable and practicable step to ensure their employees’ wellbeing and nurture a safety culture in the workplace.

And, according to Dr Neil Nerwich, medical director of International SOS, that makes it even more important that companies like PSN have all their systems in place with all the relevant data on security and medical implications; in some cases this has to happen before an employee even takes up a role, or joins the company.

"Before you send someone to work, or live and work, in any environment, you have to ensure that certain key questions have been asked and answered," says Dr Nerwich. "It’s important to have a look at the site where they are working, the closest medical facilities and access to your own medical people on site. You also have to identify any potential difficulties and plan for them. "You have to know how you would get people out of the area if necessary, either for medical treatment or in an emergency."

For all companies, there will also be different sorts of risks to evaluate: "If, for example, you only have staff travelling between European cities, a very different assessment is required than if you have people travelling from Asia to West Africa and Eastern Europe," Nerwich explains. And, in all of these cases, the risk of staff being hit by crimes or acts of terrorism, or the likelihood of a natural disaster, also has to be taken into account.

One example serves as a reminder of the importance of these constant checks and an awareness of the area, not only in terms of medical facilities but also of political and economic stability. "We have people in Chad and trying to get someone out of there in a medical emergency is much more difficult than taking someone off a platform in the North Sea, for example," says Hunter. "We recently had a guy who sadly died of natural causes in sub-Saharan Africa on Christmas Eve. Trying to work out what to do in a situation like that if you did not have a process in place would be extremely difficult. "I think the key is not only to have an emergency response prepared, but to have one for every single region. Even within Africa, different regions can have different facilities and different risks."

One problem, of which there is perhaps greater awareness than in the past, is the risk of either random or targeted acts of terrorism. Some areas, such as the Niger Delta of Nigeria, have been targeted by kidnappers who aim to hold western workers for ransom. As a result, many companies, including PSN, have opted not to work in that region. However, terrorism in all forms is a risk which companies have to take into account and put in place medical plans to cope with.

Hunter explains: "From a medical point of view we have, this year, done a lot of work with different groups, to look at how we protect our workforce across the globe. We treat every risk as a serious one, and don’t assume, for example, terrorism is the same as other security risks." That is a sentiment echoed by International SOS. It says the risk of a terrorist attack is something which should be assessed automatically,  in the same way as the risk of being the victim of a crime.

“there will always be an element of complete unpredictability”

However, there are circumstances where specialist reports are necessary, depending on where in the world people are travelling. "What you should do is look at where people are going and use the best available information analysis to decide what measures need to be taken for the employee to go there as safely as possible," says Dr Nerwich. "Ask ‘What do I need to do to mitigate these risks?’ "The brief you give to the employee will then be based on that. For example, anyone going to Moscow would be briefed about crime and where not to go in the city. For other parts of the world, you might need to brief people on planning for an evacuation." There is one area, however, where there will always be an element of complete unpredictability in risk assessment: natural disasters.

While some regions might be classified as high risk for earthquakes, hurricanes or tsunamis, the possibility of an unforeseen phenomenon cannot be overlooked, whatever the location. "Natural disasters in Aberdeen are every bit as likely as anywhere, and you must have an emergency response in place for that sort of thing wherever you are working," comments Dean Hunter. The strategy at his company is to treat every situation on its own merits.

International SOS often finds itself called in to evacuate personnel from client companies who find themselves caught up in unexpected natural disasters. At the time of the Asian tsunami, for example, that also involved a large number of company executives who were on holiday. The key in those situations is, according to Dr Nerwich, for the company to know where its staff are, and for those staff to know that there is an emergency plan and what they have to do.

"Again that comes back to assessing every eventuality, putting plans in place and making sure your staff have been trained in current procedures," he says. In practice, that means HR professionals have to look at every detail of a country, its political stability, the risks of certain diseases, even the indigenous plants and creatures which could prove hazardous. Only by doing that can they be sure they have taken every reasonable and practicable step to ensure employee safety.