Workforce safety performance

Imperial achieved its best-ever safety results for both employees and contractors in 2009.

Performance at a glance

The 280,000-hour Horn River 2008/2009 winter drilling program achieved zero recordable safety incidents.

Lost-time incidents are injuries or illnesses sustained while at work that result in at least one lost workday after the day of the incident.

Our approach

The safety tools and programs that we deploy have been chosen as a result of our experience in the field. We know that the possibility of an incident decreases as employees are more aware of potential hazards prior to conducting work, and how closely they follow safe work procedures. As a result, we continue to expand the deployment of behaviour-based safety tools and processes, and promote a ‛culture of intervention.’

We are also working closely with contractors to improve their safety. A highly mobile workforce results in a large number of short-service workers. Less experience and a greater tolerance for risk are key factors associated with a higher risk of contractor injury. We are focusing on sound pre-job planning, setting guidance for short-service workers and tools that reduce “at risk” behaviour.

Over the last five years we have increasingly shared lessons and expanded the rollout of successful safety tools across the Upstream and Downstream. Focus areas have included contractor selection, pre-job planning, supervisor selection and worker training. 

What we are doing

Behaviour-based systems

We use behaviour-based systems to proactively reduce “at risk” behaviour that can result in safety incidents. A leading example that was introduced in the Downstream in 2005 is the Loss Prevention System™ (LPS), which engages workers in hazard identification and peer-to-peer observation and coaching. The Upstream introduced LPS in 2007, and in 2009, use of LPS was further extended throughout the Downstream and Chemical businesses.

Contractor safety

We believe continued improvement in contractor safety performance starts with strengthening our relationship and interaction with contractors. By working closely together, we are able to achieve greater execution of programs, including LPS, enhanced short-service work programs (where inexperienced workers are mentored by those more experienced) and pre-job risk identification, in addition to outlining our expectations for safety performance, standards and accountability.

In 2009, we continued to employ a program called the Buddy Manager that engages our senior level managers with senior level managers from contract companies that we employ. The program emphasizes the safety issues faced by the field level workforce in order to ensure that the companies we use have the same degree of commitment to safety that we do.

Safety leadership training

Imperial works diligently to ensure safety roles and responsibilities are effectively executed. This calls for persistent emphasis on leadership training. Over the last six years, we have conducted a Fundamentals of Safety program for Upstream workers, which has trained more than 600 employees and contractors in different aspects of workplace safety. This four-day program is designed to increase leader awareness and involvement in safety. At the Kearl site, over 1,000 employees and contractors have attended Leadership in Safety workshops sponsored by Imperial. Our Downstream and Chemical manufacturing sites began to receive training in 2008. By the end of 2009, more than 500 of these employees received training.

We continued to look for new opportunities to emphasize the importance of safety leadership among contractors. In 2009, the Safety Leadership Development program continued into its second year in the Upstream business. This program looks at how supervisors and workers interact at the field level and brings them together to discuss safety scenarios and trains them in the use of safe-work planning tools such as job safety assessments. Skills taught in the classroom are then reinforced on site with individual coaching. More than 200 contractor supervisors and managers participated in leadership workshops through 2009.

Up close:

Safety at the Strathcona refinery

The employees and contractors at the Strathcona refinery have had a long-term commitment to safety, and Strathcona is considered an industry leader in Alberta. Over the past several years the site has won a number of awards from the Alberta Petrochemical Safety Council (two were received in 2009), and, in 2009, employees and contractors reached a milestone of no lost-time injuries for more than three consecutive years or six million work hours. They also achieved this best-ever safety performance in a major turnaround year.

Office safety

Office-related injuries accounted for two of the total recordable employee safety incidents in 2009, with repetitive strain injuries (RSI) continuing to be the leading office workplace illness. Improving safety for our office workers remains a key priority for the company. In 2009, we began a one-day training program called the Fundamentals of Safety for Office Leaders to help leaders make office workers aware of early symptoms of RSI and prevention resources available to them. Nearly 80 manager and supervisors participated. In addition, an office safety leadership team, co-chaired by the company’s senior vice-president, finance and administration, and the senior safety, health and environment manager, expanded work to support the deployment of programs to improve office safety.