Error Management Climate as a Way to Align Safety Objectives with Operational Excellence

Abstract

Abstract Though safety and operations impact each other, safety initiatives are often implemented in isolation from operational initiatives. For instance, safety issues are commonly examined separately from operational issues, sometimes even being pitted against each other (productivity vs. safety). With this research study, we examined a relatively new concept in organizational psychology and safety science, namely error management climate. We contend that error management climate creates an opportunity for aligning and improving both safety and operational performance. In many organizations, errors are perceived negatively, as essentially things to be avoided. As a result, they are often not reported formally or discussed openly. Nevertheless, research has shown that a positive error management climate is associated with exemplary safety performance. Error management climate refers to employees’ perceptions of the extent to which the organization encourages communication about and management of errors and mistakes in the workplace. This paper describes a research study involving over 700 workers employed at an international oil and gas company. Via an employee survey, we investigated the error management climate of on-shore and off-shore natural gas sites and examined the relationships between error management climate and other safety concepts such as safety communication, safety climate, and safety performance. The paper addresses the following topics: What is error management climate – the overall definition and its dimensions.How is error management climate measured – computing both the level and strength of the climate. What are the study results – differences in error management climate perceptions by job level, site, and climate dimension; the relationships between error management climate and safety predictors and safety performance outcomes. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible interventions that can be used to build a strong positive error management climate.