Challenges in implementing stop-work authority: Findings from interviews with offshore workers

Abstract

Deepwater Horizon disaster that occurred in 2010 has mandated new offshore safety programs, such as stop-work authority (SWA), ultimate work authority (UWA), reporting unsafe conditions, and employee participation, for energy activities in the US Outer Continental Shelf. Although these safety programs were intended to facilitate the identification, communication, and reduction of offshore risks, actual implementation of the programs remains limited. To address this problem, the current work aims to identify barriers against full implementation of the offshore safety programs. The research team has conducted 17 virtual one-on-one interviews with offshore workers, supervisors, and managers from multiple offshore energy companies. The interviewees were asked questions regarding the nature of their offshore activities, overall experience with the safety programs, reasons behind stop-work, factors that influenced their implementation of SWA, or lack thereof, and recommendations for future improvements. Findings from qualitative data analysis include offshore energy workers' fear of delaying production by stopping work, fear of getting reprimanded, lack of empowerment for SWA, and conflicts in stop-work process. In addition, participants indicated that the safety reporting process was cumbersome, requiring excess time to fill out the reporting form and that contractors face discrepancies of SWA, UWA, and safety reporting policies and processes between companies they work for. Further, participants suggested recommendations such as anonymous reporting system and strong support and empowerment from the management. These findings reveal limiting factors of the offshore safety programs and thus inform the development of future interventions to further improve offshore safety.