A CCESS TO A UTHORITY

Consideration of a potential POSS’ access to authority is related to having the most direct access to those who can make strategic decisions on the priority of operational safety activities. Such access increases the ability to reliably communicate the context, details and complexities of issues or incidents; and to advocate for prioritisation of long-sighted safety considerations over immediate production pressures. Ideally direct access to the CEO will ensure that a potential POSS can influence strategic and operational decision-making. The interviewees in all of the participating organisations advise that leadership is well aware of this as a best-practice concept.

It is also recognised that the objective of having such an advocate amongst leadership is to ensure that policies and decisions consider factors other than purely operational and commercial goals. The input of accurate and relevant safety information is also understood to be essential to a corporate governance process that ensures executive leadership is appropriately informed for decisions on significant issues.

All of the participating organisations include such a representative for safety at either the executive level with direct access to the CEO and leadership, or the senior level with indirect access to leadership through accountability to their own functional executive manager, or direct access and functional responsibilities to other executives. The general finding is that such functional representatives are typically responsible for several

subsidiary functions related to corporate affairs, such as HSE+ and that these typically do not include technical aspects of operational safety.

There are various issues that have been identified in these roles, particularly that functional executive managers are typically not of comparable status to the operational executive managers on the leadership team. Functional independence may provide access to authority and still include service and support of operations as well as - and sometimes instead of - assurance of compliance to performance standards.

The metaphorical description of one research interviewee characterises the distinction of the potential POSS roles (even those with access to the Board or corporate centres above their CEO) as being more like the postman (responsible for the timely delivery of small packets of information) than the policeman (responsible for making value judgements and with sufficient authority to ensure compliance).

The point of having direct access to powerful decision-makers in terms of the ideal POSS role is to ensure that there is a forum at the highest level for discussion and debate of operational safety priorities and performance. For such a process to be successful amongst the executive leadership team, there needs to be adequate authority for functional

executives to be influential. It is a critical finding of this research that the status of highly- positioned HS+ representatives is affected by the limited responsibilities associated with their role, particularly when interacting with other executives who may manage thousands of operations staff and be responsible for major corporate assets. The status of safety executives is also diminished by the fact that ensuring safe operations has to remain a fundamental responsibility of the operational executives.

In many cases, the most highly-placed safety representatives have limited staff and no authority beyond reporting on specific performance indicators. When the POSS roles comprise only the processing of KPI; audits and recommendations; conduct of incident investigations; and reviewing of data that is provided by operating divisions, organisational stature is considerably reduced. Structured access to leadership clearly will increase the opportunities to exercise high-level influence, but it does not necessarily guarantee that such influence is then either adequate or effective.

There is another significant problem with what is only ostensibly centralisation reflected by a high-level position of a corporate safety manager with limited status and authority: in that it can lead to blind or blinkered complacency. If there is no direct accountability and limited interaction with the technical specialists embedded in operations who can actually

recognise potential safety problems, those problems cannot be brought to the attention of either the functional or operational managers.

The filters introduced at each intervening level of hierarchy, particularly the operational levels, can lead to a self-defeating cycle based on a lack of transparency. If executive leadership has no access to relevant and accurate details or is protected from negative feedback, the limited and inadequate corporate oversight can be mistaken as effective. If there is a perception of excellence in maintaining appropriate safety performance, because contrary advice is not available, less attention is given when the reality is that more

attention is required.

Though the purpose of organisational status and high-level access is widely recognised in all organisations, the formal authorities associated with such positions are impacted by the limited functional responsibilities. The most likely POSS roles identified by virtue of access to authority are those that are highly placed in the hierarchy and have (at most) all

functional responsibilities and (at least) no commercial priorities. In the majority of cases, the most highly placed potential POSS roles indicate that structured access does not equate to actual impact, equal status or adequate influence in decision-making. Instead, there are alternative approaches outside of the organisational hierarchy - such as special committees and reporting processes - that provide technical experts and safety specialists with

unstructured but organised access to authority. These are discussed in detail in Section 5.4.

5.4

CONSIDERING PERCEIVED INFLUENCE