A Hurt-Based Approach to Safety

This paper describes the Hurt-based Approach to Safety that ExxonMobil’s Upstream Companies use in personnel safety management. Traditionally, ExxonMobil has primarily used industry standards driven by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to classify safety events based on the treatment and/or restrictions provided. However, this treatment-based approach has limitations. With intense focus on administrative reporting (i.e., is the incident recordable or not?) and incident escalation management, the approach does not naturally resonate with workforce members to enable desired cultural changes. Also, historical approaches have not included a potential consequence assessment; a critical element in preventing future injuries. Incident classifications are often inconsistent because work restrictions and medical treatments are subject to individual medical provider judgment. ExxonMobil has created a Hurt-based Approach to mitigate limitations of the treatment-based approach. This paper discusses the history of ExxonMobil’s “Hurt Free” philosophy and explores benefits:  natural safety language of humans; protect family, prevent injuries  consistent description of actual injury severity  integral assessment of potential injury severity  resonates with workforce to enable cultural changes based on caring for people  alignment with Exxon Mobil Corporation’s safety vision of “Nobody Gets Hurt” These benefits, along with passionate safety leadership and Hurt-based metrics, are critical elements in ExxonMobil Upstream’s safety management systems. While many companies have some of these elements in their programs, it is the combination of all elements that drive ExxonMobil’s Hurt-based Approach. This paper will share ExxonMobil’s expectations of safety leaders and insight into how a Hurt Free philosophy leads to higher levels of understanding and promotes safety leadership throughout the organization. It will describe how a Hurt-based Approach provides a more natural line of sight for assessing incident potential and provides a more natural and caring interaction with injured parties; thereby, creating a more positive personal safety culture. It will describe how potential consequence is determined and how this potential drives the prioritization of resources, incident assessments, work activity focus, etc. It will detail ExxonMobil’s “Mining-the-Diamond” initiative which provides increased focus on high consequence potential work activities that could result in life-altering injuries or death. Trend analysis will be provided to illustrate continuous improvement efforts.