Covid-19 best practices are a top subject for energy companies; during the last day of sessions of the Offshore Technology Conference, specialists and executives from top companies shared the implementations of best practices on their teams, in order to better manage the covid-19 pandemic.
Firstly, the executives agreed that in order to achieve resiliency on their workforce, a top priority was to open the dialogue on mental health. Mental health issues became more relevant for workers in energy companies; as many of them working offshore had to be separated from their families.
Secondly, the disruption of the working environment in the office, to working from home was particularly difficult; specially for women; as apart from being employees, they most commonly are also caretakers for their children or elders.
Consequently, companies had to strengthen deeply their mental health protocols and gender equality. Specifically, about the later, Matt Kirk, Senior Vice President, Specialist Engineering & Consulting at Wood, said. “We had to really open up about mental health; to establish a dynamic in which our employees and executives talked about our concerns over the pandemic. We tried to guide by example.”
Also recommended for you: Saint-Gobain North America (SGNA) launches Sustainable Construction Program. Click here to read.
Covid-19 pushed companies to strengthen the human factor of their protocols
He also remarked. “We developed sort of a mantra: It is okay not to be okay. Many of us, and specially on the executive level, open up and shared our concerns. Also, when it came to working from home, we established strict measures to respect other time and circumstances. For example, we established a time period in which we could send emails. This like that really helped us to build up resiliency.”
On the other hand, Lori Knutson Vice President of Production for Bp, talked about how they established a culture of care. “Caring for our employees and their situations; as well as taking care of ourselves in order to not spread the virus was vital; information was also crucial. We really cared about giving our employees the scientific facts and versions about the virus; not the social media one.”
Finally, in regards to the creation of protocols and information, Summer Condarco, Vice President, for Service Quality & Continuous Improvement for Halliburton, said. “We created guidance and documents for all our world operations. The guidance included e-learning platforms; also, a centralized portal to report and track new cases of contagion. Overall, we tried to boost the level of awareness of our workforce worldwide, in order to keep a level of sanity. Mental health was also crucial.”
In conclusion, apart from sanitization processes, such as application of gel, cleaning wipes, and masks; the establishment of protocols towards mental health and other human factors, were crucial for the industry to be resilient in front of the still going pandemic.
