Improving Safety Communication In Oil Refineries

Our paper shows the biggest problems with safety communication and how to fix them.

Safety communication was collected at three oil refineries and one chemical plant (four separate companies in Australia and USA).

We show six examples of actual communication and the improved versions.

The conclusions are:

Refinery employees cannot understand their safety communication.

The average safety email in a refinery can be understood by only 4% of the U.S. population.

Safety communication is much too complicated.

Reading level required for an average safety email is grade-level 16.
The average U.S. adult reads at grade-level 7.
Most safety communication is 9 grade levels above the average reader.

Way too much safety communication is sent.

Safety managers at refineries receive about 50 safety emails every day.
Information overload research shows: once employees reach information overload—the more you send—the less they use—and the worse their performance.
Performance worsens because the time to “manage” all this information is stolen from the time to “understand” it.

Safety communication is not written in a way that frontline supervisors can use.

Safety communication is typically written as text to be read (sentences and paragraphs).
However, supervisors try to deliver this communication orally (projecting the text onto a screen and discussing it during safety meetings).
The solid blocks of text don't project well, the long sentences and paragraphs make discussion impossible, and the communication fails.

Safety communication can be fixed by following some simple communication tips.

1. Improve the quality of the communication and the overload problem will fix itself (it takes longer to do good communication so output decreases).
2. Lower the complexity from grade-level 16 to something closer to grade-level 5 (understood by almost 70% of the population).
3. Almost always you can cut the number of words in half without losing any content.
4. Adding a large hand-drawn diagram increases comprehension by more than 100%.
5. Design the communication for A/V projection, so supervisors can project it and discuss it during safety meetings.
   

Doing these 5 tips will increase comprehension between 100% and 300%.

The full paper can be downloaded at: www.Larkin.Biz. The paper is available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.