What is Mentoring?
In this Tip of the Month, we explore how process safety competency can be enhanced through mentoring programs.
This TOTM is the paper that was developed by JMC Instructor/Consultants Clyde Young and Keith Hodges presentation at the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) 8th Global Conference on Process Safety in April, 2012. The paper will also be published in the AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineering) publication, “Process Safety Progress.”
Commit to Process Safety is the first pillar mentioned in “Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety Management”, published by CCPS. This pillar is supported by five elements. One of the elements is Process Safety Competency, which is associated with efforts to maintain, improve and broaden knowledge and expertise.
In Greek mythology, Odysseus, King of Ithaca went to fight in the Trojan Wars. Before he left, he entrusted his son Telemachus to the care of his old and trusted friend MENTOR. It was some ten years before father and son were reunited and during this time the development and care of his son was with Mentor.
What is often missing from historical accounts is that it is Athene, the Goddess of Wisdom, who appears to Telemachus in the likeness of Mentor and gives advice, encouragement and spiritual insight.
Since then, the word Mentor has become synonymous with trusted advisor, friend and teacher, a wise person.
Demographic studies of the oil and gas processing industry indicate that a large number of people are retiring and being replaced by younger, less experienced personnel. This presents a challenge to the industry. A wise mountaineer once stated, “Good judgment comes from bad experiences.” With the influx of less experienced personnel, it would be shameful to have their good judgment developed from their bad experiences. Especially since these bad experiences can be catastrophic.
Organizations in the industry have spent considerable resources recruiting the best talent available and most have a competency development program that these new workers enter. The program will generally include a step to have a more experienced person provide feedback on the worker to assess competency in the job. Well-developed and resourced competency development programs will have a Mentor assigned to the worker.
What does this really mean and how can an organization insure that process safety competency is developed in all personnel, even if process safety activities are not the primary role?
This TOTM will provide some guidance and best practices for establishing Mentoring programs with an emphasis on developing process safety competency in the younger, less experienced workforce.
The role of Mentor involves teaching, helping, protecting, challenging, motivating, guiding, coaching, listening, and providing career guidance; it falls short of counseling. Counseling is the provision of professional psychological help and advice and chosen Mentors would be foolhardy to attempt such a role without extensive training.
Mentoring is usually a formal or informal relationship between two people, a Mentor (usually and preferably outside the Mentee’s area of supervision) and a Mentee. The Mentor can also be provided from an external organization. This can be preferable especially if there is any hint of competition between the Mentors and Mentees (e.g. working in the same department as peers). There are different rules of engagement if the external option is taken and this is outside the scope of this paper. Peer Mentoring can be a useful option, especially if a peer Mentor has specific skills and qualifications.
Using a Mentee’s supervisor within a discipline should be avoided as there could be a conflict of interest. The Mentor may be Mentoring one day and disciplining the next, This is not conducive to building trust, which is an important ingredient in the Mentoring process.
Mentoring should not be substituted for conventional classroom or computer-moderated training. It enhances traditional training by allowing the Mentee to learn from experienced colleagues within the working environment.
Choosing a Mentor
The choice of Mentors is an important aspect of a program and managers should first be satisfied that a Mentor not only has the required technical skills, but also has the ability to convey those to others in an efficient and effective way. Competency associated with Mentoring skills does not necessarily come naturally to everyone with highly competent technical skills. A key skill to insure effective process safety is communication with all disciplines that could have an impact on the process.
Mentor Program
It is foolhardy to think that just putting together a pool of people as Mentors and pairing them with Mentees is going to be an effective way to put a Mentor program together. It takes planning and needs structure. There has to be an organizational aim for the program with measurable objectives. The Mentor should be provided with these and a list of roles and responsibilities, which they should fully comprehend.
There should be a selection process for Mentors and organizations must recognize that a training program may have to be created for selected Mentors.
Ideally the Mentee should be able to select the Mentor from a pool of people in the organization; management, the training department or HR should not pair them. Mentors should have the option to refuse the role should they feel that it would not be appropriate.
Mentoring and Process Safety
A Mentoring program is not to be approached in a haphazard fashion if the goal is to develop competent personnel. A Mentoring program is much like a process safety management system. The Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety Management (RBPSM) defines a management system as, “A formally established and documented set of activities designed to produce specific results in a consistent manner on a sustainable basis.” The Mentoring program should be formalized, documented and designed to produce specific results. The specific results are competent personnel associated with process safety.
Mentees within a program may have been chosen because they are targeted to fill a key role within the organization. This role could be a technical position that requires narrow skills in a field or a supervisory position of either engineering personnel or operations personnel. The competency levels associated with process safety that are required will be highly dependent on the role in the organization. The Mentor/Mentee relationship should keep this in mind as the process progresses.
An effective Mentoring program that includes process safety as a key component will yield numerous benefits to the organization. A Mentor with wide professional and technical expertise should have considerable experience in areas that involve process safety. A Mentor that truly understands the concepts of risk based process safety will be invaluable to a Mentee with less experience. Consider the pillars of RBPSM and some of the elements within each pillar.
Commit to Process Safety
Elements of this pillar include:
- Process safety culture
- Compliance with standards
- Process safety competency
- Workforce involvement
- Stakeholder outreach
A simple definition of culture is, “How we do things around here.” Organizations strive to develop a learning culture that seeks hazards and solutions on a continuous basis. It is imperative that Mentees are provided awareness level training on the organization’s culture and the Mentor will be given training on how to act as the example. Two significant benefits will come from this. The Mentors will examine their own actions within the culture and insure that they are setting a good example. The Mentee will question why and how activities are accomplished and learn his/her role within the organization’s culture, which should accelerate the Mentees contribution through self-awareness.
It will be difficult for a less experienced worker to learn the things required to insure compliance with all applicable standards. An effective Mentor should always guide the Mentee toward the correct answer associated with compliance but not necessarily answer the question of compliance. The guidance and allowing the Mentee to find the answer will insure that the learning associated with compliance will be retained long after the answer is discovered.
Process safety competency of the Mentee will be enhanced significantly, but only if the Mentor insures that the Mentee is directed to the appropriate resources for this. The Mentor does not necessarily have to be considered a process safety expert. The Mentor does have to be aware that some process safety issues require a level of expertise that will be found elsewhere. And sometimes those resources may be outside the organization.
For a process safety management system to thrive, staff members at all levels of the organization must take an active role. The role taken needs to be identified and metrics established to show participation in the role. A Mentor can provide guidance and suggestions so that the Mentee is consistently working toward the goals of the process safety management system. Appropriately timed reviews of progress associated with established process safety metrics should be scheduled and conducted.
Stakeholders include outside contractors, shareholders, community members and partners in joint ventures. A Mentee may be involved with negotiations and planning activities associated with all kinds of stakeholders. A Mentor’s experience in the industry and the organization can be very useful to insure that all stakeholder interests are addressed.
Understand Hazards and Risks
Elements of this pillar include:
- Process knowledge management
- Hazard identification and risk analysis
Development of a Mentee’s competency in this pillar of RBPSM could be the Mentor’s most important role. Insuring that the correct process knowledge is developed and managed appropriately is a critical activity that the Mentee strives for. There is no need for a Mentee to learn from mistakes if a Mentor can provide clear guidance on this pillar.
It is within these two elements that mistakes can lead to catastrophic events. Having an incorrectly sized relief valve installed in a process or not anticipating the consequences of failure of controls is not acceptable. The Mentor and Mentee should routinely conduct discussions about these elements.
Contract services are utilized a great deal for design of new and modified facilities. A Mentor who has significant experience in this area can provide the Mentee advice and guidance for overseeing these projects. Oversight by a qualified company representative will insure that all issues associated with a project have been addressed.
Providing resources during the conduct of Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) studies is a challenge for many organizations. This is especially true considering the demographics of the industry at this time. More experienced personnel have moved on. PHA team members with significant experience are critical to the success of a PHA. A Mentee who is assigned to a PHA team may or may not work side by side with their Mentor. If the assigned Mentor is also a member of the PHA team, this may prove advantageous. As the role of Mentor is to provide guidance and direction to new and developing staff, the PHA is an excellent environment to do just that. The structure of the PHA provides an opportunity to guide the Mentee in the proper way to identify hazards, develop measures to mitigate those hazards and work as a team member in a formalized setting.
Manage Risk
Within this pillar, a Mentee will benefit from the guidance of an experienced Mentor to become proficient at what might be considered the day-to-day activities associated with their job. Elements are:
- Procedures
- Safe work practices
- Asset integrity
- Contractors
- Training and performance
- Management of change
- Operational readiness
- Conduct of operations
- Emergency management
Sometimes organizations will assign a younger, less experienced person to a supervisory position in operations to “season” them. Studies have shown that a great number of incidents occur during normal operations. Having a Mentor with significant operations experience will accelerate the “seasoning” process and insure that the problems associated with day-to-day activities do not lead to a catastrophic incident.
Working in operations supervision will certainly expose the Mentee to many issues associated with personal interaction. Dealing with people may be one of the most difficult tasks undertaken. Having the ear of a Mentor can be helpful as the Mentee develops his/her skills in this area.
Learn From Experience
There is no reason that a young professional cannot learn from the experience of others. To pass along the experience and knowledge that has been gained over the years is the focus of a Mentoring program. Hopefully, the Mentee will not have to experience a catastrophic incident to learn from experience.
Elements within this pillar are:
- Incident investigation
- Measurement
- Audits
- Management review and continuous improvement
Having a Mentor available to help review near miss reports, incident investigations, audit findings and metrics associated with process safety can provide the Mentee with a “cold eye” review of issues that are the Mentee’s responsibility to address. Often a wiser, more experienced Mentor will have experienced some of the same things that are being discovered under the Mentee’s watch. In this case, issues should be able to be addressed quickly and more efficiently.
Troubleshooting
All processes within the industries we work have been designed to operate in a specified manner. This manner includes specific temperatures, pressures, flow rates and levels. Defining these specific parameters establishes “normal” for these processes. Operating processes in a “normal” manner reduces the likelihood of a catastrophic incident. Deviation from “normal” is not acceptable and identifying this deviation and taking the steps required to return to normal requires experience and knowledge. This is known as troubleshooting. Process safety management is a system that establishes “normal” and provides directions on maintaining “normal”. Personnel with effective troubleshooting skills will also work efficiently within an organization’s process safety management system.
A formalized, well established Mentoring program for younger, less experienced personnel entering the business enhances everyone’s troubleshooting skills. The Mentee has someone (the Mentor) available to query about issues seen and the Mentor is challenged to insure the advice and guidance provided is correct and useful.
Attaining high-level competency in a job requires training and then performing the job for a period of time. Accelerating the path to high-level competency is a significant goal of a formalized Mentoring program.
Conclusion
At the beginning of this TOTM, it was stated that the word Mentor has become synonymous with trusted advisor, friend and teacher, a wise person. Process safety management has become synonymous for reducing the risk associated with the activities performed in our industries.
Risk is often viewed differently from individual to individual. A person’s perception of risk may change with familiarity. Having a trusted advisor for younger, less experienced personnel, to help identify and provide suggestions for mitigation of hazards, in all their forms, is a strong competency development tool for any organization. Personnel will be developed quicker and more efficiently. Experienced personnel are one of a company’s most valuable resources. Acting as a Mentor can be the best use of this resource and will provide a challenge that some people thrive on.
Any organization that truly strives for a generative safety culture should do whatever it takes to implement a process safety-Mentoring program. The benefits will be seen and reaped for years to come.
To learn more about managing process safety systems, we suggest attending our PetroSkills HSE course, HS 45- Risk Based Process Safety Management.
To enhance process safety engineering skills we suggest any of the JMC foundation courses or our, PS 4 – Process Safety Engineering course.
John M. Campbell Consulting (JMCC) offers consulting expertise on this subject and many others. For more information about the services JMCC provides, visit our website at www.jmcampbellconsulting.com, or email us at consulting@jmcampbell.com.
By: Clyde Young and Keith Hodges
