Transforming Workplace Culture through Employee-Centric Wellbeing Programs in the Oil and Gas Sector (Published)
The oil and gas sector operates within uniquely demanding environments characterized by high-risk activities, remote operations, extended shift rotations, and diverse workforce configurations that generate substantial occupational stressors extending beyond conventional workplace challenges. Despite significant investments in safety management systems, the industry continues to grapple with persistent mental health challenges, cultural norms that discourage vulnerability, and operational gaps that undermine employee wellbeing and organizational effectiveness. This research examines how strategically designed employee-centric wellbeing programs can serve as catalytic mechanisms for transforming workplace culture within the oil and gas sector, with particular emphasis on initiatives encompassing psychological and social risk management, ergonomic interventions, and comprehensive wellness infrastructure that promote mental health, workplace inclusion, and employee engagement.Employing a convergent parallel mixed-methods research design, this study integrates quantitative survey data from 1,247 employees across four multinational oil and gas organizations with qualitative evidence from 47 semi-structured interviews, seven focus group discussions, and organizational document analysis. The research examines relationships between wellbeing program engagement, psychosocial safety climate, and employee outcomes including psychological wellbeing, work engagement, perceived organizational support, workplace inclusion, and turnover intentions, while exploring implementation dynamics, leadership practices, and contextual factors shaping program effectiveness.Findings demonstrate that comprehensive wellbeing programs generate substantial improvements across multiple organizational levels. Employees with high program utilization exhibited significantly superior psychological wellbeing scores (18.3 points higher on WHO-5 index), enhanced work engagement, strengthened organizational commitment, and reduced turnover intentions compared to low-utilization counterparts. Structural equation modeling confirmed that psychosocial safety climate functions as a critical mediating mechanism, accounting for 42-47% of program effects on employee outcomes. Qualitative analysis revealed that programs catalyze cultural transformation by normalizing mental health discourse, disrupting stigmatizing norms, and signaling authentic organizational care. Particularly significant is the amplifying role of care-centered leadership, wherein leaders who model vulnerability, prioritize employee welfare, and enact small acts of recognition accelerate cultural shifts and enhance program effectiveness exponentially.Organizational performance indicators corroborate employee-level benefits, with participating organizations documenting turnover reductions of 23-31%, safety incident rate decreases of 18-27%, and absenteeism declines averaging 14.7% following program implementation. However, implementation challenges including middle management resistance, access barriers for remote/offshore workers, and systematic exclusion of contractor populations require intentional design solutions. Differential impacts across operational contexts underscore the necessity of context-adapted interventions rather than standardized approaches.These findings carry profound implications for the oil and gas industry and analogous high-risk sectors. Employee-centric wellbeing programs represent strategic organizational investments that enhance not only humanitarian outcomes but operational excellence, safety performance, talent retention, and competitive positioning. The research demonstrates that authentic care for employee wellbeing enhances rather than conflicts with business objectives, challenging false dichotomies between human welfare and organizational performance. For sustainable cultural transformation, organizations must move beyond programmatic offerings to embrace comprehensive approaches encompassing care-centered leadership development, psychosocial risk management, inclusive program design ensuring equitable access across diverse workforce populations, and systematic evaluation frameworks. The study advocates for industry-wide adoption of evidence-informed wellbeing initiatives and identifies critical directions for future research including longitudinal effectiveness studies, technology-enabled intervention evaluation, and cross-sector comparative analyses to advance knowledge translation and accelerate cultural evolution toward human-centered organizational paradigms within high-risk industries.
Keywords: Employee Engagement, Employee wellbeing, Oil and gas industry, care-centered leadership, high-risk industries, organizational transformation, psychosocial safety climate, workplace culture
Safety, Health and its Relation to Reliability in Oil and Gas Industry (Published)
Accident and incident occurrences have led to loss of invaluable cost in the oil and gas industry. Accidents or incidents however don‟t just occur but are caused by preceding events. This project clearly outlines the principals involved in accident/ incident investigation, critically reviews the techniques used in root cause analysis in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses, provides a detailed knowledge of the key phases employed in root cause analysis and develops recommendations for improvement and generation of implementation of root cause analysis report. On conclusion of this thesis through recommendations developed, lives will be saved by providing a safe and healthy working environment for personnel and the public in general, down time minimized, huge cost saved through adequate maintenance of facilities/ equipment, minimal or negligible insurance claims etc. This will thus ensure safety, health and reliability in the vibrant oil and gas industry. Despite having a standard training program, the level of competency to investigate accidents and incidents adequately and comprehensively vary from one safety professional or investigation team to another. This could be attributed to the number and types of accidents/incidents investigated i.e. experience, the frequency at which the investigations are carried out, information and documentation available for assessment, skills etc. Though these factors vary with age, experience, personal ability and industry, certain skills are essentially required for any accident or incident investigation. They include the following;
- Careful observation and understanding of key factors at the scene of the incident/accident and other areas of relevance to the occurrence
- An understanding of the technical, physical and chemical aspects of the incident/accident as the case may be
- Interviewing personnel and witnesses
- Taking of appropriate photographs and preparation of adequate sketches
- Ability of adequately record all relevant factors for future reference
- Evaluations of documentation i.e. work permits, operational manuals, and repairs/maintenance certification etc.
- Report writing
- The correct interpretation of relevant health and safety laws.
- Development of appropriate remedial action to prevent reoccurrence.
Keywords: Health, Oil and gas industry, Relation, Reliability, Safety