Watchkeeper: Is ISM really a cultural change?
Source: BIMCO It was said, when the International Safety Management Code arrived in the shipping industry more than ten years ago, that its aim was to change the whole “culture” of the industry to one that was safety-oriented. Has this aim been successful? If it has, why would a prominent ship manager, writing in the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch Safety Digest, suggest that shipping still compares unfavourably with the oil and gas industry at sea and ashore, where “people were familiar with Health, Safety and Environmental guidance and in general made efforts to put in place systems that were designed to manage risk and prevent accidents”?
But the marine world – that of the traditional shipping sector – still tends, he said “to be characterised by ‘macho’ can-do attitudes, and the belief that accidents are inevitable and simply part of getting the job done....” Is this fair?
When the ISM Code came into being, a frequently offered comment was that one’s attitude to this really quite significant regulatory change would depend upon which of three categories one’s company belonged. There was the “Rolls-Royce” component of the industries – those companies which radiated excellence and who would have to make just a few largely administrative changes to implement ISM properly. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, there was a small but significant segment of the industry that would resist any change and improvement because they had always done things with great reluctance. They would be forced into compliance, but do the very minimum to comply.
Then there was the broad swath between these two “extremes” of people who would not resist, but would comply, because they had no other choice as the regulations prescribed their compliance. The real struggle, it was suggested, was to change the culture within this group to a more positive mindset so they became willing, rather than grudging, participants in this process of change and improvement.
Any cultural change requires those involved to enjoy some degree of ownership in the process rather than having it dumped upon them by others. It became rapidly obvious that a Safety Management System in which those aboard ship had participated in the design was infinitely better than one in which the owner had merely bought a system “off the shelf” and told the crews to get on with its adoption. There were good and positive reports (usually, it has to be said, from those companies in the first category), of systems which were working smoothly, with statistical evidence backing up the reports of reduced accidents and greater efficiencies.
There were complaints from all sides about the “bureaucracy” of ISM, in the plethora of manuals that some systems required, the paperwork involved in their maintenance and the reporting of non-compliances. Once again, it has been those companies which would describe themselves as “blue chip” which recognised the problems and moved to adapt and improve their systems to reduce the burden on the users.
But with the passage of time and the imminence of a revision of the ISM Code, critical voices have been raised once again. There are still poor management systems about that fail to connect with the crews who have to use them. The “compliance culture” still remains in some parts of the industry, and the “safety culture” has, in these areas, yet to emerge.
Accident reports all too often demonstrate a failure of compliance with the ship’s own system through all the same attitudes that the ISM Code was designed to counter; complacency, short cuts, laziness, simple refusal to follow procedures, ignorance or incompetence. Is this a failure of the ISM Code itself? Or a failure to put it into practice?
Articles written by the Watchkeeper and other outside contributors do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of BIMCO.