Apache - Offshore Oil & Gas: Safety Culture Development Programme

🧭 The Challenge

Apache - an international oil and gas company operating multiple offshore oil rigs and production platforms, faced pressing cultural and operational challenges:

• Aging infrastructure, contributing to increased operational and safety risks

• Low interdepartmental collaboration, especially between operations, maintenance, and HSE teams

• Limited psychological safety, inhibiting open dialogue, reporting, and learning

• A health and safety culture stuck in the Reactive stage of the Hudson Safety Culture Maturity Model, driven by compliance and blame rather than shared responsibility

💡 Solution

In partnership with FidesOak Ltd, we co-designed and delivered a comprehensive cultural development programme focused on advancing the client’s safety culture and leadership capability offshore.

Under the guidance of Katy Eckert-Turnbull, founder of our organisation, a dedicated team of experienced coaches was deployed across offshore assets. Katy played a hands-on role in supporting coach development, strategic alignment, and client engagement to ensure consistent delivery and depth of impact.

The programme centred on three core components:

• Hudson Model Integration: Used as a strategic framework to guide safety culture transformation, with the goal of shifting from Reactive to Generative maturity.

• Human Factors & Values-Led Coaching: Empowering leaders and teams to explore behavioural drivers of safety, decision-making under pressure, and team dynamics.

• Cross-Level Leadership Development: Coaching and workshops targeted at supervisors, asset managers, and OIMs to embed values-led leadership and drive cultural change from within.

🔄 Delivery Approach

• Onsite & Offshore Engagements: Coaches worked directly with crews and leaders on rigs and production platforms to ensure real-world relevance.

• Psychological Safety Focus: Practical coaching and facilitation to help teams build trust, openness, and speak-up cultures in high-risk environments.

• Collaborative Systems Thinking: Coaching addressed interdepartmental friction and helped leaders align on shared operational goals.

📈 Outcomes

• Safety Culture Shift: Multiple offshore assets progressed from Reactive toward Proactive and early Generative stages on the Hudson Model, with leadership actively owning cultural growth.

• Psychological Safety Gains: Team members reported greater confidence to challenge unsafe practices, raise concerns, and learn from incidents without fear of blame.

• Stronger Collaboration: Improved communication and coordination between operations, maintenance, and HSE teams led to faster problem resolution and fewer breakdowns.

• Leadership Capability: Leaders at all levels demonstrated improved emotional intelligence, coaching capability, and behavioural consistency.

✅ Key Impact Areas

• Clear movement toward a Generative Safety Culture, guided by the Hudson Model

• Increased psychological safety and engagement across offshore teams

• Improved interdepartmental trust and performance

• Stronger leadership capability, reinforced through values and behavioural alignment

• Successful collaboration between coaching organisations and frontline operations