Assessing Educational Needs of Workers on Effective Health, Safety, Environment and Quality (HSEQ) Management System in Ghana's Oil Retail Industry

Abstract

The study examined the knowledge of workers in ten Ghanaian indigenous and multinational oil marketing companies and assessed educational needs of workers to understand how the implementation of the Health, Safety, Environment and Quality (HSEQ) Management System would help in promoting health, safety, environment and quality culture in Ghana’s oil retail industry. A semi-structured interview for management staff, managers, dealers as well as forecourt attendants of retail sites was used. The study revealed that, multinational oil marketing companies implemented HSEQ management systems in their quest to strengthen the safety culture of their companies whereas the indigenous oil companies saw implementation of such HSEQ management system as an additional overhead cost. Moreover, their approaches to achieve safety culture were deficient and failed to embrace holistic approach relying on interventions that lacked effective communication between major partners and stakeholders. The need for companies to formally communicate a procedure for the management of workers compensation claims to all employees prior to engagement and provide HSEQ training programme for supervisory personnel, educating subcontractors about HSEQ policies and procedures was expressed. Educational needs were also expressed for skills to investigate HSEQ incidents and ability to write reports and develop written action plans for prevention of similar incidents in future.