Expert Blog
Employee Mental Health: Why Online Support Beats In-House Psychologists
Employee emotional burnout and stress directly affect business productivity, but hiring an in-house psychologist is limited by confidentiality issues and a lack of specialist options. Using the experience of OTEKO company as an example, the article explains the benefits of using a corporate online psychological support service that guarantees anonymity, access to experts, and convenient consultations for employees. Such a model allows paying only for services actually rendered and makes mental health care more cost-effective without losing support quality.
Not By Oil Alone
Although public attention to environmental accidents is focused mainly on the oil and gas sector, virtually any human economic activity carries potential danger. This article presents the author's ranking of the largest non-oil-related disasters of the past century — from chemical spills and radiation accidents to dam failures and large-scale fires. The publication reminds us that preventing incidents is much more important and cheaper than eliminating their consequences, which often prove to be virtually irreversible.
From "Punisher" to Partner: How We Learned to Listen to Production Personnel at Kola MMC
The article describes the experience of occupational health and safety specialists at Kola MMC, who changed their role from controlling overseers to partnership cooperation with technological personnel. The author tells how the transition from formal inspections to open dialogue and support helps identify hidden production risks and develop a safety culture. The material shows why employee trust and their feedback become a key resource for the company.
Management Participation in Emergency Drills: The Key to Enterprise Safety and Resilience
Regular emergency drills at facilities often become a mere formality due to scenarios detached from reality and a lack of post-drill error analysis. The article examines key factors that reduce the effectiveness of the training process and explains how the personal involvement of managers in the preparation and analysis of drills helps identify bottlenecks. Management engagement increases staff accountability and allows for the formation of a comprehensive safety culture to prevent real emergency situations.
Key Safety Rules Save Lives
Most workplace accidents can be avoided by complying with safety rules created to prevent hazards. The article explains the fundamental principles of worker protection — from risk assessment and equipment lockout to the use of PPE and a conscious attitude toward danger. The material shows how compliance with these rules helps eliminate chance occurrences and preserve life and health while performing work.
Construction Site Environmental Specialists: How Professional Competitions Work
The article is dedicated to the experience of organizing a professional skills competition among environmental specialists in construction at the "Stroy-Hero" festival for specialists from PJSC Gazprom facilities. The author describes the execution of the creative, theoretical, and practical stages of the trials, including solution modeling and monitoring. The material outlines the participant evaluation criteria, the system of rewarding winners, and the results of their participation in the International Construction Championship.
Incident Investigation: Not About Blame, But Hunting for Root Causes
The article explains why a punitive "find and punish" approach when investigating an industrial incident is dangerous, and how failures due to the "human factor" hide systemic flaws. The author shows how switching to a "search for causes" helps discover weak links in occupational health and safety and work organization. Using the "5 Whys" method as an example, it examines a way to find the root cause of an accident and eliminate a real threat in production.
Dynamic Risk Assessment: The Key to Safe Work Execution
The article is dedicated to dynamic risk assessment (DRA) — an operational paperless assessment performed before starting and during work to identify and prevent hazard factors. The material examines the algorithm for conducting the assessment based on the traffic light principle, as well as common employee mistakes when analyzing threats. The publication contains recommendations for the effective implementation of DRA at the site for transitioning to conscious safe behavior and protecting workers' lives.
Your Health is Your Strength: How to Stay Fit Even in the Daily Work Hustle
The article examines the problem of physical inactivity and emotional stress among employees, which creates additional expenses for businesses. The author shares the experience of creating a workplace gymnastics project with short exercise routines performed right at the workplace without high costs or special training. The material will show how to overcome organizational and psychological barriers, convince management, and engage colleagues in taking care of their health by personal example.
Safety Culture: What Is It and Why Is It More Than Just Instructions?
The article reveals the concept of safety culture as a shared system of values and behavioral models in a company, where preserving the life and health of workers is the priority. The material examines the key elements of this system, problematic issues, and tools for its implementation, as well as ways of engaging employees. The author explains how the transition from formal instructions to a working system helps reduce injuries and increase productivity.
Creating a Proactive Level of HSE Culture
The article is devoted to a methodology for the quantitative assessment of the level of occupational safety culture in a company using the method of "blind surveying" of employees and classifying system maturity across five levels. The study examines key elements and principles of shaping a safety culture, as well as the procedure for identifying problem areas and directions for system improvement. The practical application of the developed measures allows human errors to be offset by the collective responsibility of personnel and high management responsibility for creating safe working conditions.
Perfect is the Enemy of Good
The article is devoted to the practice of applying the Kaizen concept and rationalization ideas at Russian hazardous production facilities. The author explains why Federal Law No. 116-FZ and invention patents do not grant the right to unauthorizedly alter equipment design contrary to established requirements. The material helps to understand the legal restrictions of lean production and to prevent dangerous errors under the guise of continuous improvement.