HR Lessons Flow from Crisis of BP's Crisis

While BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to wreak havoc on the ecosystem, the local economy and the company's brand, HR executives should absorb some lessons from the disaster if they want their companies to avoid a similar fate.

By Michael O'Brien

As you read this, oil continues to gush from a pipeline 5,000 feet below sea level in the Gulf of Mexico, and 13,000 workers are toiling around the clock in an effort to stem the flow and clean up what has already been released into the ocean and onto the beaches along the southern states' coastlines.

But those workers, and especially the immigrant fishermen recently hired by BP to help contain the oil spill, could be putting themselves in harm's way due to improper training and a lack of proper equipment, according to the Los Angeles Times .

BP company spokesperson Max McGahan says "the safety and health of workers is our top priority and we continue to investigate with the government reports of illness from fishing vessels employed in the clean up. Workers with health issues are encouraged to report their conditions without fear or reprisal."

The U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration is now monitoring the reports of worker sickness.

OSHA's job is "to work proactively," says Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels, "so that measures are taken to ensure the safety of clean-up workers. OSHA will monitor training, observe clean-up efforts and provide whatever assistance is needed to BP and its contractors."

To that end, the administration is ensuring that workers are provided -- free of charge -- appropriate personal-protective equipment such as boots, gloves and other items as needed.

But those efforts may not be enough, as workers continue to report sickness claims to the federal agency.

"OSHA is aware that reports of health symptoms experienced by some workers has raised concern among workers and the public about short and long-tern health effects of the oil products and dispersants, and that there have been questions about why OSHA is not at this time recommending the use of respiratory protection," according to the agency.

"Based on monitoring data collected by OSHA and other government agencies such as Environmental Protection Agency, as well as BP, OSHA has found no exposures to toxic chemicals (including oil and dispersants) that would necessitate the use of respirators for cleanup workers," according to OSHA.

The administration says that between 20 and 25 OSHA compliance officers are traveling to all staging areas as well as on boats to ensure that workers are protected from safety and health hazards. In addition, OSHA's Health Response Team is on site to provide technical support for worker-exposure monitoring to OSHA response-site personnel.

OSHA staff has made more than 560 site visits, "both unannounced and coordinated with BP, covering all 17 staging areas, and many of the active worksites on shore and near shore," OSHA says.

Patrick R. Tyson, a partner and head of the OSHA compliance group at Atlanta-based law firm Constangy, Brooks & Smith, says BP "really [hasn't] put the effort they need to in order to ensure that the people they hired are properly protected and trained."

Tyson, who was director of compliance, deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary for OSHA during the 1980s, says HR executives would be wise to see the BP crisis as a learning moment for their own organizations, including the way the BP brand is being negatively affected by the media.

"From an HR perspective, [BP needs] to be most concerned with the image they are projecting," he says. "All you have to do is look at the press right now," he says, alluding to the concern that BP is not "following not only the letter ... the spirit of the law to make sure employees are properly trained."

He advises HR executives to begin thinking about worst-case scenarios before they occur.

"Think through the potential disasters that can occur and create a list of local experts you can get advice from" when such a disaster does strike, he says.

James Strock, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based former assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency and author of a new book, Serve to Lead, agrees.

Every organization "should have a complete crisis-management plan that is compliant with all federal and state laws. That should be done without question," he says, adding that HR needs to take a prominent role.

"A lot of companies undervalue their HR functions and starve them of resources," he says. "They don't hold people [in HR] to the same standards as in other parts of the company. But the stakes are so high now that the HR functions have to be viewed as central, and not merely as support functions."

HR leaders "need to be empowered and bold enough to make clear what liabilities [a company has] in advance," Strock says.

He also says companies should be fully prepared to go it alone when it disaster strikes.

"To the extent the federal government cannot be relied upon for unified command, it becomes essential that company HR functions are fully aware of the applicable requirements and prepared to go into an emergency situation at any time," he says. "That is to say: They must be prepared to act on their own, absent government on-scene guidance."

But while a happy ending to this crisis may be a long way off, Strock looks to find a positive outcome.

"If there is a silver lining to this cloud, it may be that this crisis will cause both the government to get stronger on enforcement of safety issues, and that companies will properly value those functions."