John Bolt, Senior Vice President of HSE and Security, S&B Engineers and Constructors, Houston, Texas (U.S.)
For years, the industrial sector has defined safety by the absence of incidents such as injuries, recordables or near misses. However, this definition no longer reflects the realities of high-risk operations. According to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, while total recordable incident rates across industries have steadily declined over the past decade, serious injuries and fatalities have remained flat or, in some sectors, have increased. The gap reveals a deeper issue in how companies think about and measure safety. So, how can forward-thinking companies approach safety in a different way?
What is HOP? Human and organizational performance (HOP) represents a shift from compliance-based safety programs to systems that support reliability and resilience. Rather than focusing solely on eliminating errors, HOP encourages leaders to understand how people interact with work environments and to design systems that can tolerate inevitable variability.
HOP is comprised of five core principles:
Error is normal
Blame fixes nothing
Context drives behavior
Learning is vital
Response matters.
These core principles come from decades of research and field application and have been shaped by experts like Dr. Todd Conklin and Rob Fisher. The goal is to improve how teams recognize and thoughtfully engage with risk, adapt to unexpected conditions and recover without harm.
Organizations that adopt HOP often start with a change in leadership mindset. Instead of managing outcomes, these organizations begin to manage the conditions that shape performance. This includes building tools, procedures and communication channels that support safe, stable and reliable work, even when something goes wrong.
Culture change begins in the field. Real change starts at the job site. The most successful efforts begin with informal conversations between supervisors, safety professionals and craft workers. These exchanges focus on real work and help build trust.
In one case, a crew preparing for hot work raised concerns about nearby process equipment. A team member recognized the operator’s uncertainty when they said, “I think you’re okay. You don’t need a hot work permit here,” and proactively involved a supervisor to ensure the correct decision was made. The team examined the conditions, confirmed the potential for hydrocarbons and adjusted the plan to include atmospheric monitoring. That decision reinforced the value of speaking up to ensure safety.
Communication tools play a key role in this approach. In one program, workers used a QR code to submit feedback or report hazards directly from their phones or tablets. These reports reached decision-makers within minutes—that speed matters. When workers see leaders act on their input, participation grows and the culture shifts toward openness and shared responsibility.
When fully integrated, HOP supports and strengthens existing safety programs, helping organizations respond to how work happens rather than how it appears on paper.
Measuring what matters. Counting injuries alone does not indicate whether a safety system works. It is also important to measure progress. This helps leaders understand what happened and what could have happened. For instance, after applying HOP principles, one organization saw a 15% drop in both the severity of incidents and the potential severity of those with serious injury or fatality risks. This type of improvement reflects more than luck. It shows that systems are starting to catch problems earlier, respond better and reduce the chance of catastrophic failure.
Tracking continuous improvement with learning teams remains essential in the field. After any event, assemble the people involved and others skilled in the task to explain how they do the work, process challenges and then invite them to create corrective actions. Productivity doubled at one job site after a learning team of pipefitters recommended a novel method to safely transport material and equipment in the work area that would prevent procedure deviations.
A new role for safety. This approach redefines how safety supports operational success. It focuses less on error avoidance and more on building the capacity to recover and adapt. It encourages reflection and treats safety as an ongoing effort to improve.
Like any model, HOP has limitations. Critics say it may overlook individual accountability or emotional responses when taken too far into system analysis. However, when applied thoughtfully, HOP provides a more comprehensive understanding of how to keep people safe. It helps companies move past the safety plateau by creating conditions where people can do their best work and return home safely every day, all while acknowledging that safety involves both system design and individual choices. HP
John Bolt is the Senior Vice President of HSE and Security at S&B, a leading engineering, procurement and construction firm. He joined S&B after a 26-yr career as an officer and F/A-18 pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps. Since 2017, Bolt has led the company’s adoption of HOP.