At Chevron, the HSE department is less of a safety net and more of a loosely tied hammock made of red tape and bad decisions. If common sense were PPE, they'd be working barefoot on a rig made of matches. Their idea of a safety meeting is a coffee break where they discuss near-misses like ghost stories, fun to hear, but no one learns a damn thing. Policies are either outdated, ignored, or written in a language only ancient bureaucrats understand. Honestly, the only thing they excel at is creating PowerPoints that could lull a fire into extinguishing itself.
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It seems that the HES team started losing focus when the priority shifted from operational excellence to rebranding and image management. The move to rebrand as HSE felt more about appearances than actual substance.
There’s been a growing emphasis on optics, ensuring the "right" demographic mix, hosting expensive events, reorganizing structures, and promoting visibility campaigns. While inclusion and representation are important, it feels like we're prioritizing symbolic gestures over core performance and results.
My concern is that we're drifting from the fundamentals: technical competence, accountability, and delivering on our mission. Leadership decisions should be based on experience, capability, and proven value, not on checking boxes.
If we want to rebuild credibility, I suggest we shift focus back to execution. Less rebranding, more real work. Our reputation should come from results, not marketing.
Just look at the HSE leadership team and many of those 26 and above. Most don’t know how to interact with the people who actually get the work done across multiple functions.
@OP get out of my head! I’m in HSE and can agree with this. HSE leadership is so out of touch with what is going on in the field. Those in positions of power have based their careers on climbing the ladder rather than keeping people safe or learning the skills that enable them to do so. The response to incidents is half-baked RCA’s where there is obvious pressure to not make waves, stand downs that really mean nothing, and a new poster that everyone can ignore.
For those of us left on the lower end, the bridging steps to move up are now in India. It is a joke. In about 2 years when nothing has changed they will blame everyone but themselves (again).
Is this even remotely a layoff topic?
The core issue is that there's no longer any real depth of knowledge within the HSE department. The VP had no prior experience in HSE before stepping into the role, and holding a CSP certification seems to have lost its significance. Many of the personnel supporting field operations have never actually worked in the field themselves.
It raises a serious question: how can we claim to have a qualified HSE department when those providing guidance and making decisions lack the firsthand experience necessary to understand the realities of the job?
It's akin to putting a grocery store bagger in charge of performing brain surgery, it simply doesn’t make sense.
It is not the personnel at fault here but the leadership that put them in these roles.
I have to disagree with this post. Everyone loves to dump on HSE.
@aq aren’t you agreeing with the post then?
I have to respectfully disagree. In the part of the organization where I work, safety does not receive adequate support from management. While there is often strong messaging around the importance of safety, in practice, serious safety violations are frequently overlooked. These are not minor issues such as PPE compliance, but significant concerns involving gas testing, confined space entry, and hot work. Despite being raised, these issues are often ignored, which undermines the overall safety culture
I dunno, were probably just fast following Boeing