A Critical Analysis of Compliance and Safety Standards in the Petroleum Plant: Case Study Petroleum Depot

Safety is paramount in every organization and company because it ensures that employees are taken care of to minimize accidents. This study aimed at analyzing compliance and safety standards in the petroleum industry, the study targeted Petroleum deport. The study was informed by the following specific objectives: to investigate the common psychosocial risks experienced in a petroleum depot, to determine the level of awareness and compliance to the safety standard, to investigate challenges faced in ensuring safety standards for employees and, to determine factors associated with compliance to safety practices. The study adopted a descriptive case study research design and targeted workers as well as staff from management. The sample size was 50 and data were collected randomly and purposively. The study has revealed a number of psychological risks experienced in working places and among the most common ones are: risks associated with workload, work pace, work schedule, time constraint, job demand, role ambiguity and job insecurity among others. It was also revealed that the compliance level from management was found to be high while from workers it was moderate to high and this proves that the company has placed safety as a priority. Concerning factors influencing compliance to safety measures, a number factors were highlighted and among them are employee’s education level, management commitment ensuring safety of workers, nature of the Job influences the compliance level, work experience, employee motivation, availability of safety rules, communication and feedback, safety training and employee involvement in promoting a safe and conducive environment. Finally, it was discovered that the challenges such as balancing employee safety and profitability, ignoring of safety rules by some workers and inadequate training were noticed. Others were insufficient safety supervision as well as unsafe work practices and lack of employee engagement. In line with findings, it was recommended that management must emphasize on providing intensive training to new employees concerning safety and should also monitor the implementation of safety guidelines by every worker as a way of avoiding unnecessary accidents.