Safety in the Presence of Barriers: Building resilience against Major Accident Hazards
2-day Workshop
In high-risk industries, the difference between safe operations and a catastrophic event often comes down to awareness, decision making, and the strength of the barriers in place. Too many organisations struggle with hazard blindness, gaps in barrier management, and a tendency to focus on personal safety at the expense of process safety. These challenges can leave leaders, supervisors, and frontline teams exposed to the very risks they are meant to prevent.
FidesOak®’s Safety in the Presence of Barriers - Building resilience against Major Accident Hazards is designed to meet these challenges head on. Built on practical activities and scenario based learning, this two-day experience equips participants not only to understand the nature of major accident hazards but also to take ownership of the behaviours, systems, and decisions that keep them under control.
Why this workshop matters
Many organisations are dealing with recurring challenges:
- Hazards that remain unseen or unrecognised. People are confident at spotting everyday issues such as PPE breaches or slips, trips and falls but often miss the hidden threats of process safety.
- Weaknesses in barriers that are assumed to be strong until tested by an incident.
- Cultural drift, where unsafe practices gradually become accepted as “how things are done.”
- Limited confidence in risk assessment tools that are reduced to paperwork exercises rather than being applied as living management systems.
These are the issues that undermine resilience and increase the likelihood of a major incident. This workshop is designed to confront and overcome them.
What participants will experience
Day 1
On Day 1, delegates move from theory to applied practice. Using scenarios, and incident investigations they identify hazards in operational settings. Using the Lions and Tigers metaphor, they explore the critical difference between personal safety and process safety. Tragic, historical events are studied using the Swiss Cheese Model, helping participants see how small failings across people, plant, and process can combine into disaster. They then build barrier models themselves, actively exploring how decisions and behaviours either strengthen or weaken safety.
Day 2
On Day 2, the focus turns to legal and moral responsibility, operational discipline, and leadership behaviours. Delegates test their understanding of the law in practice, asking what “reasonable foreseeability” really means when barriers are absent or ineffective. They conduct Operational Risk Assessments on live scenarios, learning how to manage degraded conditions without compromising safety. The day also develops core leadership habits such as managing by walking around, questioning, and listening, practical tools for surfacing weak signals before they escalate into failures.
The outcomes for your organisation
By the end of these two days, participants will:
- Recognise the hidden nature of process hazards and how to identify them.
- Build and critique barrier models that expose weaknesses in systems, behaviours, and decisions.
- Use Safety Cases / COMAH Reports and risk assessments as live management tools rather than compliance paperwork.
- Understand their legal duties while also embracing a higher standard of moral responsibility.
- Strengthen resilience through better listening, questioning, and operational discipline.
Most importantly, they return to the workplace able to see what others might miss, challenge unsafe norms, and actively protect the barriers that prevent catastrophic events.
At FidesOak®, we believe safety is not just the absence of incidents but the presence of robust barriers, informed people, and resilient systems. This workshop brings that philosophy to life. It gives your teams the knowledge, confidence, and practical skills to move from “safe enough” to genuinely safe.
Interested in bringing this Workshop to your Organisation?
Contact us today to discuss delivery options and receive a tailored price for your team.
The Culture-Performance Connection
How your people lead, collaborate and approach each day is led by your organisation's culture and affects the work you do and how your teams perform.
FidesOak® can help you understand this connection clearly, with behavioural insight and practical tools to help protect and grow what works, while delivering lasting, sustainable change.
