Optimizing Safety at a Phillips 66 Refinery with Safety DNA

Phillips 66 is a global energy company which produces various petrochemicals and natural gas liquids. The Phillips 66 Bayway Refinery located in Linden, New Jersey, has been in operation for over a century. It has a workforce of over 800 employees and processes mainly light crude oil to manufacture various transportation fuels, petrochemical feedstocks, and related products.

The Challenge

While Phillips 66 strongly values and invests in employee safety, Bayway site leadership wished to further improve employee engagement and ownership of safety. Due to the complexity of operations at the refinery, there was a desire to go beyond traditional training methods in order to make safety more personal and tailored to each individual, while improving retention of critical safety procedural knowledge. Because the Bayway site was already using PSI’s pre-employment assessments as part of the hiring process, interest in PSI’s unique safety-based development programs naturally followed.

These programs would allow them to provide employees and leaders at the site with valuable self-awareness about their personal safety tendencies and leader styles. Another important benefit was access to a cutting-edge adaptive learning system that could drastically improve employee retention of safety training and procedural knowledge, helping to improve safety behavior in a more personal and sustainable manner.

The Solution

The solution began with a custom version of the SafetyDNA Program for over 800 hourly employees. This consisted of the SafetyDNA online assessment, a custom onsite workshop, and small groups coaching sessions coupled with personal action plans which were based on employees’ assessment results. Over 150 leaders then participated in the SafetyDNA for Leaders Program the following year. This process was similar but also measured and trained them on safety leader styles and competencies. As a final step, a cutting-edge adaptive learning platform provided by Trivie, a PSI partner, was implemented across the site. This innovative tool uses gamification, microlearning, and the latest brain science in the form of short, fun quizzes to continuously reinforce what employees learn in training. Adapting to each employee’s unique learning path, Trivie reduces what they forget over time, while increasing safety engagement across the refinery.