Ombuds Need to Take More Credit, And Responsibility As Well; Or How BP has me thinking about the field.
I have spent 15 years championing the value created by Ombuds Programs, and pushing people in the field to lay claim to the actual benefit they create on behalf of the people that avail themselves of the Ombuds and the host institutions. Untold millions upon millions of dollars of value have been preserved and created by Ombuds Programs throughout the U.S. and all over the world. This remains largely unknown to the public at large, the management/leadership communities and the politically powerful. This is of course painfully unfortunate in its own right, but is made worse by recent revelations about performance and behavior of certain Ombuds programs – because now, the field must claim some of its failings as well.
RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI and NOAKI SCHWARTZ of the AP reported in their article, BP’s own probe finds safety issues on Atlantis rig, that the BP Ombuds Program was aware of a broad array of non-compliant behavior at BP. The article states:
The Associated Press has learned that an independent firm hired by BP substantiated complaints in 2009 that found that the giant petroleum company was violating its own policies by not having completed engineering documents on board the Atlantis when it began operating in 2007.
Stanley Sporkin, a former federal judge whose firm served as BP’s ombudsman, said that the allegation “was substantiated, and that’s it.” The firm was hired by BP in 2006 to act as an independent office to receive and investigate employee complaints.
The Atlantis subcontractor who lodged the complaint was Kenneth Abbott. He was laid off in February 2009 and said in a written statement a few months later that he believes it was partly in retaliation, which the company denied.
When reached by the AP, Abbott said, “I had complained about BP’s problem,” but declined to elaborate.
Sporkin, the former judge who heads the Washington, D.C.-based ombudsman office hired by BP(Author’s Note – The ombudsman office is not in any BP Facility), told the AP his office found in August 2009 that BP’s execution plan for the Atlantis called for all documents to be finalized and onboard before production started.
“That did not happen,” Sporkin said.
Last month, Sporkin’s deputy, Billie Pirner Garde, indicated in an e-mail to Abbott that BP had long known there was a document problem aboard the Atlantis.
“It was … of concern to others who raised the concern before you worked there, while you were there and after you left,” she wrote. “Your raising the issue did not result in any change to the schedule of BP addressing the issues.”
More than a year after Abbott first lodged his complaint, it remains unclear whether BP updated the documents.
Sporkin said BP told his office the company was not federally required to have the documents on board the Atlantis and could change its execution plan at any time.
Sporkin said BP recently told his office they had fixed the problem, yet provided no written documentation.
So by way of a short summary -
- BP Hired a retired formal Judge and a team that has been as large as 12 to receive complaints as Ombudsman (More on the program here: http://www.ombudsmanecp.com/bpombudsman_investigations.html).
- Data available to the public suggests they have managed approximately 200 inbound cases per year. (Their 2007 report states this “approximately 200″ and claims that 12 were substantiated.) No data is available for later years, even though BPs sustainability report, which annually mentions the Ombuds Program and names Sporkin each year, provides annual case load numbers for its “Open Talk” program. This data suggests case loads for “Open Talk” ranging between 825 in 2009 to over 1000 in 2006, while citing only “43″ cases for the Sporkin lead Ombudsman Office in its first year.
- BP’s U.S. Office of the Ombudsman, as they call it, is potentially the most expensive Ombuds Program in the world. Especially when considered on a per case basis.
- This office received a complaint regarding non-compliant behavior that could impact safety of deep water oil rigs operating in the gulf of Mexico. The source of this claim is terminated from BP.
- The Office of the Ombudsman:
- Publicly acknowledges the complaint
- Declares the complaint substantiated
- Admits that they (Ombudsman) had knowledge of the issue PRIOR to the compliant
- Admits the issue exists AFTER the complaint, and the termination of the author of the complaint, and
- Accepts BP saying the issue is remedied with out any documentation.
I work to help organization recognize the value in their Programs. I work especially hard to ensure maximum recognition of the “costs” of the Ombuds Program by looking at outcomes from many perspectives.
As I sit now looking at footage from the gulf, horrified, I wonder how the ROI equation for the BP U.S. Office of the Ombudsman would appear with the potential cost of the gulf cleanup in its divisor.
I do this with programs that have a complaint pass through the Ombudsman and become expensive litigation. So I think I would have to (if it can be established that Sporkin and company had information pertinent to the events on Deepwater Horizon, as they have made clear they did for Deepwater Atlantis) add this cost to the program’s divisor.
It must be noted that the BP Office of the Ombudsman does NOT claim to be an IOA compliant program. The Ombudsman is not a member of IOA or USOA to the best of my ability to determine.
That said, if Ombuds, of ALL stripes, want to see the field advance, expand, and contribute to individual, institutional, societal and environmental well being as the model can, they must do more to claim their value and take responsibility, where it actually exists, for the things that they do not prevent, manage, or improve.
Until we can demonstrate effect, impact, and value – even accounting for that which we do not succeed at, we will remain a small, caring, dedicated profession, that is misunderstood, if thought of at all. And as the field continues to allow the word to describe an exceptionally broad range of structural and behavioral uses, we will be burdened with the resultant outcomes of others.
I know I for one am greatly burdened by the thought that the BP U.S. Office of the Ombudsman may have had information with which, had the program been properly structured and actually honored by BP top level leadership, could have changed what we see on our televisions hour after hour, for the last 44 days.
A Lighter Side Bar
My other title for this post was: I wish Andre Marin had been hired at BP.
Can you imagine the recently reappointed Ontario Ombudsman standing for BP Saying….
“the company was not federally required to have the documents on board the Atlantis and could change its execution plan at any time.”
Or
“BP recently told his office they had fixed the problem, yet provided no written documentation.”
Think the situation would be different, and likely BETTER in my desired alternative reality.
