GAIL (India) Limited: Transforming Safety Culture

GAIL (India) Limited (GAIL), a public-sector undertaking, was India’s largest gas transmission and marketing company. As a leader in India’s gas and energy sector, the organization aimed to set a benchmark for other companies in the industry by implementing the best safety practices for its employees. In late 2013, GAIL’s top management decided to implement the behaviour-based safety (BBS) program across all of the company’s work sites. BBS was a health and safety standard that promoted change by training and enabling employees to observe and correct unsafe behaviour on the spot. BBS’s strength—changing employee behaviour—was also BBS’s challenge. Employees initially supported the initiative; but over time, employee commitment began to wane, and leaders redirected their energy to other pressing work demands. In 2016, general manager of HSE, and his team were finding it increasingly difficult to sustain the BBS initiative and transform the safety culture of the company. With the company’s operations growing and the number of employees increasing, management was grappling with what more could be done to inculcate a culture of safety.

The case is suitable for courses in organizational development and change in graduate, post-graduate, and management development programs. Students can draw on their own workplace experiences to analyze the struggles at GAIL and consider what the company could have done better.<br>This case examines the ongoing apprehensions of employees and leaders during an organizational transformation process. Students have an opportunity to consider what a company can do to sustain a cultural change when enthusiasm and commitment fade. Using the case, students will have the opportunity to undertake the following:<ul><li>Consider how to implement a change initiative at a large, geographically dispersed public-sector organization and identify the associated challenges.</li><li>Examine the challenges of sustaining momentum in a change initiative and propose how such challenges might be overcome.</li><li>Evaluate the nature of cultural transformation through BBS programs by considering radical or evolutionary change initiatives.</li><li>Critically analyze the role of a company’s leadership in terms of sustaining a change initiative.</li></ul>

• Organization Change, Culture, Resistance