Employees' perception on risk and risk management: evidence from Danish offshore wind industry

Production of electricity from offshore wind energy is receiving much priority in several develop and developing countries. Nevertheless, this industry is becoming more expensive and challenging due to various operational and policy related risks factors. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide empirical insight into risks in offshore wind industry as perceived by the workers and managers. The survey has been conducted with the employees who are working in several offshore wind industries in Denmark. It has been revealed that there is a lack of common standard which is resulting in a mismatch between the experiences acquired by the supporting companies and the expectations the clients. It has been perceived that complicated project manuals (because of special and increased requirements from the clients) sometimes create more risk exposures. The employees identified that demand from training is going higher to higher as the clients are often putting much stricter (additional/unnecessary) standards. Gaps in feedback process in incident reporting and risk communication are also considered as vital risk factors. Furthermore, they are also worried about the future public policy towards the offshore wind energy as it is yet unclear what is happening after 2020. Urgent need for common standards (in operational and safety management) is demanding to minimize the business risk. Encouragements of workers’ direct involvement and influence in safety management and decision making process are essential. Furthermore, effective risk communication mechanism is also important to reduce the operational and safety risks. The interviewees also perceived that it is needed to develop more synergies between theory and practice–simulation modelings to tackle the risks.