The Permit-to-Work (PTW) system is an essential health and safety process designed to control hazardous work in high-risk industries such as oil and gas. Its primary purpose is to prevent severe incidents that could lead to work-related injuries or fatalities. Some of the tasks that skilled workers cannot perform without a PTW are tasks related to hot work, confined space entry, excavation near pipelines, electrical isolations radiography, and work near hazardous materials.
When HR leaders manage the PTW process manually, it can take days of unproductive work while waiting for approval.
This may sound familiar: It’s a busy morning on an offshore drilling platform operated by an oil and gas company. During the shift meeting, the maintenance team identifies the need to perform a hot work task for welding a section inside a confined area of the rig pump room.
Because this type of work involves fire hazards and limited ventilation, a hot work permit in a confined space is required before anyone can begin.
John, the PTW Coordinator starts chasing signatures via radio, emailing scanned forms and collecting supporting documents from multiple supervisors because legacy processes feel “familiar” and there’s pressure to keep operations moving without waiting for PTW system updates.
Each step introduces delays, errors, and compliance risks. The consequences are:
- Hours lost just to get approvals, delaying critical maintenance.
- Added weeks to the process due to documentation and audits.
- Increased exposure to safety incidents because real-time visibility is impossible.
- Burdened PTW Coordinators managing multiple permits without centralized oversight.
- Grievances, compliance gaps and potential legal exposure if an incident occurs.
Costs of Manual PTW in the Oil & Gas industry
One of the main challenges HR leaders face when manually managing health and safety and PTW processes is preventing work-related injuries and fatalities.
According to Energy Safety Canada, there were 321 fatalities related to the Canadian oil and gas industry from 2002 to 2023. The biggest problems are transportation accidents, representing 41% of these deaths; 14% were caused by harmful substances and 9% due to contact with objects and equipment.
The trend is similar in the United States, where data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows 267 fatalities in this industry from 2019 to 2023. In addition, OSHA reports indicate 2,101 cases of severe injuries, including amputations and hospitalizations, among oil and gas extraction workers.
The International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) reports show that explosions, fire or burns were the main cause for 41% of fatalities in the oil and gas industry during 2024, highlighting not only the high risk of jobs in this industry, but also the importance of PTW to minimize risks.
While work-related injuries and fatalities are dramatic results that companies deal with and negatively impact cost controls, other outcomes challenge the oil and gas industry when manually managing health and safety and PTW processes:
- Operational shutdowns
- Expensive fines per violation
- OSHA enforcement actions
- Criminal prosecution
- Suspension and revoke of permits
- Reputational damage and contract terminations
Despite these issues, most PTW processes remain fragmented, bringing hidden costs that HR leaders and PTW Coordinators deal with, such as:
- Failing regulatory audits: Paper logs that get lost or have missed dates in the process can result in failed audits.
- In Canada
- Federal oil and gas operations regulations and provincial codes, such as Alberta Operational Health & Safety and BC’s Drilling and Production Regulation, mandate documented, verifiable controls for all high-risk work, which increase compliance risks and burden to the team when manually managing these processes.
- In Newfoundland, offshore rigs follow Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NOPB) rules requiring digital audit trails for all high-risk work.
- In the United States
- Companies need to comply with OSHA, which requires documented hazard assessments, gas monitoring and trained workers for confined space hot work.
- In Saudi Arabia
- Saudi Aramco’s Safety Manual requires a fully documented PTW with pre-job safety reviews, gas testing and dual approvals.
- The Ministry of Energy mandates traceable PTW records for all hydrocarbon operations.
- PTW Delays: When forms are manual, approvals can delay high-risk work by at least four to eight hours per permit, costing companies at least $500K per day.
- Rework: Incomplete handovers between shifts often lead to confusion or duplicate hazards, which end up in rework, increasing costs and directly impacting productivity.
Beyond these hidden costs, companies in the oil and gas industry across the world face similar pain points: Incompatibility of systems creating tracking blind spots. Lack of connectivity complicating real-time validation of data. Systems that fail to meet digital compliance standards and lack multilingual support creating cultural and communication barriers. The consequences are missing indicators that could prevent work-related injuries and fatalities.
Common Leading and Lagging Compliances Companies Miss
While PTW are essential to avoid work-related injuries, there are leading compliances that are early warnings before an incident happens. Companies generally miss these leading compliances resulting in work-related injuries and fatalities. Some of these are, but not limited to:
- Repeated violations of PTW protocols, such as unauthorized work or failure to follow procedures, result in applied disciplines or grievances.
- Negative safety inspection results that could create compliance violations and incidents.
- Frequent “incomplete” or repeated delays in the PTW process within the same work zone.
- Identified workplace risks and hazards that remain unaddressed.
- Workers attempt to do high-risk tasks with expired certifications.
- Number of complaints revealing poor management practices.
- Shift handovers without documented briefings.
When PTW Coordinators and HR managers are managing these processes without an integrated system, they lack the data needed to measure and track leading compliances indicators, allowing issues not only to occur but to repeat.
After workplace incidents occur, HR leaders are challenged to deal with the lagging compliances, which is the aftermath of poor health and safety management. These lagging compliances can be, but are not limited to:
- Regulatory violations triggering complaints and more inspections.
- Dealing with disability claims after work-related injuries.
- Applied disciplines for not following the PTW protocols.
- Union arbitration cases and grievances.
- Identification of new risks and hazards.
The reality is that HR Managers, Safety Officers and PTW Coordinators cannot collect, track and analyze all this data when manually dealing with workplace safety or PTW processing. To avoid lagging compliances and early detect the leading compliances, companies need a unified health and safety system that connects employee relations and labor relations compliances.
From Paperwork PTW to Health and Safety System
Remember John, the PTW Coordinator of our story at the beginning of this article? Months later, the rig uses the Sodales System to streamline the PTW process.
The permit requester, John, logs into the Sodales platform and fills out the digital form. He specifies the task details, identifies the confined space, and attaches his hot work and confined space certifications. The system checks the validity of his credentials and ensures all safety pre-checks are completed, including gas testing and equipment isolation.
Once submitted, the Safety Officer, Maria, receives an instant notification. She reviews John’s request, confirms the isolation checklist, and verifies that all crew members involved have been properly vetted. With a single digital signature, she approves the permit. The Rig Supervisor adds a final authorization, and the permit is officially active.
John and his team begin the work, monitored by a confined space attendant. The digital system tracks the time automatically since they must complete the task within a 12-hour shift window.
By the end of the shift, the welding work is nearly done but requires additional inspection. John updates the job status in the system as “Incomplete” and provides a reason. The system prompts him to record a handover to the next shift’s certified team.
Before leaving the area, John ensures all equipment is isolated and tools are removed. Maria reviews the final safety checks in the digital log and closes the permit.
The Sodales platform stores all records, from request to approval to completion, in a secure, traceable format. What once took half a day in paperwork now takes less than an hour, improving efficiency, safety, and compliance across the entire rig.
This is now the reality for Sodales’ clients managing PTW processes with a single, interconnected system for health and safety, employee relations and labor relations under one single data model measuring leading and lagging compliances.
Why Sodales
It’s not only about streamlining the PTW process, with Sodales, companies also have access to a complete compliance ecosystem that goes far beyond permit management:
- Proactive hazard control: Built-in workflows ensure the elimination of manual oversight gaps while increasing workplace safety.
- Visibility across all stages of the PTW process, from planning, hazard identification & risk assessment, control measures, permit issuance, pre-job briefing, execution & supervision and closure & evaluation.
- Digital audit trail for regulatory compliance: Every step is logged and traceable, meeting strict requirements and standards from regulatory bodies.
- Accountable role-based workflow with clear roles assigned from the requester, Safety Officer, Supervisor, and attendant with digital signatures and audit trail records.
- Predictive analytics for leading compliances: Real-time data reports that connect all data from incidents, grievances, return-to-work cases, etc., enabling organizations to forecast escalation probabilities and take proactive action.
- Integration with the HR Core systems companies in the oil and industry already use, such as Dayforce, SAP, Workday, Oracle, UKG, etc.
By replacing fragmented, manual workflows with a unified platform, Sodales gives oil and gas companies real-time visibility across every stage of high-risk work, transforming their health, safety, employee relations and labor relations in one interconnected system.
This means that approvals happen in minutes instead of hours, hazards are controlled and compliance data is always audit-ready. Sodales turns compliance from a reactive burden into a proactive driver of safety and operational efficiency.
If you want to streamline PTW processes and improve workplace safety, book a demo today and learn how Sodales can transform your health, safety, employee relations and labor relations compliance.
