What a shift handover covers

  • Plant status, and equipment that is unavailable or out of service.
  • Work in progress, including open permits and isolations.
  • Overrides, inhibits and alarms that are active.
  • Abnormal conditions, incidents and deviations during the shift.
  • Instructions for the next shift.
  • Open actions, and who owns them.

Our shift handover checklist sets these out in the order a handover happens.

How HSE describes good handover

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) describes effective handover in three parts: a period of preparation by the outgoing shift, the handover itself, where both shifts exchange information, and cross-checking by the incoming shift as they take responsibility.

HSE says handover should be face to face and two-way, use both spoken and written communication, and be given as much time as it needs. Its guidance also asks sites to identify higher-risk handovers, such as when maintenance or permit work runs over the shift change or safety systems have been overridden.

The stakes are real. The Cullen Report found that failure of information transmission at shift handover was one of the many factors behind the Piper Alpha disaster.

Who is involved

The outgoing and incoming operators and supervisors, in the control room and in the field. One shift change can involve several handovers: control room to control room, field operator to field operator and supervisor to supervisor. Day staff and maintenance often need the same information later.

Paper and digital handover

On paper, handover is a sheet, a whiteboard and a conversation. The sheet is often written at the end of a long shift, from memory, and items drop off between one sheet and the next.

In a digital system the handover is built from the operations logbook entries recorded during the shift. Open items carry forward, each handover is signed off, and there is a record of who handed over and who accepted. The conversation still matters: software gives both shifts the same facts to talk through.

Related terms

Shift turnover, shift handoff
North American terms for the same thing.
Shift handover log, turnover log
The written record of the handover. On most sites it comes from, or sits in, the operations logbook. See What is an operations logbook?.
Shift handover checklist
A list of what each handover must cover, used to make it consistent.
Shift report
A summary of the shift for people outside it, such as managers, rather than for the incoming crew.

Questions

Is shift turnover the same as shift handover?

Yes. Shift turnover and shift handoff are other names for it, and turnover is more common in North America.

How long should a shift handover take?

There is no single figure. HSE says handover should be given as much time and resource as it needs, and higher-risk handovers need more. Build that time into the shift pattern rather than leaving it to goodwill.

Can software replace the face-to-face handover?

No. HSE says handover should be face to face and two-way, backed by a written record. Software makes the written part complete and consistent, so the conversation can focus on what matters.

Opralog builds each handover from what your teams record during the shift. See shift handover software, or download the free shift handover checklist.

Sources