Maintaining the situational awareness of control room operators on offshore installations contributes to the timely diagnosis of conditions and making appropriate decisions. This is particularly important when dealing with events and incidents. Recent initiatives aimed at reducing operators' exposure to the hazards of working on offshore installations may have a negative impact upon situational awareness within the control room environment. This paper discusses mitigation of the negative impact through the design and operation of the installation and control system; either by improving the general level of situational awareness or by specifically targeting the areas affected by these initiatives. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.