ASSOCIATIONS 11
He joined a consulting company , taking over their construction site visits to work on their site safety files . “ I did my OHS 18001 and started doing ISO systems ( now ISO 45001 ) and at that point I really understood how health and safety worked ,” says Coetzee . And thereafter he started his own company in 2017 .
Mentoring clients Although it may be counter-intuitive , it is essential in this field to educate clients and capacitate them to perform for themselves their own OHS strategies and plans , rather than to always be doing it for them , says Coetzee . “ We ’ ve had to adapt to rather doing mentorship programmes to enable clients to set up their own safety files for a project , that is reading the entire site ’ s specifications and requirements of the principal contractor , for instance , identifying exactly what must go in the contract in terms of the OHS law . Although the law is the same for every site , it has to be tailored in order to be site specific in order to keep their employees safe on site .”
“ Consequently , our business model is that we aim not to retain clients for long . We train them over three to six months , depending on how they want it done , as well as training an identified person within their organisation to be responsible for health and safety when we ’ re done . Thereafter , they can run their own health and safety , which is beneficial because we ’ re passing on knowledge of safety as opposed to just earning an income ,” says Chris Coetzee .
This has not resulted in less work or fewer clients , he says , as word of mouth is the best form of marketing and word soon gets around . “ These clients can now do it themselves , but we find there is still always need for our services due to staff turnover and new people have to be trained . Specific consulting is sometimes required in firefighting or first aid and more .”
The IOPSA connection Signing up a leading plumbing company as its first plumbing client , in which Coetzee drew up their site safety files , was an event that led in 2017 to Coetzee being appointed the official OHS practitioner for IOPSA . “ Because much plumbing is essentially construction – and I come from a construction background – I intuitively understood what they need in terms of health and safety . But I had to understand more about the plumber ’ s role in construction .” He registered as a member of IOPSA , attended Plumbers ’ Evenings and soon began to see health and safety from a plumber ’ s viewpoint .
“ I began developing free templates of the safety file for plumbers on behalf of IOPSA : both for site work in the case of construction plumbers ; and internally for their own company ’ s health and safety file when it comes to maintenance jobs . What assisted in the development of safety procedures tailored to the site risk assessments , was the regular feedback he received from individual plumbers . This also had to be drafted in plain English , without legalese , to assist them ,” says Coetzee .
In the typical plumbing firm , Coetzee says there is usually a safety file and a health and safety officer who carries that responsibility on top of other functions – as most companies could not afford a dedicated resource . This would often be an administrative / accounts person . “ Such people always need assistance when it comes to site-specific files . A lot of this is not standardised and a standardisation health and safety system across the industry is something I would ideally like to achieve over the coming five years . There are of course many different scopes of work in plumbing – from huge high-risk construction projects , to run-of-the-mill replacement of a geyser . Notwithstanding this disparity , the matrix of risk assessment should be standardised ,” says Chris .
“ The challenge here is not necessarily with the plumber , but with the site or project owner who wishes to enforce its own type of health and safety system or documentation on its site . This means the plumber , performing exactly the same job on different sites , finds the application of safety guidelines is completely different . Having the same application on every site would turn health and safety into a ‘ learned trait ’ for plumbers . However , that would be the responsibility of the Department of Labour and Institutes such as SAIOSH .” PA
“ What assisted in the development of safety procedures tailored to the site risk assessments , was the regular feedback he received from individual plumbers . ”
March 2021 Volume 27 I Number 1 www . plumbingafrica . co . za