Water, Sewage & Effluent January February 2019 | Page 27

a corporate where I found my personal vision in conflict
with theirs. Their focus was making money, while mine
was environmental issues — I couldn’t gel with this clash
in values. That is why what I look for in an employee, is
someone who shares the same value system as me
and aligns themselves with the company’s vision. Also,
someone who’s willing to go the extra mile; someone who’s
a brand ambassador.
WSE: Green Output Solutions has a Level 1 B-BBEE
status and is 80% women-owned. Tell me more about the
motivation behind that.
AM: Women are not represented enough. Not just in
the environmental space, but everywhere. I wanted to
empower women in our company. We feel that women are
often not given opportunity, but when they are, they often
thrive. Plus, I believe in girl power!
WSE: What kind of culture exists in your business;
how did you establish it and how do you continue to
cultivate it?
AM: I think that, as a woman, my compassion allows me
to understand that before you are an employee, you are
a human being. Yes, I want results, and I want work to
proceed, and my employees know that it’s not acceptable
to just sit back and be average. But I do appreciate that an
employee is also a mother, a daughter, a sister. They have
a life beyond the office doors and I believe in an open-
door policy.
Our company culture is nurtured in that morning cup of
coffee; that the first cup of coffee when you get to work is
not to be spent sipping behind a closed door upstairs. That
time should be spent downstairs, among your employees
— the human beings behind their work titles. And those
few valuable moments should be spent chatting about their
evenings or weekends or families. I think we are more of a
family before we can be a business.
So, yes, I’d say it’s a culture built around mutual respect,
integrity, and family orientation.
innovations
WSE: Green Output Solutions services Gauteng,
Mpumalanga, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, and the North West
Province, as well as neighbouring countries that include
Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, and Swaziland. As policy
and legislation differ from country to country, your services
are tailor-made, sustainable, and cost-effective, depending
on each client’s requirements. Can you give me an example
of what a client’s requirements may be, and how your team
would go about tailor-making a solution to fit their needs?
www.waterafrica.co.za
Water Sewage & Effluent January/February 2019
27
AM: One example is a mining house that had been spending
a lot of money on the disposal of sewage sludge. The client
had been transporting the waste, at quite a cost, to a
secondary waste-disposal location — which was a waste
of both time and money. He hadn’t realised that what he
considered waste, could actually be reused and blended
on site, for various purposes.
Another example is a client who was generating boiler
ash as a waste product. We consulted with him, and found
another business in the area who manufactured bricks.
The result was an ‘industry symbiosis’ whereby one man’s
waste became another man’s raw material. And it was a
Water Sewage & Effluent January/February 2019
27