Safety and health is a core business outcome for Wade Walker. This leading electrical, control and instrumentation contracting company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Murray & Roberts and its management unanimously subscribes to the value of care that safety and health should be inherent in every company activity. “Wade Walker managers are the custodians of safety and we underpin our safety philosophy with visible felt leadership,” Colin Caister, HSE and HR manager at Wade Walker, says. “We strive to visibly demonstrate our commitment to safety and are determined to entrench a safety conscious culture 24/7 throughout the organisation. The success of this dedication to safety is evident in the fact that our company has not experienced a single lost time injury (LTI) since November 2011 against more than 2 000 000 manhours worked.”

In terms of safety records on individual projects, the company has recorded the project LTI-free (17 months) at Exxaro’s Grootegeluk Medupi Expansion Project (GMEP) in Limpopo. The bulk of the work on this project involves cable racking and cabling with an emphasis on lighting. During this project, Wade Walker won the ‘Exxaro Top Contractor on Site’ floating trophy on two occasions, an award that recognises top performance in safety and environmental activities, based on monthly Exxaro performance audits.

The company has also been LTI-free on the Akyem project in Ghana for a period of nine months and in joint venture with Actom recorded zero LTI’s at Medupi for the past 18 months, on a contract which has earned 275 000 man hours. On its contract at Jwaneng in Botswana, Wade Walker completed 26 months on site without any LTIs. This approximately 840 000 man hour contract recently completed, entailed the supply, erection and termination of cabling, racking systems, lighting and small power as well as instrumentation installation, calibration and cold commissioning within both green and brown fields environments.

Caister believes the key to success in the safety arena goes far beyond meeting the country’s stringent health and safety legislation and includes caring holistically for the wellbeing of each individual. This involves ensuring employees are not expected to exceed a certain number of successive working hours and is closely connected to monitoring proper nutrition and providing stress management.

“A safety-conscious company is one that cares for its employees, recognising that they are the only assets which can never be replaced,” he comments. “We are absolutely convinced that the work we do, even in the hazardous conditions in which our employees frequently work, can be done safely. And we believe we’ve found a sustainable balance between working safely and productively. This means that our employees return home safely from work every day and arrive back at work safely the next day.”

Wade Walker adopts a zero tolerance approach to unsafe work practices and expects all employees to monitor and, if necessary, adjust their behaviour to uphold safety at all times. The company adheres to Murray & Robert‘s Visible Felt Leadership (VFL) principles and group safety philosophy, STOP.THINK.ACT.24/7. This approach emphasises the importance of taking action to correct unsafe conditions and behaviour, as well as recognising positive behaviour, while “24/7” highlights the need to be safety-aware at all times, both at work and after hours. “While we coach and educate our people and always try to lead by example, we do expect them to meet and adhere to our safety work ethic,” Caister concludes.