SGB-Cape: 100 not out

With the 14 Noscars that SGB-Cape won at the 2020-2021 awards, the company has now received a total of 104 from Nosa over the years.

“Striving for excellence in health and safety is the biggest motivation behind our success,” says Thabo Modumaela, SGB-Cape’s national HSE manager. “Our MD, Ben Garrad, and the divisional director, Kobus Visagie, remind us that we should always be en route to safety excellence, and should strive to attain the interdependent stage as per the Bradley Curve.”

The Bradley Curve was created by DuPont in 1995 in an effort to benchmark notions of culture and performance in relation to safety. It identifies four stages of safety-culture maturity: Reactive, Dependant, Independent and Interdependent. With the interdependent stage teams feel a sense of ownership and responsibility for safety culture. They believe zero injuries is an attainable goal.

“We can only journey towards attaining the interdependent stage by investing in health, safety and environment (HSE) programmes,” Modumaela explains. “Employees are empowered and made confident in executing every aspect of their task by providing adequate training and competent and committed supervision. Senior managers are held accountable for the HSE performance of their respective branches and sites.

“We are humbled by and grateful for these accolades as we are mindful of the hard work, commitment and dedication of all our employees towards achieving the zero-harm goal.”

Modumaela believes that other companies can follow in SGB-Cape’s footsteps. His advice: “Be consistent, genuine and deliberate in your endeavour to achieve maximum health and safety performance. Show it in your actions, make the working environment feel and be seen as safe – and this will rub off on your employees as a result.”

But the company’s journey to these accolades wasn’t without its challenges, especially during the times we live in. “Covid-19 has brought about new challenges, which introduced uncertainty. SGB-Cape had to navigate its way through the pandemic,” Modumaela points out.

“We faced the pandemic at its onset, in 2020, as we were classified as an essential services provider and continued to serve major clients. We never had an opportunity to pause and think about Covid-19 and its many challenges. We hit the ground running by developing reassuring protocols, giving a sense of ‘I’ve got this’ to all of our more than 4 500 employees.”

The following branches and sites each received a Noscar:

• SGB-Cape Cape Town
• SGB-Cape Durban
• SGB-Cape Gauteng
• SGB-Cape Grootvlei Power Station
• SGB-Cape Matla Power Station
• SGB-Cape Power Region, Kelvin Power Station
• SGB-Cape Kendal Logistics
• SGB-Cape Kriel Power Station
• SGB-Cape Richards Bay
• SGB-Cape Sappi Saiccor
• SGB-Cape Vaal, Vanderbijlpark
• SGB-Cape Industrial Services, Walvis Bay
• SGB-Cape-Tedoc Kusile Power Station
• Octorex Insulation Kusile Power Station

Two of the branches were also honoured by the Federated Employers Mutual Assurance Company’s Health and Safety Awards for Excellence. Power Region received the Titanium Award (only awarded to one company amongst 6 000) and took first place in the Large Employer category. Sasol Secunda emerged as a winner in the Small Employer category, receiving third place in the Inland Region. “We have also achieved the lowest Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate, of 0,04, by the industry standard,” says Modumaela.