Thobile Ngcobo

A day in the life of a SHE Administrator

Who am I?
I joined Babcock on 8 January 2015 as the tea lady on the Kusile Power Station project.  Through Babcock’s skills development programme, I was put forward to fill a vacancy in the SHE Department based on qualifications I achieved prior to joining Babcock. I was appointed accordingly and currently I hold the position of Safety, Health and Environmental (SHE) Administrator in the SHE Department at the site office at Kusile.

My favourite part of the job
My favourite part of the job is compiling the weekly health and safety report where the incident-free man-hours are calculated.  It is very exciting to see how many hours Babcock has worked without any lost time incidents.  To me this means that I am working for a company that cares about its employees. It shows the commitment and hard work Babcock employees put in and I am proud to be part of the team, creating a safe working environment. I do everything in my ability at work to increase my knowledge in the field of safety management and would like to further enhance my knowledge to be in line for a promotion.

Most challenging thing I have ever done
My biggest challenge was when Babcock carried out their Legal Compliance Audit, conducted by Advocate Nick Botha.  Fortunately in the short time I had held the position I had been exposed to the processes and filing system of all the SHE documentation and could present the correct document on request of the auditor.  This was the first time I was exposed to such intense activity. I am actually looking forward to the next audit to further prove my capability and understanding of the SHE Management System.

My typical day
My morning starts by preparing Toolbox Talks for daily discussion sessions. I book the SHE committee and SLT meeting and invite all attendees.   I am responsible for writing up the minutes of the meetings and publishing it to the Babcock Document Library.  I compile weekly and monthly SHE management reports in conjunction with the senior SHE Risk Practitioner.  I also capture all the incidents and near misses on a database and forward it for the Site Manager's attention.  My journey with Babcock has been inspiring.