THE ACTIVITIES AFTER THE ACTIVITIES AT HOTAZEL

What it meant to me
The experience built-up obtained through participating in the Hotazel project was more distilled by conducting co-training for Morden SHEQ Risk Management (MSRM) course with Wim Nortier.

The process of conducting an observation through sitting in the first Monday morning during which the course began prepared me for the days ahead; namely for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday respectively.

Amongst other tabs that I presented; I covered Legal liability exposure, Inspections and so forth. With the idea to maintain continuity as much as possible; I sat in to align my method of delivery in harmony with that of Wim Nortier’s.

His was a more practical sense based approach to concepts; which gave them life by making it easier for the candidate to familiarise with their application when candidates get back to the workplace. Remember, the idea behind conducting courses is more than just only informing candidates but most importunately of all is that they understand what they learn in order put concepts learned into practice day-in day out.

The facilitation team
Like I alluded before that Wim Nortier was the principal facilitator for the course, Gomotsegang Lekalakala and I had to co-present together with him in order to sharpen our presentation skills. Since lately business for training piles up; this calls for more trainers to facilitate courses to meet course demand with appropriate trainer supply. By the looks of the inclusion of PDP candidates in IRCA’s core functions; all roads lead to permanent placement with adequate assessments paving a way where each candidate best fits. However, personally I subscribe to the perception that training makes a core requirement since it underlies whatever work or unit one may eventually belong in at IRCA.

The time breakdown
The course began early in the morning around 08h30 or so on Monday; ended around 16h00 in the afternoons. Much it depended on the candidate’s quest for more knowledge to cover in preparation for their final assessment on Friday, hence they requested to meet earlier than the normal 08h30. They were a hard working bunch of men I had ever seen; demonstrated by their dedication to learn as much as they could about the subject material at hand.

Public-course offering
The training was a public course type offering; hence it was held at IRCA Global training facility situated at the Randburg head office. This is one of the three main ways courses can be offered by IRCA; with the other two being in-house and correspondence. MSRM is provided over a six month period through correspondence; while 5 days period for either in-house or public course offering.

The one also falling squarely into the latter way of course offering is the Risk Management Qualification, also known as Riskmaq. Primarily broken down into three parts, Certificate, Diploma as well as Degree through e-learning.

The method of presentation
The MSRM was rolled out using the MS PowerPoint slides containing summary points on relevant topics in-line with the candidate’s files, obviously comprising more detailed info. The facilitation covered explanation of key points in detail; coupled with illustrative examples and the rest was for future reference and personal enrichment.

The manner in which I presented the course indicated to me how practical experience plays a critical role during presentations. For it helps in transferring concepts from theory into practical application for candidates; by using plenty of necessary examples befitting their respective industries.

Objective of my participation
The purpose of participating in the course may have had other objectives from the perspective of my managers; alternatively it helped me personally to identify what I need in conducting high-end courses like MSRM in comparison to lower end courses i.e. Health and Safety Rep., etc.

With the feedback I obtained from the principal facilitator; I managed to budget my time and efforts accordingly to align my developmental goals in line with the needs identified. And I cannot wait to get another opportunity to grow in this great experience.

NEW ACTIVITIES

Sunday afternoon of the 28th June 2009 marked the departure for our PDP team, comprising of Mxolisi Sihlali aka “Zuluman”, Michael Muller and myself heading for a six hour trip to Hotazel Manganese Mines in Northern Cape. The purpose of our trip was to participate in a practical assignment regarding the Behaviour-Based Solutions (BBS) roll-out, taking place at Wessels and Mamatwan mines. This was a follow up on the training we had received from the Behaviour Intervention Technologies (BIT) department at IRCA Global through Pieter Grobler, one of the BIT practitioners.

Gomotsegang Lekalakala and Rayno Kretzschmar headed for Civcon construction project a week before our departure, due to the need to undergo for medicals examinations as a normal site requirement prior getting them onboard into the BBS roll-out process.

Wesley Longueira, Professional Development Programme (PDP) Co-ordinator welcomed all the PDP Candidates from practical sites with new activities for each one of us.

Mxolisi was assigned with Legal and General training, as well as legal compliance related activities.

Michael was responsible for General training, Marketing, Health & Safety Representative Skills Programme, Forum meeting and Health & Safety at IRCA head office.

Gomotsegang was designated to attend to MQA accreditation, Health & Safety Representative Skills Programme, Occulus, Marketing, General training and ISOM/OSHAP.

Rayno’s duties entailed General training, Marking RISKMAQ assignments, HQMS, Marketing, ISIT and Private Universities.

I have to attend to Marking RISKMAQ assignments, Internal Product Training, Marketing: Market Research, Health & Safety Representative Skills Programme and Layoff Scheme too.

All these activities are rendered by PDP Candidates within the Training and Education Department where we are currently placed.

The feeling I get of the duration on these new activities seem to span for September up until the end of the year; with a possibility to end sometime in the New Year if it needs be.

The ultimate aim for our involvement in rendering these tasks is to cultivate over and above practical experience from our previous learning the customisation of each PDP member into being one with IRCA’s business culture.

This will be possible by participating in day-to-day business activities which are at the centre of producing revenue for the company. Thus creating an opportunity of investing something of value back into the company. This brings about a great sense of appreciation.

UNDERGROUND SITE-VISIT @ WESSELS MINE

Early Thursday morning, on the 6th August 2009, Mxolisi, Michael, Pieter and I visited the Wessels underground mine as part of the Behaviour Based Solutions (BBS) activities. We were accompanied by the BBS Process Champion of BHP Billiton, Wynand Botes who assumed the role of a site-visit guide for the day.

After exchanging our normal clothes and the Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) we brought along with for the site appropriate ones; reflector-overalls, long socks and gumboots, ear plugs, reflector hard hats among others. We headed for the vertical shaft entrance of Wessels mine, where we signed the visitors and PPE log books.

The most important PPEs critical for working in underground mine areas, other than the ones mentioned earlier were the light is connected to the battery component by a black insulated electrical cable as well as the Siza Moya in a silver enclosed package. All these two PPEs had to be inserted on the waist belt tightly for ease of access during an emergency. The Siza Moya would come handy during shortness of breath; during instances where accidents like ground falling would take place with possible overexposure to dust, smoke or chemicals fumes. While the light and its battery helped in obviously operating in dark underground areas where there is little or no light at all. The black insulated cable that connects the light and the battery had a sound sensor with a red light; which helped in cases when one by mistake walked close to mobile machinery unawares. By this it would go off, making a loud warning sound while simultaneously switching on to warn the person in danger of the on-coming mobile equipment. For a better support of the insulated light connecting black cable; there is a cable holder designed for such purpose on the back of the hard hat.

Eventually we reached the underground operation situated 300 meters below the surface, which took the shaft approximately a minute to come to a stop. We arrived at the underground site and coming out of the shaft we were met by a new world ruled by mechanised electrically powered drill rigs and other underground mobile equipments. Front-end loaders, matched with 25 ton dump trucks, load and hauling off the ore from faces to satellite crushers underground.

The nature of the ore body mined at Wessels is obtained from the underground using a mechanised room and pillar mining method. Arriving at the Murray and Roberts’ site situated at the Central block between the East and West Blocks, we registered on the visitor’s log book. We began to observe their different work activities ranging from fixing wall cable-holders, marking faces with white lines and etcetera. The activity that captured my attention the most was drilling. It was taking place following white lines marked on the hanging wall; guiding the driller to drill holes horizontally into the face.

There is more to talk about underground Wessels site-visit. However, the most important is to talk about the lessons I learned from my observations. Chief of which is the accuracy of my understanding has on SHEQ Management Systems. The understanding was brought about by what I saw underground, that which befits elaborating in further detail. It made me aware why oftentimes SHEQ professionals feed inaccurate information into their safety systems that only help bring workers unpleasant, risky consequences quicker as sad outcome. High possible chance that incidents could take place seemingly becomes pretty much guaranteed as a result. Simply put, when safety systems fall short of being informed by accurate information; the achievement of their purpose becomes desperately impossible. Remember that safety systems are by design a well thought after; calculated efforts that seek to help workers prevent incidents in the general workplace. This also includes the time during which workers conduct their duties in various designated sections of the company like the underground area below surface. Failure by SHEQ professionals to regularly visit all these different areas of the company at given intervals; renders their efforts to positively contribute to the safety of their fellow workers useless.

My underground experience taught me that Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Policies, etc that SHEQ professionals document for managing occupational risks in the workplace to be followed in the company, would be more meaningful if the SHEQ professionals knew first hand:

• what critical conditions the workers face in their different work areas;
• which sections within their work area is of high risk and which is not;
• which among many tasks should comprise of the steps that specifically aims at proactively preventing incidents from happening, due to the risk-inherent nature of those tasks;
• which critical behaviours can be advised to the team as highly important for their safety to help the team to assume responsibility at individual and team level;
• Which safety initiatives should be aligned with one another and how. In order to enable them to work as one single organised safety system. Therefore reducing the frustration workers go through when confronted with the task of complying with each initiative one at a time separately; and,
• And more.

Then, only then, will the services of the SHEQ professionals make a distinct positive impact often demonstrated by their good intended safety efforts. Saving the lives of so many workers who at a greater extent are dependant at the mercy of how accurate the info documented within SOPs, Policies, etc is reasonably practicable to their workplace situations. More so, during conducting work in high-risk profiled workplace conditions and carrying out inherently-dangerous activities like underground mining.

All the queries normally brought up by the workers will be understood from a practical sense by SHEQ professionals; as opposed to a superficial theoretical approach. For lacking the essential practical insight regarding the workplace situations at hand. Most important of all is that many of the problems the workers face would be anticipated with proactive solutions prior being raised at all or incidents could take place.

This by far is my Iine of thought about underground mining, what is yours?

BBS PROCESS FOR BHPBILLITON, HOTAZEL

Monday of the week before last I began with identifying Critical Conditions for work areas and sections obtained from computerised generated observation checklists of occupations and task procedures; which were previously documented and captured for Wessels mine. This activity took Mxolisi and me about two days to complete. Then we were to populate the five most critical conditions per corresponding work area on the BBS software. The main purpose for identifying the most critical conditions per section was to check for any irregularities that may have occurred during the first time population done on the BBS software. The BHP Billiton software also known as RAAS system was very resourceful, from which we expoted the previously observed data on critical tasks per occupation at Wessels Mine.

However, due to the employee teams’ training and PACT agreements that had to be completed before Friday; the work was left at the stage ready to be populated. A team made up of Phillip, Mxolisi and I took off for Mamatwan to give BBS training and to make team PACT agreements.
As a team we experienced a challenge during the Training presentations and PACT agreement formation due to language barrier. For some of the lower-level employees attending e.g. cleaners could not understand either English or Afrikaans, but only Setswana. It was later agreed that I should translate from both English and Afrikaans into Tswana for the Training presentations and PACT agreement formations .

This also led to later translating the perception survey questionnaire (though it was agreed among the team that it was important to run quality check on it by giving it to the Tswana speaking employees members to guarantee its effectiveness or lack thereof prior using it). For since feedback from perception surveys indicated a lack of understanding for some lower-level employees, this encouraged the translation further, by the situation presenting our initiative an opportunity to effectively solve the language barrier challenge we experienced. Though the Tswana language translation during presentations had slight differences from the local Tswana language; the employees appreciated the effort. Their faces got lit-up with brightness as a sign that eventually they understood the message from presentations.

The week ended on Friday, when we all from IRCA attended a training observation for Wessels’ Steering team which was presented by Luan Luus. It is always a marvel to see a senior member of the team demonstrating how best BBS presentations should be done. The manner in which he did his presentation caught my attention. From the introduction to the conclusion, one thing about steering team presentations that comes up clearly in my mind is the intrinsic motivational coaching made up of the following:

a) Corrective coaching, which applies to peer-to-peer correction when a team member knows the procedure for a critical task; yet however misses some important steps that completes it competently and successful. This is provided by the peer; a member of the team chosen to lead PACT agreement observations during the particular week as a coach and assisted by the rest of the team members.
b) Developmental coaching, which applies when a team member has no clue how each step of the procedure for the critical task s/he is doing fits into an orderly sequence to complete the task. Show and tell is the technique behind this kind of coaching.
c) Safe-behaviour reinforcement coaching, which applies when any team member is caught doing the right value enshrined within the team’s PACT agreement as an individual. This is provided by all team members in cooperation with their coach.

Once a week, normally in the mornings the PACT agreement is reinforced, reading it aloud by all members of the steering team; pledging their uncompromising commitment to its norms and values alike. Followed by a critical task procedure chosen for safe-behaviour modelling by a maximum of two members, to see if they do it correctly both of them. In cases where the difference is apparent, the coach for that week would go through the procedure each step at a time in order to bring all the other steering-team members to attentively identify the missing steps.

While Luan hammered his presentation home so hard, a picture of an employee was stuck in a toilet seat designed stand to scorn employees like her who makes mistakes in their work. For some reason, one person sneaked in to fetch the toilet seat, written these words, “******of the week”.

I think the visible felt leadership is a definitely one of BBS process tools to bring at-risk and non-caring behaviours into safe and caring ones. None other than the relevant supervisors and management team members are responsible to use all three or one of the coaching techniques as time presents an opportunity. The BBS process is a way to bring about intrinsic motivation through visible-felt leadership.

It is a journey through which both top-management and the employees are learning to travel together, in order to incorporate safe and caring behaviour in their day-to-day work activities.

As the week unfolded...

on Monday, came along an opportunity to present Health and Safety Representative course. I only had a day to prepare for a morning slot after Michael Muller completed a tab on communication. It was a mixed bag of feelings; somewhat nervous, somewhat excited to have my first break to convert my presentation skills into fruition with a real group of clients.

Two weeks or so before then, we had a one by the name of Reece Khan preparing us as far as presentations are concerned. We ran a couple of dry-runs which I believe put me at ease in terms of how I performed in the presentation of my tab, namely, Inspections.

With the presentations completed on Wednesday, Mining Qualification Authority assignment put a challenge to put-up a proposal for training of Health and Safety Representative tender. Off we ran forward with the task.

I can say with confidence that the assessments which came on later were helpful to reveal where-else do I need to add more muscle to my personal development within the programme. There are a lot of opportunities presented to us which I am excited to be part of; hopefully this coming Monday we'll be submitting a tender proposal regarding one of them.

I'll talk about that one next time...

The week after..the week before...

The previous week; beginning from Monday up until Friday was specifically marked for our co-presentation assessments. Pity though, we did not know when in one of those days of the week it would fall into. With Marina not well; it certainly put the whole exercise into almost absolute disarray, since even Wesley had so much filling his hands that he could not facilitate that.

But Mr Jo Enslin came to our rescue to assume the caretaking role and we all got to take turns in presenting a module of our choice. It is never so easy to present under surveillance; I guess you get the idea, more so when being assessed. Well, giving the credit where it is due; I believe Reece Khan is to blame for all our competent performance. For having us all each cruising through their presentation sessions because we were so optimistically ready let alone confident.

He prepared us the week before the actual presentation assessments took place. I am of the idea that there is still much to learn in this area; by espousing some more other presentation skills to add on what we have already acquired.

The next on my list to look forward to is the BIT project, in which we will be attending training for a week, relating to Hotazel site visit practicals. This will be preparing us to undertake practical exercises based on what we would have learned from the week-long BIT training.

WE'RE MEETING TOGETHER AGAIN...

It is interesting to learn from our past mistakes as a people; more than showing-off how much we know to others. This week alone, I sat under my peer's presentations under a very interactive atmosphere where we happened to critique each other's presentations too. I learned a lot from it though in addition to presetations we attended. I thus feel the more I used the opportunity to apply what I have learned in those meetings into refining those mistakes worked better for me.

This however does not mean we are the only world's all-there-is in presentations; yet we have for a fact accumulated what no-one can take away from us guaranteed. Hence we're ready to share it with the world; learning everytime when we meet together always...with each PDP member...feels like we're meeting for the very first time during presentations. The reason is simply because we learn a new thing about presenting ourselves better and other things within the programme on how to do those things better.

I would have not achieved an ounce of learning without my peers and Reece Khan; for this reason, this is for you guys: love you lots...the way Jan Loubser explained in the BBS presentations this week (not the other way around).

And I am saying this more specifically for you Wesley...no touching!