As health and safety manager at Gammon Construction, Jesse Hau is responsible for spotting unsafe conditions or unsafe actions on a construction site I have been with Gammon Construction for about 14 years. I started as an assistant safety officer and then my old boss asked me to attend a one-year safety training course run by the Labour Department. So I did that and in parallel worked at Gammon. After I finished the course with the necessary qualifications, I applied to become a registered safety officer (RSO). I worked as an RSO for three to four years and then I got promoted to a senior safety officer. Now I am the health and safety manager.
Working hours on our construction sites start at 8am and finish at around 6pm, so I usually arrive at the site 15 minutes earlier to arrange the morning assembly. Usually, I am the speaker, so I will have prepared some notes the day before, often based on newspaper cuttings about occupational health and safety issues or things that I need to tell the workers.
The workers also do some simple stretching exercises to prepare them for their day.
The morning assembly takes about 15 or 20 minutes. After that, the workers break into smaller groups and their foreman will talk to them about that day's work. The foreman will supervise them, but it is my job to listen to them and give some supplementary information if they need it. After this, I go to the site office and check e-mails or look at the newspaper for news that is relevant to our work.
I do a safety walk every morning, usually with some of my staff. We use a check list to see if anything is unsafe. If we find something wrong, we might rectify it on the spot or make a record for action later.
We do find unsafe conditions or unsafe actions on a construction site, which is quite a mobile environment and the workers' behaviour is unpredictable. This is why we spend a lot of time training the workers and trying to change their attitudes.