Health and Safety Lead at Red Rocket South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Responsibilities: 

• Provide functional and strategic leadership for health and safety across construction, operations and maintenance activities, ensuring consistent implementation of legal, project and corporate requirements.
• Lead the review, approval and ongoing assurance of contractor and subcontractor health and safety plans, files, risk assessments, method statements, legal appointments and competency records before work commences and throughout project execution.
• Ensure statutory compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act, Construction Regulations and all other applicable requirements, including verification of section 37(2) agreements, letters of good standing, mandatory appointments, medical fitness and role-specific competencies.
• Drive visible field leadership through regular site visits, inspections, engagements and interventions to verify critical controls, address unsafe conditions and behaviours, and reinforce expected standards.
• Lead and support incident investigations, including high-potential near misses, ensure quality root cause analysis, verify corrective and preventive actions, and escalate material issues to management.
• Monitor and report health and safety performance through audits, inspections, trend analysis, dashboards and weekly/monthly reports, highlighting leading indicators, lagging indicators, recurring non-conformances and priority actions.
• Provide leadership, guidance and oversight to site teams, contractors, supervisors and health and safety resources to improve capability, accountability and consistent application of standards.
• Oversee the adequacy and implementation of risk assessments, safe work procedures and method statements for high-risk activities, ensuring controls remain practical, current and effective.
• Support emergency preparedness and response planning, drills, readiness reviews and post-event learning to strengthen site resilience and response capability.
• Plan and participate in legal compliance inspections, internal audits and management reviews, and support closure of findings, corrective actions and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Review and validate incident records, flash reports, final reports and case management data to ensure accuracy, completeness, timely closure and meaningful learning outcomes.
• Facilitate and monitor health and safety meetings, action tracking and governance forums, ensuring commitments are documented, assigned, escalated where necessary and closed out effectively.
• Support the development, review and improvement of health and safety procedures, standards, tools and templates to strengthen consistency and practical implementation across the business.
• Identify health and safety training needs and support the delivery, verification and effectiveness review of inductions, toolbox talks, awareness sessions and role-specific competency development.
• Review contractor and internal health and safety performance critically, intervene on material non-compliance, and support management in driving timely and sustainable remedial actions.
• Maintain effective health and safety records, registers and document control practices to ensure traceability, audit readiness and efficient retrieval of critical compliance information.
• Contribute to office and operational health and safety structures, including representative meetings, inspections, campaigns and occupational health initiatives where applicable.
• Travel to project and operational sites as required to verify compliance, assess performance, support investigations, conduct assurance activities and engage directly with teams and contractors.
• Support implementation and ongoing verification of ESMS, EHSS and lender-related health and safety requirements at company, project and contractor level.
• Lead continual improvement by identifying trends, sharing lessons learned across projects, and recommending and driving practical interventions to reduce risk and strengthen performance.
• Promote high standards of professional conduct, collaboration and accountability, and serve as a credible health and safety leader capable of influencing decision-making at site and management level.

Requirements

Minimum Educational Qualifications:

• Relevant tertiary qualification and/or recognised professional health and safety qualification, such as SAMTRAC, NEBOSH or equivalent.
• National Diploma or Bachelor’s degree in Occupational Health and Safety, Environmental Health, Safety Management, Engineering, or a related field will be advantageous.
• Professional registration with a recognised health and safety body, or progress toward such registration, will be advantageous.
• Additional construction or high-risk industry training and certifications relevant to the role will be advantageous.

 Experience:

• Minimum of 10-15 years’ health and safety experience, with substantial exposure to construction, infrastructure, energy, industrial or similarly high-risk environments, including experience leading health and safety oversight across multiple sites or projects.
• Proven experience in a lead or senior health and safety role within construction, infrastructure, energy, industrial or similarly high-risk environments.
• Demonstrated experience in risk assessment, incident investigation, root cause analysis, contractor management, auditing and corrective action management.