Industry reopening: temporary health and safety resources required

Theresa Ackerman | Manager | Operational Excellence | T-Systems South Africa | mail me | 

With the reopening of many more industries in South Africa’s alert level 1, companies – particularly those in the manufacturing and engineering sectors – will have to further prepare for the return of more employees to the workplace.

This requires additional resources to be put in place, particularly those that have an understanding of health and safety, to prepare and redefine some of the processes in order to meet stringent guidelines related to the near ending pandemic.

These resources have to ensure that workers are wearing masks and gloves, and that offices, manufacturing plants and warehouses are sanitised regularly.

In addition, they are responsible for ensuring that proper social distancing is practiced, draw up schedules for employees’ lunch breaks and ensure that common spaces are properly cleaned.



Companies that operate within the manufacturing and engineering sectors are considered particularly high-risk, as they employ large numbers of blue-collar workers. These employees are potentially more exposed to the pandemic due to the daily interactions they encounter, mostly from commuting to and from work as they are more likely to rely on public transport.

New laws and regulations

Most companies in these sectors already have health and safety officers in place, due to the need to comply ISO international standards for occupational health and safety.

However, a multitude of additional laws, measures and processes have been put in place to ensure that the spread of the pandemic is minimised within the industry. Consequently, health and safety officers will need additional training to ensure they execute their duties according to the legislation.

Furthermore, in most cases these health and safety officers are already significantly busy and occupied with their daily functions, so burdening them with additional tasks could lead to some areas of a manufacturing plant or factory becoming ‘high risk’ areas.

Aside from having to comply with ISO international standards for occupational health and safety, manufacturing and engineering companies employ specially skilled workers, such as machine operators, who cannot be easily replaced should they fall ill. Thus, health and safety officers are needed to ensure their workers are kept safe, as an outbreak that affects a large part of a company’s workforce could have severe repercussions for its ability to operate and generate revenue.



To mitigate these challenges, many enterprises in heavy industries are turning to Temporary Employment Services (TES), also known as Experts on Demand (EoD), to source health and safety personnel.

The staff would consist of experts who have already completed the required training and have, in some cases, performed a similar function at another company. This approach can minimise the additional risk of ‘getting it wrong’, as well as saving time to train existing resources.

Reducing risk

Using EoD to source health and safety officers also reduces the financial risk of appointing a permanent employee for what is essentially a temporary position, the duration of which will be dictated by the duration of the pandemic. This means that heavy industries can benefit from these short-term skills, without the commitment of a permanent contract.

In addition, EoD have ready access to these short-term skills and can remove the burden of screening and interviewing candidates, which can be a time-consuming process.



As the candidates that are placed with companies are not employees of the company, but EoD employees, the EoD will also manage the administrative processes around their employment.

During the current pandemic, EoD can play a key role in taking the pressure off manufacturing and engineering firms that are already managing high-risk environments.

TES can also ensure that the resources that are appointed have sufficient skills and experience to enforce the strict rules and regulations related to the current situation. At the same time, these candidates also benefit from the opportunity to earn an income.