Executive Team Tackle Wind Turbine Heights to Build and Demonstrate Leadership

Cape Town, South Africa, March 2023 Nordex Energy South Africa’s executive team recently completed the Global Wind Organisation’s Basic Safety Training (BST) course to further develop its learning culture for enhanced safety and operational performance. This type of training may be commonplace in the wind sector, but definitely not for executives who rarely have the opportunity to enter a wind turbine let alone ascend the heights of a nacelle, often close to 120 metres above the ground.

This team has collectively worked in the energy sector for close on 100 years, but many of them haven’t formally trained to work at heights or engaged in other formal BST. Under the direction of the Managing Director, Compton Saunders, the team see this training as more than safety, but a critical part of their leadership approach to connecting and better understanding what the company’s technicians and engineers experience on a daily basis. ‘We subscribe to ‘Visible Felt Leadership’, which emphasizes the importance of engagement, personal connection and purposeful action. This helps to provide better support to our teams that service our wind turbines across our nine sites and will ultimately enhance productivity and increase efficiency, going a long way to achieving organizational and team goals,” explained Saunders. It is this same approach to Quality, Health, Safety and Environment (QHSE) that led to the team of  construction staff and specialist technicians currently undergoing  on the job experience during, some for as long as six months, at facilities across Europe, as well as in Australia. “The Nordex Group pursues a long-term target of zero occupational accidents, measuring its performance against a range of parameters to review effectives and improve its safety culture.  Our team in South Africa, by extension, subscribes to this value, which is why it is important our leadership team demonstrates this commitment and doesn’t just talk about it,” concluded Saunders.

About GWO: Global Wind Organisation, a non-profit body founded by wind turbine manufacturers and owners, aims to achieve an injury-free work environment in the wind turbine industry through the deployment of common international standards for safety training and emergency procedures.