Our Company

Brief history of SAACOSH

There is a serious flaw in how most organisations think about safety. In the 21st Century we live and work in a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, but many still cling to safety concepts dating back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. They rely on procedures, structures and motivational processes that had become outdated. They’re forever trying to engineer better systems and they spend millions on trying to educate and train their people to understand and use these systems. When that fails as it often does, they try to enforce compliance with disciplinary and punitive actions.

A new approach to safety

Impenetrable safety glass ceiling

While this might have worked to some extent in a world that was mostly stable, predictable and manageable 20 or 50 or a 100 years ago, it is no longer enough. Even with the best efforts they now continuously fall short in a world which has changed and is due to change even more. Most companies that still rely on conventional approaches to safety realize this – they see exactly where they want to be but it is as if they are looking at it through an impenetrable glass ceiling that stops them from reaching their espoused ideals and goals such as “Zero Harm” or even worse, “Zero Incidents”.

At Saacosh we get this. We’ve been down that road and we’ve shared the intense frustration of CEOs, MDs, GMs, Safety Managers, Safety Officers and others who did everything they could but still failed to break through this Safety Glass Ceiling. In spite of their best efforts and intentions they still have more incidents and accidents and sometimes fatalities than any of us can and want to endure.

Join the journey

And so, we continued to look deeper and discovered that it is possible to break through the Safety Glass Ceiling in a world where much of what we were taught and once believed is no longer enough to create safe working places. We looked at how some high-risk organizations such as nuclear power plants, offshore drilling rigs, naval aircraft carriers, aviation systems and Formula-1 teams were able to break through the Safety Glass Ceiling and we adopted their approaches and principles into the advice and processes we offer our clients.

Saacosh incorporates principles and practices from High Reliability Organizing (HRO), social neuroscience, safety and resilience engineering, legal liability, leadership development, risk management and occupational health and safety to provide an unprecedented list of offerings and services. Through our consulting, training and safety solutions we have helped some of the world’s leading organisations break through the Safety Glass Ceiling. This comes down to not only investing in systems and prevention, but also investing in people and building real-time resilience.

Delivering the dream

Saacosh has since grown into a multi-dimensional one-stop services company that addresses the health and safety needs of companies, practitioners, leaders, managers, supervisors and coalface employees through the following four distinct business focus areas:

Saacosh Academy provides in-house occupational health and safety training to clients across the globe. However, we are proudly African and most of our greatest successes have come from assisting clients on this great continent to break through their Safety Glass Ceilings.

We offer tailor-made Conventional Health and Safety consultation and training including contractor management and auditing, supervisor development, legal liability and risk management.
Assisting organizations to implement the principles of High Reliability Organizing (HRO) and social neuroscience that holds safety and health as core values.
Equipping leaders to instigate lasting safety culture transformation based on a combination of the latest scientific research, leadership theory and practical experience.
Producing safety training and related multi-media material such as DVD’s, courses, clips and case studies available through our “resources” window on our website.

SAACOSH Academy: Background

Saacosh Academy was established in 2016 as a subsidiary of Saacosh (Pty) Ltd with the exclusive objective of providing cutting edge, yet highly relevant, nationally accredited and workplace orientated education and development for students and practitioners who have a passion for the Occupational Health and Safety profession.

Saacosh Academy proudly offers students that are registered in the NQF level 5, 3-year Occupational Health and Safety Practitioner Certificate, an excellent learning opportunity through a blended learning approach backed by a highly responsive and flexible Learning and Support Centre on a virtual platform for the second part of their studies.

Student progress are monitored and managed through our state-of-the-art Learner Management System that integrates seamlessly with our Learning and Support Centre as well as the Learner Management Information System (LMIS) of the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) (referred to as “Administrator” Computer & Internet Facilities).

SAACOSH Academy: Our vision

To positively impact the lives of people that we interact with

SAACOSH Academy: Our mission

We exist to educate and empower people in safety management
We strive to provide employment opportunities to skilled persons
We aspire to improve the social environment and relationships in the areas where we are actively involved