What You Find on Return from a Client Meeting
You supervise a three-person team installing a remote condensing unit and two cold rooms in a shopping centre service yard on a 10-day programme that is already two days behind after a delivery slipped. On day 6 you return from a client meeting at 14:30 to find: the 17-year-old first-year apprentice alone in the plant room with a lit oxy-acetylene torch, brazing the last joint on a liquid line; the condensing unit's high-pressure switch linked out with a croc clip 'to get the case down for the tenant's fit-out'; and no hot-work permit on the board for today. Your lead technician, 22 years' experience, says 'it's the only way we hit Friday and nobody's been hurt in 20 years'.
1. Set out your immediate actions on the day, in order of priority.
Read the worked answer
1. Stop the work. Everyone down tools and to a defined assembly point - this is a stop-work, not a conversation, and it applies to the whole team so nobody is singled out in front of others.
2. Make the hot work safe. Torch off, bottle valves closed, hoses purged and disconnected, hot pipework marked and guarded, fire watch posted for the full period on the hot surface. Confirm nothing has been left smouldering in the plant room.
3. Restore the safety device. Remove the link, let the high-pressure switch do its job, and - crucially - find out why it operated. A switch that tripped under normal conditions may be telling you the system is overcharged, the condenser is blocked, or the fan is not running. Linking it out papered over an unrepaired fault.
4. Make the system and the area safe, then assess the cold room conditions and any product at risk.
5. Notify. The client or site manager, because there has been an unpermitted hot work activity in their building; and my own operations manager, the same day.
6. Record. Written statements from those involved while it is fresh, photographs of the linked-out switch and the permit board, and a near-miss report. Facts first - blame later.
2. How do you handle the lead technician and the apprentice? Explain the reasoning behind the different treatment.
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The lead technician. This is not a coaching conversation. There are two distinct breaches: a safety device deliberately defeated, and an unsupervised first-year apprentice using a torch with no permit. Both are serious, one is potentially gross misconduct. I would follow the company disciplinary procedure properly - investigation, private hearing, right to be accompanied - rather than deal with it informally on site. Their 22 years is relevant to how it is communicated, not to whether it is investigated. Until the process concludes I would remove them from safety-critical supervision and from signing permits.
I would also ask them directly why the HP switch tripped, because a technician who links out a switch usually does so because they cannot diagnose the fault in the time available. That is a competence and pressure issue that I own as supervisor.
The apprentice. They were instructed by a senior person in a team where disagreeing is difficult, and they are six months into a career. They need: a clear statement that the practice was wrong and that they will never be disciplined for stopping work and calling me, a check that their training record actually covers hot work, and confirmation that they will not braze unsupervised again. Blaming them would teach the whole team to hide the next near miss.
The team. A toolbox talk covering both events, without naming individuals, within 48 hours.
3. Two days behind, a fixed Friday deadline and a tenant fit-out dependent on you. What do you change in planning and supervision so this cannot recur?
Read the worked answer
Accept that the plan caused the behaviour. A programme with no float, a slipped delivery absorbed by compressing safety rather than resequencing, and a supervisor off site at the critical moment is a plan that produces exactly what I found. Fixing the plan is the prevention; the disciplinary process only treats the symptom.
Changes I would make:
- Re-plan with the client honestly, in writing: the Friday completion is not achievable with the work left, here are the options with dates, and here is what each costs. A tenant fit-out date is a fact to be managed, not a reason to be quiet about risk.
- No hot work without a permit signed by a competent supervisor who is physically on site. If I am not there, the hot work does not happen that day.
- Two persons for any torch work, one of whom is competent, with the apprentice as second - never alone.
- A daily permit and isolation audit, photographed and filed, and a defined handover when I leave site.
- Competence mapping for the team: who can braze, who can pressure-test, who can sign permits.
- A standing item in the toolbox talk that anyone can stop the job, including the apprentice, and that this will be supported.
I would also re-examine why the technician felt unable to raise the pressure-switch trip at the morning briefing. That silence is the real finding.