The story of Kris Oosthuizen: General Foreman

 

The morning we walked onto site the first person who caught our attention was a young, authoritative man explaining to a group of workers what was expected of them on that day. When he finished talking to the workers he turned and confidently introduced himself to us as Kris Oosthuizen. Kris is the general foreman for Hein Fick Construction, a construction company based in Pretoria. As Kris shared his story with us we got better insight into his journey of becoming a successful general foreman, what his daily duties and responsibilities are as well as what his future vision for the building industry is.  

Kris, who is now only 23 years old, grew up in Pretoria and attended Hoërskool Wonderboom. The building industry has always fascinated him and he therefore spent his life gaining knowledge on the building industry through hands on experience. Even though Kris had no tertiary qualification in this field, his experience made him the best candidate when it came to employing a general foreman. After he was offered the job of general foreman his willingness to learn didn’t subside, but flourished under the guidance of his boss, Hein Fick. This has greatly led to the success Kris has achieved in the building industry and it is evident from the respect his colleagues have for him.

Kris is currently working on a building site where they are building both a single and a double storey house. His daily duties and responsibilities on site doesn’t change but only becomes more complicated as the size of the project increases. Kris’ responsibilities consists of making sure that the day to day activities on site run smoothly. Complications might sometime arise since the coordination of the different trades becomes difficult, so to make sure this happens Kris must have proper control systems in place. The most important of these are stock control measures which includes receiving and checking materials delivered as well as making sure they have enough of the consumable resources they use on site. Along with stock control Kris must also do general housekeeping on site and in the store room which means he has to keep the site clean of debris. This makes stock control easier to manage. Then the final and probably most important part of his job is quality control. He does this well through effective, daily communication to workers on what must be achieved, how to go about achieving this and then constantly checking up on them. He told us that he does this productively because he understands the people working with him. He also takes a firm stand when it comes to communicating what he wants achieved.    

Even though Kris doesn’t have years of experience in the building industry, he still finds his job to be satisfactory and would also recommend it anyone who wants to take the same career path. Kris believes the key to being a successful general foreman is to tackle each day and the problems which might arise one step at a time. Yet he still sees opportunities for improvement in the building industry especially in 2 fields. He would firstly like to keep up with the trend in South Africa and see positive changes in health and safety on site. Understanding and keeping the workers on site safe is one of his main priorities. Secondly, according to Kris, stricter rules on building codes need to implement. This is part of a general foreman’s job when it comes to quality control and can only be beneficial since there will be better quality buildings and contractors will avoid hefty fines.

After talking to Kris and learning more about being a general foreman we have more respect for the profession than before after considering the complications they are faced with on a daily basis that needs solving. Kris’ advice to us was to take each problem as it comes and to follow his example of understanding the people working with and around you. Kris believes good communication and thoughtfulness to be the solution to many of the problems he is faced with on site and says it is true for all forms of group work. By focusing on your current problem you will be more productive and through consideration of those around you, the group is more likely to work well together.