Keeping workers safe

Renata Sorbello has a big job: she makes sure people return home from work the same way they left it each day.

Safety graduate Renata Sorbello on one of the NorthConnex sites. Pictures: Angelo Velardo

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Renata Sorbello’s job is to make sure people return home from work the same way they left it each day.

As a safety graduate on the NorthConnex project, she provides advice to teams on how to carry out work safely across the worksites.

“It’s never a dull moment,” she said.

Sorbello, of Windsor, grew up in Mt Druitt and her first career was as a cook but her passions lay elsewhere.

She had a desire to help people and started studying social work before she “fell into” OH&S.

As part of her degree she took a class in accident forensics and was inspired to switch over to safety.

Renata works across the NorthConnex sites to ensure workplace safety.

“At the end of the day you should be able to return home the same way you left it,” she said.

Sorbello joined the Lendlease graduate program in December to work on NorthConnex, a 9km tunnel that will link the M1 at Wahroonga to the M2 at West Pennant Hills.

At university Sorbello found that many of her classmates and lecturers were female but working in the construction industry she is part of a workforce that is just 17 per cent female.

At the NorthConnex project, women make up 23 per cent of the staff, 12 per cent of technical staff, and three per cent of on site workers such as trades and tunnellers.

Each day is different for Renata, and all the activity on site means there’s never a dull moment.

Sorbello said “a lot of the sites actually have women on them”, but working on such a large scale project with different sites and shifts meant she does not see the same people every day.

So she regularly attends events run by Lendlease for its female staff to catch up and share “things we are dealing with” and get “someone else’s perspective”.

“But it’s also to get together to go, ‘Hey how are you doing’,” she said.

Sorbello said being part of the “massive” NorthConnext project was “awesome”.

“Every time I show up to work there’s something new that I’m doing or something new we’re discussing, it’s interesting,” she said.

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