Safety - Personnel Transportation

During 2019, management identified the heightened risk of accidents during the transportation of personnel to and from the mine site particularly given the distances between the mines and the nearest towns as well as the road conditions. Digital displays have been installed on dashboards to alert the driver to the speed limit at any given point and sensors installed to detect driver fatigue which, if triggered, will alert the driver as well as a central control centre.

Putting Safety First

As part of the Safety Culture Transformation Plan, a multi-year leadership programme focusing on promoting our safety culture was launched in 2018. This programme encourages participation across all levels at the mining units and administrative offices and has been successfully carried out over its first two years.

Keeping our talent

The People Review process was undertaken which maps talent within the organisation and identifies key positions and succession plans. Strategic development plans have been designed and implemented for those in critical roles across the business.

Enhancing the working environment

The Group continues to make use of an Organisational Climate Survey which has been widely acknowledged as a key tool to measure levels of satisfaction amongst employees and to identify opportunities for further development. This year the Company decided to participate in the “Great Place to Work” survey. The results will be presented in Q1 2020 and will form the base of an action plan to implement improvements in the mining units and administrative offices.

Attributes’ Weeks

In 2019, a series of week-long events was held to reinforce each of the attributes that emanate from the corporate purpose. The events, which were thematically designed around Innovation, the Inspiration and Promotion of Talent, and Responsibility, comprised lectures by internal and external speakers, volunteering sessions, workshops and exhibitions.

In recognition of the Company’s commitment to promoting a workforce that is gender diverse, a taskforce was established in 2019 and took a number of steps to redress the imbalance that exists in our workforce which is regrettably typical for the mining sector.

The Diversity Taskforce comprises the CEO, the Vice Presidents of Legal & Corporate Affairs, Operations and Human Resources and a designated Diversity Champion. The taskforce oversees policy matters such as strategies and targets and is supported by working groups at the Head Office in Lima and at the Inmaculada and Pallancata mines. In its inaugural year, the taskforce was responsible for:

• a baseline study of our workforce in Peru (with the same planned for Argentina in the current year);
• a review of Group policies such as those relating to recruitment and the Whistleblowing facility. In relation to the latter, a campaign has been designed to raise awareness of its use to report any aspect of gender-based harassment or discrimination;
• securing a collaboration with mining contractors to establish a programme to recruit at least 15 women to operate trucks;
• holding of workshops on diversity as part of the Group’s series of events reinforcing our corporate purpose; and
• investment in new accommodation and the procurement of suitably sized Protective Personal Equipment for female employees.