Speaking SafeWork with Edgar

Our first priority in the workplace is to protect the health and wellbeing of our employees. To achieve this, we must identify and manage Health and Safety hazards in our workplace. In order to help realize this goal, we launched SafeWork to provide a common global foundation to build our culture of safety worldwide.

The Speaking SafeWork series aims to keep the SafeWork conversation going and keep safety top of mind for all employees and contractors. In this interview, we connect with Edgar, Mine Maintenance Planification Specialist, at Raglan Mine.

Edgar: For me, SafeWork is a culture embedded in the way I think and react to any execution, whether in my work environment or in my personal life.

With the SafeWork culture established at Raglan Mine, this assures me and all my colleagues that we will return home safely. SafeWork encourages me to accept my responsibilities to carry out each of my tasks in a safe way for me and my colleagues. Additionally, and what I consider more important, is that with the SafeWork culture, it doesn't matter who can report an incident or stop a job that is not considered safe to do, without fear, because the vision is simply to protect us all and avoid any type of incident.

Edgar: During rotation onboarding meetings and start-up meetings at the outset of each shift, we place great emphasis on reporting all types of incidents, no matter how small or insignificant we may believe them to be. We have seen how the increase in incident declarations has had a great impact on the reduction of events and/or accidents. Incident reports allow us to course correct before an adverse event occurs.

Edgar: To identify any type of deficiency regarding the safe execution of a task, I know I can rely on our SafeWork culture, ingrained in all of our partners, so that they do not feel pressure or fear of being observed and evaluated. It is well understood by everyone that the objective of a task observation is to identify areas for improvement and that, ultimately, the goal is to improve and secure the execution of tasks. The whole team feels well implicated, and we all cooperate to make our days increasingly safe.

Edgar: My work is largely carried out in an office, and an office poses minimal risk, so it is important for me to spend time in the field because I can see things that others cannot as I do not perform some of those tasks regularly. I enjoy going into the field and talking with our technicians about the tasks they perform and the safety measures they adopt to carry out their responsibilities while helping them enrich their analysis.

At the same time, these opportunities in the field enable me, as someone who plans their work, to identify things which can improve the planning of work from a safety point of view and make the execution of the same tasks much safer in the future.

Edgar: Of course, my behaviour with respect to safety has evolved, and not only at work, but also in my personal daily life. When carrying out any activity, it is now instinctive to perform a task analysis to identify possible risks. What I consider most interesting is that I transmitted this culture to my wife and my daughters. I have worked in three different Glencore facilities and the effect of this well standardized culture throughout the company has certainly made me evolve positively in terms of safety.