Keeping Workers Safe Is the Golden Rule for This Canadian Mining Company

A rooted culture of caring runs deep within Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. – a Canadian-based gold producer with operations in Canada, Finland and Mexico.

Louise Grondin, Agnico Eagle’s senior Vice-President of Environment, Sustainable Development and People, says worker safety is paramount and her company wants every employee to be responsible for their own and others’ safety. To that end, it’s important for everyone to play a part in the effort to declare all events and situations that may put workers at risk. The goal is to eliminate any potential harm.

A graphic of a series of frontline workers working at a gold mine

“It’s not a game to … Read more...

Measuring Safety Part 2 – Serious Injury Fatality – Rethinking Measurement and Prevention

workers

In Measuring Safety Part 1, we reviewed the drawbacks of focusing solely on the measurement of safety outcomes absent understanding and tracking operational processes and events that are predictive of a safe workplace. In Part 2 of the series, we are going to dive deeper into the implications of this thinking by reviewing “Serious Injury Fatality” (SIF).

Serious Injury Fatality (SIF) – Breaking it down

The concept is not new. Workplace fatalities have been the object of preventive corporate policies and regulatory scrutiny for decades. Before my interview with Todd Conklin during Pre-accident podcast, however, I had only seen the abbreviation of “SIF” online.

Being an avid reader and learner, I began my Google search on the SIF-phenomenon which revealed many sources on the topic: White papers, several documents by Fred Manuele, and a YouTube video for learning on the subject. Though my search was not an … Read more...

Measuring Safety, part 1 – The Relevance of Outcomes

The other day I received another self-praising message in my news-feed, one of Norway’s major construction contractors was celebrating their one year anniversary since their last lost time injury incident, making their LTIF now “Zero”.

While reading James Reason’s latest book, “Organisational Accidents Revisited” I noticed the quote: “The road to Hell is paved with falling LTI frequency rates”,  illustrated by major cases like DWH and Texas City.

I believe it is good when no one has been injured as a consequence of their work. At the same time, this has again turned my attention to something which has been keeping me busy for many years;

why are people so focused on outcomes, when they mean so little in terms of improvement, especially in safety?

 Obsessed About Outcomes

When an incident or accident happens, it’s generally the consequences that attract great attention. From a humanitarian and … Read more...