2014 Annual and CSR Report Switch to Spanish Language
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Our People

Approaching 90 years of continuous operation, Hudbay is as much a mining culture as it is a mining company. Like all cultures, we remain strong by building on our traditions and knowledge, and we remain current by ongoing learning, adapting to new influences and embracing new opportunities.

Hudbay knows that taking the right steps – committing to safety, embracing diversity, sharing skills and knowledge, and rewarding performance – can help our people and our company take giant strides.

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Constancia puts safety on the “line”: 21 million hours and only one lost time accident in 2014

Building a large open pit mine is a complex undertaking that can require thousands of employees working “round-the-clock” shifts and using a vast array of heavy-duty construction vehicles and equipment, as well as explosives. With that understanding, Hudbay’s achievement in developing its Constancia mine in Peru is truly remarkable – during peak construction, the teams working on the Constancia project logged approximately 21 million hours with just one lost time accident (LTA).

With over 7,000 workers, including contractors, on-site at any given time, there were only 14 lost time accidents in 38.6 million hours worked throughout the entire construction phase. The strong safety performance continued as the site moved into production. Constancia recorded a 0.1 LTA frequency in 2014.

The exceptional performance of the Constancia team starts with Hudbay’s organization-wide commitment to safety. From the onset, safety was designated as the number one priority, and steps were taken to ensure that this commitment was reflected in action.

While the project management and safety teams played critical oversight roles, accountability for safety belonged with the line organizations. Ausenco, the engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) firm that Hudbay engaged for the project, led the charge. As the administrators of construction contracts and contractors, Ausenco’s engineering and construction management teams delivered Hudbay’s safety message to the project’s various contractors and from there to individual work teams and employees, both craft and unskilled labour.

During the project, Hudbay hired workers from nearby communities, many of whom had never worked in a construction environment. Special communication materials about safety were developed for this group. Along with daily briefings and other more informal channels, these communications helped local workers develop a positive and proactive approach to safety-related issues. Later in the project, one of the tools Ausenco employed was the Positive Attitude Safety System (PASS). Already used at Hudbay’s mines and projects in Manitoba, PASS is based on facilitated discussions at every level of an organization to increase individual involvement in recognizing and managing workplace risks.

Hudbay built a culture at Constancia where safety is a core value, and this was the key to 21 million hours with only one LTA in 2014.

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A strong mining culture. A strong mining company:
Building on shared knowledge.

Before acquiring Constancia, Hudbay had built more than 25 mines in the Flin Flon Greenstone Belt and developed a unique level of in-house expertise in VMS and porphyry deposits in the process. We also learned how important it was for Hudbay’s leaders to be on the ground, to build ties to local communities and to make sure those communities benefited from our activities.

We were able to take all of these lessons with us to Constancia, our first open pit project in a very long time and our first major development outside Canada. Our VP of Exploration relocated to Peru as Hudbay’s Vice President, South America Business Unit. Key personnel from other Hudbay locations also joined our Constancia team, applying their skills as required for assignments of varying durations. At the same time, we drew on the depth of mining experience in Peru by recruiting most of our project team locally, adding their knowledge to ours.

At Rosemont in Arizona, Hudbay is now drawing on the skills, insights and systems we developed in Constancia, with respect to engineering, financing, safety, environmental management and community relations, to guide our efforts.

As with Constancia, people are the key to leveraging this body of knowledge. We are building on the local Rosemont project team with some key members of the team that led the construction phases of Lalor and Constancia as well as experts from our Toronto office. Some will be full-time, others will divide their time between Rosemont and their responsibilities elsewhere, and some will work on short-term assignments.

The immediate impact of these moves will be to help advance project permitting and engineering at Rosemont. The long-term benefits of exposing our people to a wide range of challenges and opportunities are equally valuable: enabling employees to fulfill their career aspirations, broadening our base of shared knowledge and strengthening the shared values and culture that define the way we do business.