After completing in 2021 our first enterprise-wide employee survey, which measured current engagement and satisfaction levels among employees and areas where we need to improve, in 2022 we engaged an external talent management firm on an initiative to gain insights into our culture.
The purpose of the initiative was to build on the findings of the employee survey by interviewing our executives and other leaders throughout the business about Hudbay’s culture and what they felt were strengths and opportunities for improvement. The consultant then facilitated a workshop with Hudbay’s leadership team where they identified a handful of characteristics that were needed in our culture in order to deliver our business strategy. Collaboration is one of these characteristics: although we consider collaboration to be one of Hudbay’s strengths, the exercise pushed our leaders to ask questions such as, “What is collaboration?” and “Are we truly sharing across the Company?”
When combined with insights from what employees are experiencing at Hudbay, the initiative gave us a better understanding of what company leaders believe is needed to build a stronger culture and where we should focus our efforts. One such area is development programs that help us retain top talent in a tight labour market.
In 2022, we created a small-scale two-year development program for a select group of employees who have consistently performed at a high level and have the potential to move into a more senior leadership role in the next two years. Another program focuses on building female leaders. In 2023, two women from Hudbay (one from corporate and one from the Manitoba Business Unit) will participate in an external networking and leadership development program for women in mining. The year-long program combines three face-to-face meetings held in Canada with several virtual sessions for women who work in historically male-dominated industries, so that they can connect, share experiences and further develop their leadership skills.