At the beginning of January, Kinross Brazil’s leadership came together to discuss our First Priorities of safety and responsible mining to refocus our workforce as we kick off a new year.
The meeting began with Rodrigo Gomides, Vice-President and Deputy General Manager, Paracatu, discussing the sites strong safety record and asking leadership to reflect on how they believe these accomplishments were made, and how we can continue reaching these milestones in coming years. Rodrigo shared our safety guidelines for the year, then turned the presentation over to Alexandre Matos, Senior Manager, Safety and Environment, to discuss ways we can accomplish them.
Alexandre shared examples of safety milestones achieved in 2022 and the benefits that came from the ‘Mine of Ideas’ program at Paracatu. The program encourages employees to share their ideas related to health, safety and environment, to get a ‘boots on the ground’ approach to areas we can improve. Alexandre encouraged leaders to continuing promoting the program to their workforce to find new improvements for 2023.
The presentation concluded with a group discussion on ways to promote safety and a culture of responsible mining. Some ideas shared included open communication between managers and employees, the importance of people development and trust in a team, a focus on long-term planning, and having discipline all year long.
“The 2023 leadership safety meeting was an opportunity to reconnect at the start of the year to align our leaders and prioritize our safety goals in the new year,” said Alexandre. “At Kinross, safety starts at the top, which means our leaders must have a culture of responsible mining engrained in their daily communications with employees. We look forward to increasing the presence of defenses within the system, environment, and processes, and encourage employees across our global operations to keep safety at the forefront.”
