At Teck, we believe that we can operate without fatalities or injuries, a belief found at the heart of our Courageous Safety Leadership (CSL) program.
CSL was introduced in 2009 and today, more than 12,000 employees and contractors across Teck’s operations have participated in the intensive day-long program that challenges existing values, beliefs and attitudes towards safety and outlines the leadership, courage and changes required to instill a true culture of safety.
The second phase of CSL, introduced in 2010, was designed to reinforce the messages and themes of the first phase. Monthly stories were used to relive the CSL journey that every employee had taken during 2009. The stories were based on real-life experiences from across Teck’s operations and selected based on their ability to illustrate the steps within the CSL journey: values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, culture, leadership and courage. Each story was chosen for its ability to capture people’s attention, develop emotional connections, and provide insights on a CSL topic. These stories were then turned into short videos that could be shared across Teck’s operations.
The videos were screened during team meetings, and employees were encouraged to discuss the lessons from the video and how they applied to their own safety or that of their colleagues.
The videos and resulting discussions were, by design, intended to encourage self reflection and analysis of existing beliefs and attitudes toward safety to help us continue our journey towards operating without fatalities or serious injuries.
In addition to monthly safety topics, our senior leaders, supervisors and management teams also launched the visible, felt leadership initiative, aimed at management engaging directly with employees to discuss and reinforce safety messages and practices.
Courageous Safety Leadership is an ongoing journey. New employees continue to receive CSL Phase 1 training, and monthly safety topics will continue to reinforce CSL lessons.
We believe every injury is preventable. By continuing to protect our people with the proper equipment and empowering all employees to continually improve the safety of their working environment, we will reach our goal: Everyone Going Home Safe and Healthy Every Day.
This case study was originally published in our 2010 Sustainability Report.
