Jan. 1, 2022. HCC Mining and Demolition has surpassed five calendar years without a single lost time injury, a job-related injury that results in time away from work. HCC’s continually progressive safety culture combined with notable collaborative efforts of its clients and the Saskatchewan Mining Association, has laid the foundation to make safety a core value for all HCC employees.
“The number one priority at HCC is to ensure everyone gets home safely – every day, and in everything we do," said HCC Chief Operating Officer, Brennan Miller. "In 2021 alone, our employees at all of our client sites worked safely for close to 300,000 hours. That is a remarkable achievement, and we are all immensely proud of our team."
In addition to keeping employees safe and healthy at the mines, Miller said HCC promotes a safety culture that extends across its office and shop employees as well as beyond the workplace. “Ensuring everyone’s health, safety, and well-being is always something we should view as a challenge. We strive for incremental improvements every day in areas like communication, incident investigation, hazard recognition, safety and equipment training, quality of supervision, mental health awareness, and improving our recruitment process – all things that ultimately contribute to keeping our people safe and healthy.”
Gary Sambrook, HCC’s Health and Safety Manager, who has been with HCC for 10 years, said that the key to successfully building HCC’s safety culture has been to focus on behavioural based safety. Sambrook explained, “Observers, typically safety professionals or supervisors, note safe and unsafe behaviours and workplace conditions, share the findings with the employees, and encourage positive two-way feedback. Discussing ways in which employees can perform tasks in a safer manner helps them to become more aware of their behaviour and actions. The continuous two-way communication allows observers and employees to provide input on improving safety to each other, with the goal of continually improving the program.”
Miller added, “Even though we’ve achieved a significant milestone, we need to make sure we don’t become complacent and, frankly speaking, we’re still not where we want to be. We need to keep getting better. Nevertheless, we’re proud to have worked for notable clients like Nutrien, Mosaic, Rio Tinto, and NexGen Energy, who have supported our progression along the way at more than ten different mine sites.”
HCC Mining and Demolition is a Saskatoon-based underground mining contractor, in operation for over twenty years. It is partially owned by Mistawasis Nêhiyawak through its business entity Misty Ventures Inc.