HSS at IAMGOLD is comprised of Health and Safety, Community, Environment and Security. These departments are supported by corporate leaders and managed by site practitioners.
These functions ultimately report in to the SVP of Health, Safety and Sustainability who in turn reports in to the HSS Committee of the Board and the Executive Leadership Team. While we do have corporate-driven guidelines, standards and reporting, we believe in central guidance and local empowerment.
What drives the IAMGOLD Health, Safety and Sustainability strategy? How do we determine our priorities? How are decisions made within the organization? How are best practices translated into action at the ground level?
These are the questions we continue to ask ourselves in order to get better at what we do. The strategy and decision-making process is both a dynamic and participatory process at IAMGOLD, and is driven from the bottom up and the top down.
Setting the Agenda, Collaboratively
Establishing our priorities and objectives is an evolving and interactive process. How do we decide what is important? First and foremost, we listen to our stakeholders – employees, communities, shareholders and civil society groups – for guidance. We also benchmark ourselves against other companies and speak to leading thinkers and organizations to stay current with general performance and legal requirements.
Perhaps our most important source for generating new priorities and developing strategy in the health, safety and sustainability field is our team of HSS practitioners from our sites around the world.
HSS Global Annual Workshop
Every year, our HSS practitioners gather in one location to share best practices, lessons learned and new ideas. Hosted as an interactive, multi-day workshop, our teams from Africa, South America and North America have the opportunity not only to share and learn from each other, but also to help IAMGOLD set the health & safety and sustainability objectives for the coming years.
While representatives from the corporate office bring the perspective of international and institutional stakeholders (such as INGOs and socially responsible investors), practitioners from our operations highlight the risks, challenges and opportunities they face with more local stakeholder groups. By mixing the two unique perspectives, IAMGOLD is able to develop strategies that accommodate both groups of stakeholders. The process helps ensure that strategies are realistic, actionable and fully embraced by the operations.