• Sustainability: People

    Safety Health & Wellness

Safety, Health and Wellness Approach:
Our commitments and practices

Safety strategies in five core areas
Our goal is a workplace free of injuries and high potential incidents. Endeavour has a long-established safety management system specifically designed for our mining activities. Safety is a non-stop effort, and we are working to improve in areas identified by a recent third-party safety audit of our operations. We need to be a more risk aware and risk competent organization, where safety is a central driver of behaviours, relationships, systems and knowledge at all levels of our company.

We have developed an enhanced safety initiative under a new cultural program called “Te Cuido”, meaning “I take care for you”. We are implementing safety strategies in five core areas between 2021-2024:

  1. Leadership: We are building value-driven safety leadership through enhanced behavioral and performance guidelines for leaders, more training and awareness-building, and feedback and measurement tools to evaluate the effectiveness of leaders at all levels.

  2. Accountability: We are further integrating our safety and operational management systems to create a continuous reporting and improvement process.

  3. Risk competency – behaviors: The behavior of our people is the ultimate measurement of safety and a resilient safety culture. We are increasing risk competencies, strengthening safety coaching and peer observation processes, and introducing champions-for-safety models that will ensure high levels of employee ownership of safety projects, interventions and systems.

  4. Risk competency – systems: We are establishing a risk-management system to better support the changing nature of physical and behavioral risks. Our focus is on improving business processes, rapid risk reduction and the management cycle of goal setting, planning, delegating, reviewing and reporting.

  5. Learning environment: We are working to reduce safety risks through engineering, systems, behaviors and lessons learned.

Strategies and Deployment

Leadership:

Value-driven safety leadership

  • Senior leadership education courses
  • Supervisor education courses
  • Coaching our people
Accountability:

Intergration of safety and operational management systems

  • Move safety to line management
  • Senior management involvement in process, systems, operations and reporting
Risk Competency - Behaviours:

A mature and resilient safety culture

  • Step back & take control
  • Positive recognition
Risk Competency - System:

Establish a risk-based management system

  • Internal documents aligned to ISO standards
  • Critical risk control protocols and organizational deployment
Learning Environment:

Reduce risks through engineering, systems, behaviours, and lessons learned

  • Communicate and implement improvements and corrective actions
  • Investigation - eye on risk
Robust safety standards and oversight

Our commitment to workplace health and safety is outlined in our health and safety policy, which is part of our broader Sustainability Policy. This commitment includes developing and maintaining, in collaboration with our workforce, robust standards, procedures and controls at each site to manage health and safety risks.

We employ safety managers, coordinators, and superintendents at each operating mine. They are supported by management, the trade union, safety committees and other groups that conduct activities such as risk reviews, audits, emergency response and mine rescue.

We conduct daily risk assessments and inspections across our mine sites to identify and eliminate potential hazards. For example, employees and contractors must complete a job safety analysis and a five-point checklist to verify that safe conditions exist prior to starting work. To prevent rock falls, we prohibit working in unstable and unsupported areas and we employ ground support techniques, including rock bolts, cables, mesh, and shotcrete to ensure safe underground workplaces.

Management oversees a monthly inspection program administered by the safety department. Senior management regularly follows up with these inspections to ensure our teams comply with our Policies and Procedures. The Safety and Hygiene Commission, mandated by Mexican law, meets once per month to audit facilities for safety and health compliance and to identify areas of opportunity or concern. The commission then recommends appropriate actions and plans.

Endeavour maintains alcohol and drug policies that prohibit their use at all sites; we do random testing of workers’ blood levels to ensure compliance.

Building a positive safety culture

Safety is everyone's responsibility at Endeavour, and we believe our leadership must drive this message by example. We continually invest time and resources to engage with our employees, contractors, and stakeholders to ensure safety is a priority at all times. We empower our people to proactively take the necessary steps to ensure safe measures, including stopping work and speaking up when they see an unsafe condition or action. The core message of Endeavour's Te Cuido ("I take care of you") safety culture is "Step back and take control".

Over one-third of our workforce participates in safety groups, committees, and mine rescue programs. We train all employees and contractors on safety issues. Some of this training is tailored to employees' specific roles. Upon joining Endeavour, all employees and contractors participate in a three-day induction program, which focuses on workplace safety. We provide continual safety education and interactive discussions about safety equipment, activities and recognizing and resolving hazardous situations. Each employee also takes annual refresher training or a "reinduction program" at the start of each calendar year.

Emergency response plans and teams are in place for each mine, process plant, construction site and exploration site. All employees and contractors receive first aid training as part of the new hire/induction process. Many employees are trained as responders for emergency situations in nearby communities.

Expectations for Contractors and Suppliers

Our health and safety program extends to contractors and suppliers. Anyone working for, and on behalf of, Endeavour must follow the same policy, standards and procedures we have established for health and safety. We proactively communicate these expectations to contractors and suppliers, including through our contracts with them.

Beyond those requirements, contractors need to participate in additional safety activities. For example, contractors must:

  • complete our induction program covering safety topics
  • follow Endeavour’s safety measures in their areas of work
  • undergo safety inspections, in which any issues or concerns are documented and subsequently need to be resolved

If at any point we determine that a contractor is not following our health and safety policy, standards and procedures, Endeavour will issue a warning or sanction, or even terminate the contract if the safety violation is of high risk.

On-site medical support

Each mine has a physician, trained paramedics, first aid clinic and ambulance in case of medical evacuation. The physicians and paramedics conduct screening and case management, medical exams, monitor specific health indicators for all employees and check occupational health and hygiene in the workplace. This monitoring ranges from organ function to lower back testing, as well as observing bio-markers (lead in blood and other blood chemistry) of our employees who work in labs or smelting facilities (twice per year). Physicians and paramedics are key participants in incident, accident and emergency response actions. 

We investigate and evaluate every incident to identify root causes and implement corrective or preventative actions to address any problems. Endeavour has a rigorous tracking system of incidents that happen and ensures that all are investigated. Incident tracking results and trends are presented in monthly reports to leadership.

Wellness and mental health

Complementing our occupational safety strategies, we offer a wellness program that provides benefits and resources to support the mental and physical well-being of our workforce. The program includes mental health campaigns and counselling, wellness-related resources, fitness initiatives, prostrate and cholesterol screening, and flu vaccinations.

We provide convenient access to professional health care and advice. Our on-site physicians at each mine offer all workers annual medical exams, including X-rays, spirometry, audiometry and physicals. Community members also benefit. Our medical professionals work with our community relations team to support local medical campaigns, health education and off-site medical emergencies in surrounding communities

Mental health is critical to ensure our workers are alert, safe and engaged on the job. We provide workplace supports to help our workers deal with potential mental health challenges. Many of our efforts are guided by the new Mexican Standard on Psychological Risk Factors at the Workplace, NOM-035-STPS. We are committed to expanding mental health best practices across our company and maintaining mental wellness as an ongoing focus.