AngloGold Ashanti’s safety performance has improved significantly since the company launched its ‘Safety is our First Value’ initiative in late 2007. However, ensuring the safety and health of employees remains one of our most important and ongoing business goals, and the company recognises the need to make a further step change in its performance in this area. In order to achieve this, a company-wide safety transformation programme is being implemented, with external and internal stakeholder engagement a critical part of the process.

Initiated in April 2008, AngloGold Ashanti’s Safety Transformation project is an ongoing programme which seeks to engage people to work collectively to design a new approach to safety in the company. Working safely and ensuring the health and wellness of employees requires us in the first instance to create a conversational culture, in which many voices can participate to make a meaningful contribution to designing the way we work, and to protect ourselves from both known and unexpected risks.

From the outset, the concept of engagement has been central to the Safety Transformation project. The first phase of the project was an initial review of AngloGold Ashanti’s approach to safety. One-on-one interviews, focus group workshops, and scenario planning sessions were held with key external stakeholders and with employees representing broad vertical and horizontal sections of the company. These interactions took place prior to the design phase of the project, and have been continued on an ongoing basis as the project has progressed. A detailed stakeholder engagement plan has been developed for the roll out of the programme, along with a communications plan.

Key questions which formed the basis of the initial interactions with external stakeholders included: Where are we now? Where do we want to be? What do we need to get there? How will we make this happen? As well as external consultants, stakeholders who have participated in the process include representatives from employee organisations, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) in South Africa, and a range of international leaders in the field of organisation safety.

The engagements formed the inputs into the Safety BluePrint which was signed off by the company’s executive in April 2009. The BluePrint articulates the company’s strategic intent on safety, health and wellness and sets out guiding principles and focus areas for transformation.

The Safety BluePrint established the context for further engagement in the detailed design of the transformation process. A total of 27 concept papers form the basis of a common language to be developed for safety across the organisation. In the development of each concept paper, working groups were established ensuring geographical, line, technical and vertical representation of employees. The concept papers were completed by November 2009, and collectively involved some 500 employees across AngloGold Ashanti. In addition to enabling the development of a common language, the concept papers formed the foundation of a defined strategy and detailed project charters for the implementation and roll out of the new approach to managing human risk, beginning in 2010.

The project manager, Brian Chicksen – vice president: safety, explains some of the challenges of the project: “The process is one of continuous learning. We engage with others in order to overcome challenges and develop new insights. A challenge faced has been in moving from the traditional command and control culture to changing the way we think, communicate and interact with each other. This requires the strengthening of trust across the organisation. It also requires tools to support the new conversational culture, and allowing solutions to be developed through conversations rather than prescription”.

Safety transformation is thus an ongoing journey, where the engagement of people is facilitated by leadership and supported by organisational systems, as we continuously learn within a conversational culture. On this journey we seek to become the best risk “navigators”, through a fully engaged and mindful workforce.