Safety, health and wellbeing

	Successes		Challenges		Objectives 2012
	SAFETY
	57% improvement in fatal injury frequency rate (FIFR) 2 and 2A Shaft in Rustenburg, and Zimplats’ Ngwarati and Rukodzi mines and Processing achieved zero lost time injuries (LTIs) during the year More than 90% compliance with the Five Platinum Road Rules, compared to 35% compliance in FY2010 Increase in safety trophy awards for achieving safety targets, with four platinum trophies, five gold medals issued in the current year 11.4% improvement in total injury frequency rate (TIFR).		Behaviour change not yet embedded 7% deterioration in the lost-time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) Seven fatalities in FY2011.		Retain the safety strategy of changing the culture to compliance and improving the supervision across the Group Roll out the DuPont STOP® intervention Achieve all safety targets including a 20% year-on-year LTIFR improvement Increase compliance with Platinum Rules to 100% Implement technical interventions of roofbolting in UG2 stopes and personnel detection systems in trackless areas Target a 20% year-on-year improvement on the LTIFR.
	HEALTH AND WELLNESS
	46% increase in uptake of antiretroviral treatment (ART) across the Group exceeding target of a 10% increase 23% increase in wellness programme uptake Implement new medical management system ensuring effective healthcare management Implementation of a holistic wellness programme 14% increase in Impala Medical Plan membership to a total of 19 000 members 47% decrease in NIHL 12% decrease in new TB cases 106% rise in VCT.		388 people on medical incapacitation for the year 2011 131 AIDS-related deaths.		Mitigate the risk of occupational illness Further mitigation of HIV/AIDS pandemic Increase employees on ART by 10% from the 2011 base Ensure 100% compliance with wellness and ART treatment regimes Increase medical aid membership by 5% Continue with silencing of underground equipment across the Group to achieve the 2013 industry milestones.

Our philosophy

Our belief is that behaviour and principles that are applied in one’s daily life translate into the workplace, and as such our health and safety programmes transcend the workplace into the communities in which we operate.

• Changing the culture within the Company and country to one where safety and health is the priority, and ensuring that our supervisory systems and skills can support this
• Ensuring compliance with safety and health rules and procedures by all employees in all facets of their lives so as to eliminate fatalities at work and significantly reduce the incidence of accidents and occupational health disease
• Providing world-class occupational health and emergency response systems and facilities for our employees, and access to comprehensive healthcare to our employees and their dependants
• Addressing potentially life-threatening diseases in a holistic way as part of the Group’s broad healthcare management strategy to ensure employee wellbeing at and beyond work. These diseases include TB, HIV/AIDS, cholera and malaria.

Management approach

Ensuring the safety and health of our employees and promoting their overall wellbeing is a key strategic objective for the Group. We believe that it is possible to mine safely, and this philosophy of zero harm underpins our approach. To achieve this objective we need to develop and sustain a culture where safety is considered a priority by employees and management alike, and where non-compliance with safety standards is not tolerated at any level within the organisation.

Given the tolerance for high risk behaviour in general among South Africans, the cultural shift that is needed in the attitude to safety extends beyond the workplace. A study undertaken at Implats’s operations indicated that attitudes towards discipline, alcohol and drug abuse, violence and disease (such as HIV/AIDS) need to be considered in a holistic approach to employee wellbeing, and addressed to ensure a step-change in developing a safety and health-conscious culture.

In support of this cultural shift, we have an unequivocal approach to non-compliance with rules and standards. Each work area has a set of Platinum Rules in place; these are cardinal rules, whose breach can result in serious safety and health consequences, and which are enforceable through disciplinary action. Safety and health standards guide practices within working places and have been developed in line with best practice and to meet the requirements of the Mine Health and Safety Act (MHSA).

Underpinning our processes and procedures is a comprehensive system of occupational healthcare surveillance aimed not only at the early detection and treatment of occupational disease, but also at preventing such disease in the first place. By addressing employee healthcare and occupational health in a holistic way we aim to ensure the overall wellbeing of employees and their families, both during their association with the Company, and well beyond that. Thus, our healthcare focus extends beyond the workplace into a broad healthcare management strategy encompassing all life-threatening illnesses and disease, including hypertension, diabetes, TB, HIV/AIDS, malaria, cholera and others.

• At Board level, the Health, Safety and Environment Committee guides strategy and reviews performance on a quarterly basis – see the Corporate Governance in the Integrated Annual Report 2011
• A Group Health, Safety and Environment executive guides the Group’s strategy, while specialist Group and operational level safety and health personnel guide and support line management in the implementation of this strategy, and the monitoring and management of performance
• Safety and health is ultimately the responsibility of line management, in close association with employees’ unions and the DMR. Operations-based Safety and Health committees, which function in accordance with the MHSA, play an active role in safety and health strategy and performance management. In FY2011, there were a total of 33 full-time union-elected safety stewards and 3 760 part-time safety representatives in place across the Group. In addition, the Company appointed 85 trained safety officers to ensure on-the-ground supervision. Safety and health agreements are in place at all operations, dealing with standards and procedures, discipline, accident investigations and safety and health planning, ensuring that all employees can and do play a role in safety and health management.

Access to comprehensive healthcare facilities is available to employees and their dependants. Depending on the location of the operations, this may be provided through in-house facilities or externally contracted suppliers. At the Group’s Rustenburg operations, there is a 240-bed Department of Health-accredited hospital, providing extensive medical, surgical and orthopaedic care.

Given the increase in women in mining and the rising number of dependants making use of these facilities, the hospital also has ante-natal and paediatric wards. Thirteen full-time doctors provide extensive health and surgical care, with both on-site and near-site specialists available.

Supporting these healthcare functions are fully staffed clinics located in proximity to both work and accommodation. The clinics are equipped to provide immediate response in the workplace in the event of an emergency, supported by the healthcare professionals and emergency response teams.

Comprehensive occupational health screening and care is provided through occupational health centres. Services include digital X-rays, audiograms and basic health screening. At Impala’s Rustenburg operations, some R2 million is being spent in setting up a physical work capacity assessment centre, which will start operating during FY2012. The centre’s work is based on research carried out in the South African mining industry, and will provide better, objective measures for determining employees’ capacity for work.

Performance in FY2011

SAFETY

Strategic initiatives – changing culture; improving supervision
Following on the DuPont assessment, our strategy is aimed at changing our safety culture and, in conjunction with this, ensuring that the appropriate supervisory structures and skills are in place to encourage and support this objective of closing the supervisory gap.

• 100% compliance with the non work-related Platinum Road Rules: These Five Platinum Rules focus on ensuring that basic safety road rules are adhered to and any non-compliances are reported. We believe that adherence to safety rules extends beyond the workplace and that the road behaviour is a good indicator of the safety behaviour of our mainly supervisory level employees.
  The rules include the wearing of seatbelts, not talking on mobile phones while driving, keeping to the speed limit, observing stop signs and observing solid white lines. A total of 1 934 road behaviour observations were conducted during the year and improved results showed a 90% compliance in FY2011, compared with 34% in FY2010
• Visible safety behaviour: Leaders are assessed on their demonstration of a commitment to zero tolerance. As part of our programme to promote organisational change and instil in our leadership a belief that it is possible to mine without injuries, 14 of our general managers from the South African operations visited a DuPont site in Germany which has changed its safety culture to one which has enabled the site to operate without lost-time injuries
• Safety training: During the gap assessment undertaken by DuPont the behaviour-based safety programmes at the Rustenburg operations and at Marula were identified as no longer being effective. Both these operations have evaluated and customised the DuPont STOP® programme and training of all E and D level leaders at these operations was completed by June 2011 and incorporated into management KPIs
• Safety communication:The safety communication process in place includes formal safety communications and a standards briefing system. Management, with the assistance of the health, safety and environment representatives, are responsible for the management of communication.

An assessment of the change in leadership culture was undertaken by DuPont in May 2011. The results show that our leadership safety culture has improved in all six of the dimensions from the 2009 baseline measured by DuPont. The overall safety culture of leadership has also progressed from a dependent culture to an independent one on DuPont’s Bradley curve.

A critical hurdle to the achievement of our safety objectives has been an identified gap in supervision. To address this issue, over 3 500 dedicated safety officers have been appointed and allocated to each operational area to support line management. The aim is to ensure continuity of advice and audit follow up, which can be lost in a rotational system. Second and third-party audit teams were also established, tasked with conducting independent on-the-job observations and investigations of LTIs. These audit teams mitigate the risk of familiarity and the lack of independence that can occur once a safety officer becomes part of a team. All LTIs are investigated by line management and selected incidents undergo third-party audits.

An important feature of our approach in developing our culture has been the implementation of a central system of recognition and reward where an analogy is drawn between the dedication and focus required in achieving world-class safety performance and winning a medal at the Olympic Games. This easy-to-understand system provides not only a benchmark across the Group, but also encourages improved commitment and performance. Four operational areas achieved a platinum trophy (0 LTIFR for 12 months) in FY2011; four operational areas achieved a gold medal (LTIFR of less than 1); three achieved a silver medal (LTIFR of less than 2) and four achieved a bronze medal (LTIFR of less than 3).

Pursuing compliance to achieve significant performance improvement

While we understand that there is always room for improvement in standards and procedures and we will actively seek these, there is also little doubt that if standards and procedures were complied with, far fewer accidents would occur. Achieving compliance is therefore a critical area of focus across the Group.

It is with deep regret that we advise that eight of our employees died in work-related accidents during the year. In FY2010, 15 Implats employees died. While this year’s performance is a significant improvement on the previous year, and is the best performance in the Group’s history, we believe that any loss of life is unacceptable. We will strive to eliminate all fatal accidents.

• The Group’s fatal injury frequency rate (FIFR) improved by 57% on the previous year, from 0.12 per million hours worked to 0.05 per million hours worked
• The LTIFR has risen by 7% from 4.61 per million hours worked to 4.94 per million hours worked
• Restricted work cases (RWCs) reduced by 30%
• The total injuries rate, a measure of all injuries including medical treatment cases, improved by 11.4%.

Investigations conducted into the causes of these accidents have revealed the following: Breaches of safety procedures and non-compliance Inadequate supervision and poor accountability by personnel Generally poor levels of fitness in some employees due to illness. The necessary corrective measures were taken for all critical incidents and disciplinary action was instituted in some instances. In memoriam   The following employees died during the course of work during FY2011. We extend our sincere condolences to their families, friends and colleagues.   Mr Motlhanke Maku died in a fall of ground accident on 7 July 2010 at Impala Rustenburg’s 4 Shaft   Mr Innocent Ndlovu died in an accident dealing with explosives, on 5 September 2010 at the Mimosa Mine (Zimbabwe)  Mr Alfiado Bacitela died in an equipment-falling accident on 17 September 2010 at Impala Rustenburg’s 11 Shaft   Mr Mankoene Nkhoaneng died after being overcome by methane gas on 21 October 2010 at Impala Rustenburg’s 11 Shaft   Mr Gadeni Hlophe died in a fall of ground accident on 1 November 2010 at Impala Rustenburg’s 11 Shaft   Mr Mvesilo Mswedi died in an accident related to falling equipment on 20 December 2010 at Impala Rustenburg’s 14 Shaft   Mr Michael Molokwane died in an accident involving an LHD on 25 February 2011 at Impala Rustenburg’s 14 Shaft.   Mr Rui Wamba Tila died in a fall of ground accident on 25 June 2011 at Impala Rustenburg 5 Shaft. This fatality occurred subsequent to the current year-end statistical close and will be included in the reported statistics for financial year 2012.   Fatal injury frequency rate (FIFR)   Per million hours worked   FY2011   FY2010   Impala Rustenburg   0.06   0.17   Impala Springs   0.00   0.00   Marula   0.00   0.00   Mimosa   0.10   0.00   Zimplats   0.00   0.00   Group   0.05   0.12

While these lagging indicators are clearly of critical importance, we have continued to focus on implementing and refining leading indicators of performance, among them stoppages, alcohol testing, road behaviour checks, safety meetings, induction training and safety representative training.

An important catalyst in changing our safety culture is the implementation of internal stoppages, largely by our newly appointed safety officers. Another measure of performance in our zero tolerance approach has been the implementation of alcohol and drug testing practices that randomly test 10% of all employees on a monthly basis. A disciplinary code dealing specifically with reckless driving, gross safety misconduct and working under the influence of alcohol has been implemented. Ongoing monitoring has been implemented, progress is tracked and disciplinary action taken. Unfortunately, some employees had to be dismissed through this process. However, good progress is being made with safety rule compliance and road behaviour has improved from 35% compliance to over 90% compliance by year end.

The Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) has the authority to impose stoppages of either sections or all of operations, or to stop certain activities taking place in terms of section 54a of the Mine Health and Safety Act. We recognise that these actions are relevant and necessary to improve safety and health across the industry. In FY2011, a total of 58 section 54 instructions were issued stopping work at sections of or all of operations, resulting in the loss of approximately 158 days of lost production at Impala’s Rustenburg operations (FY2010: 187 days) and 17 days of production at Marula (FY2010: 8 days) due to shaft closures. This translates into a production loss of around 17 000 ounces.

Health

MANAGING OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH RISKS IN THE WORKPLACE, AND PREVENTING OCCUPATIONAL ILLNESS

All employees have access to comprehensive occupational health screening and treatment through site-based clinics and Company or contracted occupational health centres, hospitals and specialists.

The Company provides health benefits through the Impala Medical Plan and other external medical schemes. The plan has 19 000 members and reserves of 27.5%. In the year under review, more employees were encouraged to enrol in the plan. A total of 2 358 new members signed up, representing a 14% increase in membership.

Annual occupational health surveillance of employees and contractors ensures that they are fit for work in their specific environments and occupations, and that occupational ill-health is detected early and receives immediate attention. This surveillance covers the assessment of chronic occupational airway diseases (COADs), silicosis, which is associated with previous long-term experience in gold mining, noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), which is associated with exposure to noise above 110dBA, and heat stress, resulting from exposure to high temperatures for a prolonged period of time. The assessment also includes the investigation for the occurrence of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), which is considered an occupational disease when associated with prolonged exposure to dust. An assessment of whether an employee is ‘fit for work’ is conducted by specialist practitioners based on objective measures. Procedures have been reviewed to allow those individuals who are found to be unfit to be temporarily boarded while undergoing treatment so as to assist with their recovery and to enable them to retain their remuneration and benefits. In some cases, employees have opted for permanent incapacitation status. A holistic wellness programme is offered to support those who are found to be unfit for work.

NIHL and TB are the primary occupational health risks at Implats’ operations.

Compliance is critical to the success of these programmes, however, and much effort is focused on education.

The Mine Health and Safety Council (a collaborative industry, government and union body) has put in place a target of zero new NIHL cases post-December 2008. While new cases of NIHL have still been recorded at Impala since then, these have all been within the allowed 10% shift from the baseline established in 2004.

Employees whose baseline hearing loss was established between 2004 and 2006 were re-evaluated in 2009, and a new baseline was established.

In FY2011, 57 new cases of NIHL were diagnosed and submitted for assessment for compensation (FY2010: 107), which is a rate of 0.91  per 1 000 employees. All of these were instances of pre-existing hearing loss that had now reached the compensable threshold.

Of greater concern to the Group is the balance of new cases reported, in light of the fact that many of these cases can be attributed to factors beyond the reach of the Company’s noise reduction initiatives, such as the delayed effects of long-term noise exposure and ageing itself.

Implats Sustainable Development Report 2011|www.implats.co.za