Safety leadership
Rio Tinto Coal Australia firmly believes that leadership for health and safety is a line function and an integral part of management accountability.
Good safety and health leadership is built upon a foundation of solid understanding regarding core skills, competencies, planning and execution.
Rio Tinto Coal Australia has worked collaboratively to develop the Safety Leadership Development Programme (SLDP) which all sites and offices can use to improve the quality of safety leadership at all levels of the business.
To demonstrate genuine safety leadership and commitment, senior leaders are required to drive the development of a strong safety culture by personally leading this programme.
Leaders are required to clearly communicate expectations, model and reinforce required safety behaviours, as well as demonstrate a strong link between safety leadership performance and career opportunities.
The programme focuses on a number of areas in order to develop safety leadership:
- 16 learning modules that take leaders through what they need to know to be effective safety leaders
- Detailed information on the proficiencies required by leaders in relation to the work carried out by the business
- Alignment with the proposed Rio Tinto Health Safety and Environment Quality (HSEQ) Management System, which will be implemented at all sites
- Interactive sessions which reinforce the skills required by a leader
- Messages from various leaders in the business on the aspects covered in the learning modules.
In 2008, our target was to develop the training material to support the programme. The SLDP programme was launched in June 2008 by the managing director and was rolled out across the sites.
As part of the programme, leaders are required to complete a self assessment regarding their safety leadership understanding.
Once the self assessment has been completed, leaders must discuss their assessment results and determine where their safety skills gaps exist and therefore which skills require development.
It is expected that leaders will select their priority gaps, agree on their development plan and commence with the required learning. All existing leaders are expected to have completed the modules by the end of 2009.
