Hatch hosts inaugural Working Together Safely Forum

Toronto, Canada—Hatch recently hosted the inaugural Working Together Safely forum in Toronto, Canada in advance of the World Day for Safety and Health at Work. Clients, partners, and suppliers gathered to share ideas, successes, and lessons learned so that together we can advance our industries’ common health and safety challenges.

By bringing together experts from different facets of our industries, we’re building a community with a multitude of perspectives and sharing real-world experiences that will help us support our industries as we work toward the goal of no harm. Conversations throughout the day focused on fatality prevention, ramifications of the legalization of marijuana, contractor management practices, client safety programs and processes, current innovative trends, executive-level commitments to safety, and more.

One thing was clear from the day: We have new and exciting opportunities to make a real step-change in the health and safety of our workers. Digitization and the introduction of emerging technologies was investigated, including drones, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality. We see great opportunities in these technologies—providing us with improved training abilities and access to areas of a site or operation that would have previously been too difficult or dangerous to access.

The other idea that we heard loud and clear from our clients and partners is that we need an increased focus on the health and well-being of our employees. This plays a vital role in the success of them as individuals and of the companies for which they work. The Government of Canada reports that $50 billion per year is the total cost of mental health problems and mental illnesses in Canada. In 2015, a three-year Mining Mental Health study was launched, a joint initiative of Vale, the United Steelworkers, and the Centre for Research in Occupational Health and Safety. Little research has been done in this area and the hope is that it will provide insight into the mental health and well-being of those working in the mining industry, and hopefully is a catalyst for further discussion in this industry and others like it.

The forum was an opportunity to get the discussion started. It’s up to us now to keep it going. We’ll be looking for opportunities to work together to deliver on some of these initiatives. And we’ll be hosting more forums like this one in future. If you’d like to be involved, please contact us.

For more information, please contact:

Glenn Sakaki

Global Director, Marketing & Communication
Tel: +1 905 403 4241
Email: media@hatch.com

About Hatch

Whatever our clients envision, our engineers can design and build. With over six decades of business and technical experience in the mining, energy, and infrastructure sectors, we know your business and understand that your challenges are changing rapidly. We respond quickly with solutions that are smarter, more efficient and innovative. We draw upon our 9,000 staff with experience in over 150 countries to challenge the status quo and create positive change for our clients, our employees, and the communities we serve.

Find out more on www.hatch.com.