Encouraged to excel

Xstrata is different in several respects, including its search for excellence in all areas. This brings many challenges but also makes us proud to work for the company.

“Responsibility and accountability, this means doing what we say we will do.”

A search for excellence

We have a management framework, with a level of decentralised accountability and a level of autonomy that is much higher than in other companies of the same size. This is what really makes us different. It allows us to share a lot of ideas, improve our systems and introduce new ones. People constantly have ideas they want to put forward. It is one of the elements that make us all feel more valued.

One of the main aspects that changed when Xstrata acquired Falconbridge, the previous owner of Horne Smelter, was the introduction of a sustainable development management system that enabled us to improve our health and safety performance in a major way. Since, our sustainable development performance levels have improved by around 80%.

A leader in sustainability

If you look at Xstrata’s 17 sustainable development standards, our audited performance rating in 2009 against these was around 45% to 55%; today our performance is around 75%. This has a very important influence on our image, the way we are perceived by the community and how people perceive our company.

When you want to have a performance culture, it’s essential to make people feel responsible for reaching established objectives at every level of the organisation.

We talk about responsibility and accountability, this means doing what we say we will do. At the smelter, our stress is on increasing accountability for greater sustainability. This is something we really work on - we really want to make people more responsible, more accountable for their actions.