The job market for engineers is strongest in Western Canada according to data in the recently released report, Engineering Labour Market in Canada: Projections to 2020.

Sponsored by Randstad Engineering in conjunction with Engineers Canada, the report shows that there is job growth in that sector in British Columbia, Alberta, and the prairie provinces.

Here are some highlights:

Saskatchewan
Engineering markets in Saskatchewan are more cyclical and more varied, but supply constraints are an issue. Resource projects are absorbing all available engineers—especially mining engineers. Saskatchewan is a small market with big project demands that come and go. Local post-secondary programs are not able to keep pace. Engineering immigration has been limited and strong current demand is reflected as Canadians from other provinces seek jobs and licensure in the province;

Alberta
Along with B.C., Alberta is the strongest engineering market in Canada. There was strong engineering job growth in the past year, however there are ongoing shortages and recruiting challenges for engineers with five to 10 years of experience or specialized skills. Growth in enrolments in post secondary programs for engineers has lagged behing national trends and may contribute to a tight labour market.

British Columbia
One of the two strongest engineering markets in Canada, B.C. faces skills shortages and volatile markets in resource related occupations like mining, metallurgical, and petroleum engineers. However conditions are more balanced for computer and industrial engineers. B.C employers will need to source engineers from other markets, however it is hard to attract them from other western provinces due to competitive compensation levels;

Manitoba
Expansion demands are concentrated in resource and utility projects. Construction, particularly in electrical generation and transmission, is a big driver. Labour markets are divided with ongoing shortages and recruiting challenges for engineers with five to 10 years of experience or specialized skills.

On a national basis, expansion demand is expected to create an additional 16,000 jobs for engineers by 2020. Virtually all of these jobs will be west of Quebec, with the bulk of them in Alberta and British Columbia. Alberta specifically has lagged behind national trends in enrolments in engineering programs and an additional 900 engineers are needed annually to balance market demand. In Manitoba, increased construction activity, in particular in electricity generation and transmission, is leading to increased need for qualified engineers.

"Employers in British Columbia will need to source engineers from other markets for much of the coming decade," said Stephen McCrum, Vice President, Western Canada, Randstad Engineering. "The focus will be on specialized and experienced engineers to replace retiring workers." The average age of employers in British Columbia is higher than in other provinces, raising replacement demand.

"In Saskatchewan specifically, engineering markets are in a state of flux," McCrum said. "It is a small market, with big project demands that come and go. Local engineering programs are not meeting the cyclical demands of the market as Canadians from other provinces seek engineering jobs in Saskatchewan."

The report suggests that markets will function better if human resources planning for engineers includes;

• Retaining older engineers in the workforce longer and adding to programs to accelerate on-the-job training of new graduates,
• Adapting post-secondary programs to meet the specialized needs of employers, and
• Increasing the supply of engineers in western Canada, through post-secondary programs and immigration.

The report takes an in-depth look at the country's current and projected engineering labour market conditions. It includes a detailed forecast of markets and key projects, along with changes in output and employment across Canada, from 2011 to 2020. It also features a thorough outlook that factors in economic and industry growth along with retirements and skill sets. It includes economic background with a detailed forecast of international conditions, commodity and financial markets, and a list of key industrial, resource, infrastructure, and other projects.

Glenn Rogers appreciated his small-town life in the Maritimes. But the lure of big dollars in Alberta was too strong to resist after his employer of 18 years shut down.

“I didn’t really look outside the mill until I was given no choice,” says Rogers, who worked as an instrument technician at the Minas Basin Pulp and Power paper mill until Friday, when it closed.

The manufacturer of recycled paper products employed 135 people in Hantsport, a town of 1,160. About 40 of them were offered jobs at CKF Inc., a local paper and foam plate maker and the mill’s sister company.

Rogers, 41, is now working at the Kearl Lake oilsands project in northern Alberta earning between $60 and $70 per hour — double the wages of what he was offered in Nova Scotia.

“You have a family to feed,” he said. “You go where you have to go and you have to do what you have to do.”

The closure of the 85-year-old Minas Basin mill is the latest blow for one-industry towns that have seen the economy pass them by, adding to the westward migration of skilled workers and draining the coffers of struggling communities.

It is the third paper mill to shut down in Nova Scotia in a year.

In June, Montreal-based Resolute Forest Products announced the closure of its paper mill formerly known as Bowater in Brooklyn, N.S., throwing 320 people out of work. That came despite a $50-million provincial government offer to the company, $23.75 million of which was spent to buy about 10,000 hectares of land.

The former NewPage Port Hawkesbury paper mill in Point Tupper, N.S., resumed operations in October under a new name after it was bought by Vancouver-based Pacific West Commercial Corp. The mill has roughly half the workers it once employed, and that came after a $124.5-million assistance package from the provincial government.

The closures in Atlantic Canada aren’t relegated to paper mills. Just this past Friday, High Liner Foods Inc. shuttered a fish plant in the southern Newfoundland town of Burin, saying the facility was expensive to operate because of its isolated location and distance from the marketplace.

About 140 people lost their jobs in the community of 2,400.

As the plants close, the small-town dream fades for many, says Arne Jensen, a former construction electrician at the Minas Basin site.

“It’s unbelievable how much money can be made leaving home,” he said.

The 33-year-old has also worked in the West, and said it isn’t difficult for a skilled tradesperson to quickly embrace the interprovincial commuting lifestyle.

“There are a lot of guys from Liverpool and Bowater. They’re out there in Alberta. That’s where you have to go.”

Hantsport Mayor Robbie Zwicker, an engineer at CKF, says he is determined to keep working in his town, despite its challenges.

“I don’t want to become like a lot of my colleagues, doing the Alberta dream. I think it’s just savage,” he said.

“My province has invested good money into my health care and my education. It’s a shame to turn our tax dollars over to the province of Alberta only to return to retire and further burden the local economies.”

As mayor, he faces the immediate task of trying to make up for a $270,000 drop in local tax revenue, about 10 per cent of the town budget, due to the Minas Basin mill closure.

“The small-town model in this province and probably many others may be broken and may be due for a relook,” he says.

He says towns that lose their main industries such as his may need to join regional municipalities, and commuters living just outside the borders of villages and small towns may have to pay higher taxes.

He is marketing Hantsport as a good place for an information technology hub. Driving through the community, he points to the soccer field, four hectares of scenic community grounds, and grand old homes with elegant gables and ornate latticework.

“Hantsport is tied into the Annapolis Valley continuous fibre network,” he says. “The Internet connectivity means you don’t have to be in Toronto or Silicon Valley. It’s a lower cost-of-living, and a great place to raise your kids.”

However, while Zwicker remains optimistic about the town’s prospects, some community leaders are also preparing for the possibility of social problems as a result of job loss and family strain.

Rev. Daniel Jamer, a Baptist minister, says community groups meet regularly in hopes of heading off social ills ranging from depression to suicide.

“This has created a lot of pain and struggle for people,” he said. “People are asking, ‘Can I stay here? Must I go someplace else?”’

Jamer says becoming a community of migrant workers to Alberta isn’t the solution.

“Financially it relieves pressures, but there’s more to life than money. In a family relationship there are strains from that life.”

Robert Younker, a 47-year-old resident of Liverpool, N.S., lost his job when the Bowater mill closed and now works on contracts that take him around the province doing environmental testing and construction work.

He says there’s growing concern in the Maritimes about workers moving out of their communities and taking spending dollars with them.

“If I’m not working I’m not taking my family out to supper, I’m not travelling as much, I’m not buying fuel at the local gas station,” Younker says.

He holds out hope that Liverpool will find a way to bounce back and gradually replace the paper industry jobs.

“I can’t imagine going anywhere else,” he says.

Liverpool has a deepwater harbour, and the Nova Scotia government recently acquired the Bowater mill’s former assets, including 220,000 hectares of land it hopes can be used by the forestry industry.

Premier Darrell Dexter has also said that he believes the Port Hawkesbury mill is poised to thrive under new ownership as it focuses on glossy supercalendered paper for the magazine and catalogue market.

But skilled workers like Rogers say they’re not planning to submit applications in the paper industry.

And Terry Gerhardt, the manager of operations who organized the shutdown of the Minas Basin mill, says his career in the paper industry is coming to an end.

“There’s other manufacturing careers out there that I think are possible. I think Nova Scotia is losing a lot of paper experience because people have just had enough,” the 47-year-old says.

“Either you’re going to go out West or it’s time to move on to a different manufacturing field.”

Over the past three years, Barrick Gold Corp. has been on a maintenance improvement journey, taking important steps to improve its maintenance function. Here’s why and how.

Barrick is the world’s largest gold mining company by production and reserves. It’s a Canadian company with its head office in Toronto, but Barrick is truly a global company with 26 operating mines and numerous development projects and exploration activities worldwide. Its vision is to be the world’s best gold company by finding, acquiring, developing and producing quality reserves in a safe, profitable and socially responsible manner.

The Maintenance Challenge
It should not surprise you to learn that the mining industry is capital intensive. Indeed, Barrick has billions of dollars invested in plants, equipment and infrastructure. One large haul truck may cost more than $2.5 million, and Barrick has hundreds of them. A single large tire can cost $60,000. We are currently investing about $7 billion to build two large new mines: Pueblo Viejo in the Dominican Republic and Pascua-Lama on the border of Chile and Argentina. All of this plant and equipment requires on-going maintenance for peak performance and maximum life, so maintenance is one of the largest costs in our business.

The mining environment is rugged and it’s tough on equipment. Blasting and digging generates a lot of dust. Operating conditions include temperatures ranging from –40°C in the mountains of South America to as high as 50°C at some of our Australian sites. Some operations are at high altitude — up to 5,500 metres above sea level at our South American operations. In all of these conditions, our equipment works hard. These conditions can affect reliability and performance. In every sense of the word, our maintenance challenge is significant!

Good maintenance makes good business sense because it improves safety and equipment reliability, and that improves production uptime. Planned and regular preventive maintenance ensures safe and smooth running of equipment and processes.

Lack of proper maintenance can result in bad outcomes in terms of safety, production and cost. When we experienced a number of mobile-equipment fires, we initiated a major review of our maintenance function and found areas for improvement. Our analysis showed a high level of unplanned maintenance, so we recognized we could reduce our costs with better planning and scheduling. We saw the need to improve training and career opportunities for our maintenance staff to improve their effectiveness and encourage retention.

Barrick, like many other mining companies, has often grown by acquisition. The result was a variety of approaches and practices at various sites. We realized we needed a common set of standards and systems across the company, as well as a standard set of key performance indicators to evaluate and manage performance. We needed to focus on reliability and develop a true strategic asset management approach.

Starting the Journey
So we set out on a maintenance journey. The first step was recognizing these issues and acknowledging the value of the maintenance function. We mapped out the existing maintenance situation at our sites, documenting lists of people and structures.

We brought together the maintenance leaders from each region for a global meeting to start the conversation about how to improve the maintenance function. It was an opportunity to understand their issues and challenges — and to offer support to help drive improvement. Involving everyone up front was critical for gaining momentum for this program.

At the same time, we presented the case to the senior leadership team. Several key points gained their support. Poor maintenance was creating safety issues, such as equipment fires. Poor maintenance was causing breakdowns that interfere with production. Our current spend on maintenance was high because of the percentage of unplanned work. With improved practices, we could actually reduce the overall annual maintenance costs over time. The leaders saw the value and made maintenance improvement a priority for the company.

We developed an asset management policy in consultation with our regional maintenance leadership team. It states our fundamental principles about management of our assets from design to disposal. The policy conveys our belief that all equipment failures are preventable. It also commits the organization to develop clear policies and standards and to provide leadership for implementing the asset management strategy across the organization. It’s signed by our senior executives. This one-page document became our mandate. We distributed it widely, and it’s posted at Barrick sites and regional offices worldwide.

Working with the regional teams, we developed our maintenance management system in late 2009. It sets out the company’s minimum standards for maintenance across the organization. It’s a very useful guide that helps maintenance leaders put the right plans and structures in place to achieve good results. It sets standards for nine key areas, including leadership, structure, strategic planning, performance measurement and others. The system also recognizes the interdependence with other functional areas, such as production and supply chain.

To help everyone work in a standardized way, we needed to implement standardized business processes. We worked closely with our supply chain colleagues to define and enhance our business processes. Then, we needed a single computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) platform — which at Barrick is the Oracle eAM.

Tools and Training
Fundamental to a good business process is the fact that everyone must know and understand their job responsibilities. We reviewed our organizational structure to align the roles and responsibilities across corporate, business regions and sites. Our maintenance management system outlines the recommended organizational structures to support maintenance. We identified gaps and filled those positions.

As we proceeded, we recognized we had a shortage of mechanical and electrical engineers. But just adding more people was not enough. We also needed to make sure their roles were clearly defined and that we had a support structure of training and career development to help them succeed.

We prepared information and tools to help them do their jobs. We developed a set of maintenance standards that cover most of the key topics. These are intended to answer the question, “What does the organization expect from us?” We also developed a series of guidance notes on how to implement important tasks. These are intended to answer the question, “How do I do that?”

We organized all these standards, templates, reference materials, and tools into a Maintenance Knowledge Centre on our company’s intranet site. We included a global contact list, which makes it easy for them to contact each other to discuss common problems and share information. We intend to build on this sense of community through collaborative forums in the future.

The centre includes a set of computer-based training modules on a range of topics, including basic mining, diesel engines, financial analysis, project management and more. We worked closely with some of our OEMs to ensure the training relates specifically to the equipment we use. The modules follow the curriculum for our in-house graduate engineering training program. Each module has a questionnaire that must be completed by the graduate program participants. We track the traffic to see which documents and tools people use. This information helps us enhance the site. All employees, not just maintenance staff, have access to the site and the modules so they can increase their knowledge of maintenance and engineering.

Marketing Our Maintenance
To promote maintenance across the organization, we worked with the our communications department to produce professional materials and to announce our progress through features stories on the intranet and in the corporate global newsletter. These efforts helped us gain and sustain momentum for the program.

The publicity has raised the profile of the maintenance function within Barrick and has helped our maintenance employees feel recognized and appreciated.

We Are Now Here
Members of the global maintenance team have now visited every Barrick site to conduct a site review. During these visits, we assess the site’s activities against the requirements set out in the maintenance management system. We discuss the results with the site managers and develop plans to address any gaps. We don’t approach this like an audit; we approach it like a coaching session. We are there to help the site improve. We monitor the results and document the improvement actions.

We have just commenced our second round of site reviews, and we will track the progress since the first review. The results so far have been encouraging as sites show considerable commitment and improvement. In addition, we recently surveyed maintenance leaders across the organization, and we will use their feedback to further improve.

We’ve come a long way on our maintenance improvement journey. We have a lot of the key foundation elements in place — policy, systems, standards, site reviews, training and other processes. All of our business regions and sites have plans in place to drive maintenance improvement.

The challenge now is to keep the momentum going. It takes time and hard work to implement change in any large organization. We want maintenance improvement to become part of Barrick’s culture. This will ensure work will continue and be independent of individuals.

We are pleased at the progress we have made so far and still have some distance to travel — but we know we’re headed in the right direction and we’re determined to get there. Our success will be rewarding for everyone in the maintenance function, and it will create significant value for our company.

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Robert Cronin is the senior manager of maintenance at Barrick Gold Corp. in Toronto. For more information, visit www.barrick.com.

The Practicing Perfection Institute Inc. (PPI) has established Practicing Perfection Canada Ltd., a partner organization that will offer the full spectrum of human error reduction and human performance enhancement services to Canadian organizations.

Take a look around and you will find that the term “human performance” is everywhere. From the top leaders to the front-line supervisor and the shop floor, excellence in human performance is becoming the edge that organizations need to be on top in the competitive Canadian and international marketplace. In the manufacturing sectors, it is more than that, because while safety in the workplace is paramount, human performance improvement has as much to do with increased productivity and engaged workers as it does with workplace safety. Safety-based training alone, along with technology is not enough without considering the human element — especially in those very routine, day-to-day tasks occurring in the workplace where accidents tend to be more frequent due to complacency.

The concept of human performance improvement is not new, so what is the big deal about the approach Practicing Perfection takes? Culture. Across all levels of an organization, our approach taps into the discretionary effort of its people, which changes the very culture of the organization to one that is not only constantly improving but is positive, productive and self-sustaining.

In the past 10 years, the trend for organizations has been to focus significant effort and finances on keeping up with technology and software without investing enough attention to the largest cost that any organization carries on an ongoing basis: the people on their payrolls.

Recently, our director of operations, Lee Lane (formerly the nuclear oversight manager for operations and maintenance for Ontario Power Generation), attended the American Nuclear Society Utility Working Conference. There was much discussion regarding how the advances in human performance improvement on the human level are lagging behind the pace at which process, training and equipment technology is advancing. Many attempts to improve human performance are made with engineered solutions or management philosophies rather than effective engagement techniques to sustain behaviour changes. While much of the new “virtual reality” learning technology is capturing operating experience, virtual learning alone is not adequate, especially for the next generation of operating staff. Errors are made in the real world. This dilemma is also prevalent in many industrial sectors.

There is so much potential in the Canadian workforce. We have one of the highest educational levels in the world, and yet we don’t often take full advantage of the capabilities and competencies of our staff. This leads to frustration, disengagement and reduced productivity. The real benefit comes when we focus our teamwork and improvement initiatives on the people that have their “hearts, minds and hands directly on the work.” When you attract the desired behaviours through the experiences you provide for your employees, you will achieve the results you are looking for.

When the Practicing Perfection process was initiated in three separate organizations working with 23 different contract firms in the northeastern U.S., they cut their human error rate by 72 percent in 14 months. Three years after the process was implemented, the error rate was still lower. Instead of management dictating the expectations and results they wanted to the staff and expecting them to “perform to expectations,” they engaged the entire team so they wanted to perform at the next level. In fact, staff drove the expectations even higher.

Another key component to this process is effective coaching. Quite often, coaching programs are not usually experiences that employees look forward to, and quite often produce anxiety. Effective coaching comes from caring about the individual who is being coached by helping them to help themselves be successful.

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Corrina Donaldson is the director of training with Practicing Perfection Canada Ltd. For more information, visit www.ppicanada.ca.

After a few years in the doldrums, the Canadian economy is in the initial stages of a wide scale recovery and heightened optimism is returning to the industrial and natural resources sectors. The demand for skilled workers has returned with a vengeance and competition to fill those skills gaps is accelerating. Talent management has never been more important.
 
As we move out of the early recovery into a much more dynamic workplace, we will return to a marketplace driven by employees. The resurgence in the industrial and natural resources sector is here as demand for products, led by the emerging markets, drives these sectors — but a supply of skilled workers will be the most significant challenge the industry will face in the coming years.
 
The facts speak for themselves. According to an assessment of our own figures and a recent report commissioned by Engineers Canada that was sponsored by Randstad Engineering, we are seeing:
 
• Of the eight main engineering disciplines (ranging from civil engineers to industrial and aerospace), in 2010, only two sectors were facing significant supply pressures. But by 2012, that number jumps to four and will continue to climb to six by 2018.

• Randstad Engineering has received 25-percent more permanent hire requests and 77-percent more contract hire requests, across Canada, over the last six months.

• The recovery in manufacturing is related to investment in new technologies and engineers will play a key part in this.

• Chronic labour shortages will continue over the next seven years given the current levels of immigration and post secondary enrolments.

• The workforce for industrial and manufacturing engineers grows as engineers from other disciplines (such as mechanical and chemical) switch sectors in order to find work and gain experience in the industry.

There are hard-hitting challenges for employees and employers alike:
 
1. Demographic shift
One challenge, which has already begun on a limited scale, is the loss of the baby-boom generation to the work force. According to Statistic Canada’s Labour Force Projections for Canada (2006–2031), by the year 2021, nearly one in five workers will be aged 55 or older compared to about one in seven in 2005. With the ageing labour force, Baby Boomers will retire in massive numbers, taking with them some of the most knowledgeable and talented individuals the workforce contains. This presents a key challenge for Canada’s skilled workers. Will employers’ skills needs be met? Will employees be able to realize their aspirations (regarding learning, work and retirement) in their older years? This shift will have a very dramatic effect on the future of the Canadian marketplace.

2. Work-life balance
With today’s new generation of workers, one of the most important changes is the demand for work/life balance. With the desire to have a much greater commitment to family and leisure activities, the ability to meet the increased time commitments of the workplace becomes a real point of contention between employees and potential employers. Employers looking to ensure that they meet this demand are forced to increase their headcount to compensate for the extra work, but also for the absences due to increased commitments for vacation, flexible workdays, training programs and sick days.

In the past, employers were able to work with as little as 10 percent more staff than needed in many industrial settings to cover absent employees; in today’s marketplace, some experts are now quoting as high as 40 percent, which in itself creates more demand for skilled workers. 
 
3. Training/skills opportunities
The changing dynamic of the workplace has also created a greater need for comprehensive training and skills updating programs. With the speed of changing technology, the skills gap between new employees freshly out of post-secondary institutions versus employees who have been in the industry for the past 10 years or more can be extensive. Both employees and employers must deal with the pace of changing technology effectively — or be left behind as the technology gap increases.

Companies lacking the ability to stay current will see their staff leave in order to work for employers that are on the cutting edge, while employees who fail to stay ahead of the curve will lose their ability to advance their careers.
 
4. The talent acquisition challenge
The industry's increased appetite for skilled workers, the ongoing challenge of convincing enough university students to pursue energy-related careers and the considerable demographic shift that is beginning to move Baby Boomers into retirement means companies will need to mine deeper and wider for qualified and talented individuals.
 
The war for talent between companies is, and will continue to be, intense. Talent acquisition and retention has to become a strategic imperative for industrial and natural resources companies. If companies don’t have a strong overall position, they won't attract the right people, they won't retain their quality employees and they won't compete for the best.
 
Industrial employers must change the way they do business with prospective recruits, current employees and their high performers in order to maximize the effectiveness of their workforces. They have to start thinking about being more innovative and creative in how they look at acquiring talent. They also have to ensure that the talented professionals they recruit into their organizations land smoothly into their new roles, remain with the company long enough to deliver a return on their training investment and reach their full potential.
 
Top talent will gravitate to companies that are proactive about talent acquisition and develop a relationship with them to help educate them about their markets, competition and new opportunities. Talented people want to see prospective employers invest in them. They have an increasing number of employment options to consider and the winners in the war for superior talent will be those that differentiate the recruiting process.

In the past, people needed companies. Today, companies need people. New workers stand to gain a wealth of options in their careers. Gone are the days of staying tied to one company or location for their entire career. Employees now have the ability to travel to work locations both nationally and internationally, to become involved in new and emerging fields that didn’t exist even five years ago, and most importantly, striking a work-life balance that many of our parents and grandparents never knew.

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Mike Winterfield is the president of Toronto-based Randstad Engineering, involved in professional recruitment and selection. For more information, visit www.randstadengineering.ca.

In an effort to support mobility and retention within this sector, such talents will now be officially documented and recognized through a newly started mining-credentials program.

Employees from seven different mine sites across Canada are the first group of mining workers to receive national certification through the Canadian Mining Credentials Program. A collaborative effort by mining employers, employees, educators and other stakeholders spearheaded by the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR), the program is the cornerstone of the mining industry’s efforts to recognize the skills, knowledge and experience of its workforce.

The group represents a selection of Canada’s first underground miners, surface miners and minerals processing operators to achieve nationally recognized certification. This is an historic event in Canadian mining because, until now, unlike the trades, skilled workers in these occupations have never before been awarded an industry-recognized credential that supports mobility and retention within the mining workforce.

The certification program was founded on a set of industry-developed National Occupational Standards, which have been developed for three key mining occupational areas: underground miner; surface miner and minerals processing operator; and diamond driller. A needs assessment will be conducted in the future to determine the requirements for new National Occupational Standards. MiHR is hoping to test certification for diamond drillers in late 2011.

The first of its kind for this country’s mining industry, the certification program requires workplace demonstration of employees’ skills and provides these workers with portable credentials based on their experience and competency levels.

“For decades, mining has played catch up to a number of competing industries that have clearly defined career paths and skill sets and competencies that are recognized and valued,” explains Ryan Montpellier, executive director of the MiHR Council. “Mining workers are highly skilled, working with multi-million dollar equipment and operating in a complex environment, yet their skills and competencies have gone, for the most part, unrecognized, and certification is going to change that.”

The certification pilot program began in 2010 at seven mine sites across Canada with the identification and training of workplace assessors, the creation of assessment tools and the testing and evaluation of the program. More than 100 workers were certified in this pilot at the following locations:

• Cementation Canada Inc: Totten Mine in Sudbury, Ont., and Trout Lake Mine in Flin Flon, Man.
• Rio Tinto: Diavik Diamond Mine in Yellowknife
• Teck Coal: Greenhills Operation in Smithers, B.C.
• Northgate Minerals Corp.: Kemess South Mine in Toodoggone, B.C.
• Teck Resources: Highland Valley Copper in Logan Lake, B.C.
• Xstrata Zinc: Brunswick Mine in Bathurst, N.B.

According to the pilot program’s participants, certification is something both employers and workers have been waiting for.

“Unlike a tradesperson that goes through an apprenticeship to gain their qualifications nationally or provincially, equipment operators have to endure the same training over and over every time they start with a new company. For some, this can be frustrating because they have done the same job for many years,” explains Jerrold Jewsbury, safety coordinator for Kemess Mine.

“Through the MiHR certification process, the equipment operators have a similar opportunity as the trades to carry a [nationally recognized credential] in their profession, giving them the recognition that they have earned and deserve for the past many years in the industry,” he adds. “By working together with MiHR, we are bringing a sense of pride and accomplishment back into the workforce.”

Jewsbury, also the site’s workplace assessor in the pilot program, says certification will have a positive impact on Kemess employees as they begin transitioning to new jobs when the mine, which has been operating for 14 years, stops production and closes in mid-2011.

Rick Gibson, superintendent of mill operations at Teck Highland Valley Copper, agrees that certification will benefit both workers and companies, as it provides employers confidence when hiring new employees that they have demonstrated skills to a nationwide competency standard. “As well, certified workers have portable credentials that will improve their employability at mines across the country,” he says.

MiHR’s latest research estimates that between now and 2020 the mining industry will require approximately 100,000 workers to support growth in the industry and replace retiring workers. Approximately 20 percent of these new hires will be required in skilled occupations that have, until now, lacked a national recognition system, including production miners, development miners, heavy equipment operators and mill operators.

The certification program will be an essential component in increasing and retaining the valuable skills required to keep the mining industry sustainable. Without a formal credentialing framework for these jobs, employers may struggle to evaluate the qualifications of experienced candidates and may end up wasting time and resources retraining new hires in areas where they have already demonstrated competency in the workplace. Furthermore, employees with skills sets that are not recognized by their industry can become frustrated and may seek opportunities elsewhere. A recent MiHR survey of mining industry employers revealed that turnover in these occupations is almost twice as high as other mining sector jobs.

“Certification is a means of recognizing that the worker has met the National Occupational Standards for the industry, as designed and validated by mining employers across Canada. It is very important to industry that workers can now be measured using the same standard, allowing us to quickly identify training needs and hire workers with proven experience,” explains Denis Beaudoin, corporate director of health and safety at Cementation Canada Inc.

Local recognition ceremonies took place between February and April 2011 for each of the pilot sites to celebrate the achievements of program participants and to award certificates. All certified workers received a certificate, wallet card, lapel pin and a skills passport documenting their skills and competencies. These local events fostered a sense of accomplishment and mounting excitement about the opportunities certification will create for workers.

“The common denominator was the look of pride and strong sense of recognition on the part of each recipient, as well as the employer. At several events, children of the certificate recipients expressed newfound respect for their parents’ work,” explains Barbara Kirby, MiHR’s senior director of workforce development, who is leading the development of the program and attended each of the recognition events. “It was very moving and touching to be a part of each of these recognition events.

“The certification program sends a clear message to Canadians that if you work in mining you will have a recognized and valued career — not just a job.”

MiHR’s current plan is to begin a pan-Canadian rollout of the program in the fall of 2011.

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Lindsay Forcellini is the marketing and communications coordinator with the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR). For more information on the certification program, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or visit www.mihr.ca.

The implementation and maintenance of green construction projects — such as with wind turbines and energy efficient upgrades to boilers and HVAC systems — may help to mitigate climate change but also, because of the dangers inherent to high-hazard construction work, a significant threat in terms of risk to workers.

Last year, the U.S.-based Center for Construction Research and Training released a study that examined the safety hazards associated with such “green” projects, looking for opportunities to elevate worker health and safety. Among such workers were wind turbine service technicians, boiler technicians, HVAC operations and maintenance technicians, electricians, welders, refrigeration engineers, to name just a few.

Regarding wind power in particular, study author Helen Chen writes about fall and electrical hazards: “Windmills can be several hundred feet tall and can therefore pose a serious fall hazard for construction workers as well as maintenance workers,” she says. “Installing wind turbines could potentially expose workers to electrical current, though maintenance workers and technicians face the greatest risk of electrocution. … In Oregon, a wind technician was killed when the energy isolation device on a wind turbine was not properly restored to the operational position after maintenance. When the service brake was released, a blade struck the tower, which collapsed and killed the worker.

“Although this incident involved maintenance and not construction workers, it underlines the importance of proper procedures for controlling potentially hazardous energy.”

Indeed, while many of the hazards described in the study adhere to the traditional categories of hazards — falls, electrical hazards, ergonomic hazards, etc. — the report highlights how this new growth may increase the risk of existing hazards.

The Green & Healthy Jobs report provides a few recommendations:

• Incorporate worker health into the green jobs debate: By building public awareness, when people think of green jobs, they are not just thinking of environmental issues but are asking what makes those jobs safe.

• Promote prevention through design: There are numerous examples of design elements that eliminate or greatly reduce the risk of construction hazards, such as placing light fixtures in areas that are more accessible for maintenance workers.

• Incorporate worker health into green building certification programs: WIth the LEED program, for example, an additional credit could be offered for adding an occupational safety and health professional to the project team. Chen says that at one company, it is required that the contractor, engineer, architect, safety professional, and plant operations and maintenance representative meet during the design phase.

• Promote safety training: “We need to act quickly to train workers in emerging green jobs,” Chen says. “Any training course that teaches green jobs skills should also teach workers how to execute those skills safely.”

Schools aren’t the only ones in the training game. Siemens, a manufacturer of wind turbines, is one of several manufacturers with its own internal programs to help its employees get a mix of on-site and in-class technical and safety training. The company services turbines for a few years after installing them (the length of time varies from farm to farm) and most recently completed its sixth Canadian project near Morris, Man., with 60 turbines that began operation in December 2010.

There is a core set of training all Siemens personnel must take prior to working on their turbines. The company also offers qualification levels, which range from one to seven.

Their first two levels of training incorporate internal best practices with common safety training modules, including first aid, CPR and defibrillation; region-specific health, safety and environmental (HSE) compliance; fundamental turbine operations; training specific to Siemens’ wind turbine HSE procedures; basic harness and climb training; and rescue and evacuation from the tower and nacelle.

“Based on the individual’s specific job responsibilities — such as installation, maintenance, commissioning or troubleshooting — additional task-specific training both in a formal training environment or as part of our on-the-job competency tracking program is required,” explains Jim Keegan, Siemens’ service project manager.

A technician or engineer that has completed the Level 7 test and competency portions of the program will be authorized to troubleshoot, commission and maintain the specific wind turbine model they are qualified on and also perform competency evaluations on lesser qualified personnel.

One key factor technicians must consider is wind speed, and Siemens has very specific allowances for what type of work can be done. “Work is permitted at wind speeds up to 12 metres per second (m/s),” Keegan says. “For wind speeds above 12 m/s, no work is permitted outside the nacelle. For wind speeds above 18 m/s, work is permitted in the nacelle but with the covers closed and no work in the hub is permitted.” However, once wind speeds hit above 24 m/s, “no work is permitted.”

When workers are maintaining equipment hundreds of feet above the ground, they are also at the mercy of the elements, be it extreme hot or cold. This, Keegan says, is taken into consideration, too: “We use detailed tables that take into account temperature, humidity, wind chill and environment to determine the allowed working conditions, required breaks when work is permitted and recommended fluid consumption.”

For those interested in this line of work, the company is hiring and currently accepts applications from graduates from the various technical colleges beginning to provide certificates or degrees in wind turbine technology. And not a moment too soon. In Canada, wind farms are popping up everywhere, with Siemens involved in a couple projects contracted for completion in 2011: the Greenwich Wind Energy Project near Thunder Bay, Ont., (99 MW) and the Comber Wind Limited Partnership Project in Essex County, Ont. (165.6 MW).