(May 24, 2022) At an employee town hall dominated by the topic of worker safety in light of a recent spate of reportable incidents, Josh Olmsted, President and Chief Operating Officer-Americas, stressed the importance of shedding distractions and hyper-focusing efforts on Freeport-McMoRan’s ultimate ask of its workforce: safe production.
“One of the hallmark qualities of our organization is we have so many can-do people who, when approached with a new request or a project, always say, ‘I can do that,’” Olmsted said. “That can be a downfall in the sense of taking on too much and getting distracted from what’s important. And what’s truly important is for our people to go home safe.”
Keeping focused on safety was a constant theme of the May 16 town hall, where Olmsted was joined by Stacey Koon, Vice President-Corporate Health and Safety, and Steve Higgins, Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer. The town hall, which was live streamed to nearly 2,200 employees, can be viewed here.
The prioritization of safety is driven by an increase in the number of reportable events across FM Americas in the first quarter of 2022, followed by 70 more reportable incidents in the month of April, Olmsted told employees.
“It’s concerning, and we need to work our way through how we stop this trend,” Olmsted said. “I really think we’ve got too much happening, and that’s becoming a distraction. And it’s precluding and preventing us from being able to really focus on the things that add and drive the most value.”
Hitting the reset on safe production
Addressing the issue head on, Koon noted that after a strong safety performance in 2021, the Americas already have experienced one fatality and a “significant uptick” in high-risk safety events and in general work incidents.
“The lion’s share of our folks go home safe every day, but as an organization, we’re seeing the worst safety performance we have had in over a decade,” she said.
After taking a closer look at the growing number of objectives and initiatives that have been implemented across FM Americas, Koon realized the Safety organization needed to refocus on sending people home safe each day.
“We paused our H & S objectives in the interest of supporting safety fundamentals out in the field,” Koon said.
The heightened emphasis on helping ensure employees in the field know how to work safely every day dovetails with instilling the company’s safety culture to employees, many of them new hires.
“It’s helping them learn to be safe by showing them what good looks like,” Koon said.
Company navigating market uncertainty
Global distractions and disruptions have made for a rough copper market, with per-pound copper prices dropping to $4.20 per pound.
“I remind you, $4.20 is still a really good copper price, so while we may be a little disappointed that it has dropped, it’s certainly not collapsing underneath us,” Higgins said.
Though it will take some time for the economic wheels to begin turning again in China, demand remains strong in Europe and in America.
“We’ve got a housing boom on, due to a shortage of (new construction),” Higgins said. “And we’ve got a significant, pent-up automotive demand, which is the second largest market for copper in the U.S.”