The Kwinana Nickel Refinery is a long-established industrial site in an urban environment. Historically, retention of employees at the Kwinana Nickel Refinery has been excellent, with the refinery benefiting from a stable workforce. However, there is a current shortage of skilled labour in the extractive industries labour and this shortage has presented new challenges in keeping skilled workers.

Retaining People

Maintaining a skilled workforce is key to ensuring good safety practices, plant reliability and production. KNR's most significant challenges relate to turnover in technical areas. To encourage retention, KNR has developed capability plans for employees and identify key talent for future roles and development activities.

Feedback from our KNR's 2003 opinion survey indicated that rewards for process technicians could improve retention in this area. A competitive benchmarking exercise was conducted in September 2004, resulting in the reclassification of process technician roles. These roles are now split into entry, field and specialist skill levels, enabling KNR to reward people for their level of competence and their performance. The framework is transparent, allowing technicians to identify development opportunities and associated remuneration.

Good communication and sharing information effectively are important tools for shaping a positive culture at the refinery and improving retention. The refinery has a strategy of formal communication briefings, including ‘whole of site’ and separate briefings and feedback sessions with individual work teams.

Input from people at all levels is encouraged, to ensure everyone can contribute to change. This year a major maintenance and reliability review was undertaken across the site. An important part of this process was receiving feedback from all areas to assist in improvements.

An historically stable workforce also means an ageing workforce and programs have been tailored around the special needs of this group. In late 2003, KNR launched the ‘Retiming your Life’ program. This program is designed to assist employees with the transition from full-time paid work to retirement or semi-retirement. Employees approaching retirement have access to a life coach to discuss their individual needs, and supplementary workshops to explore possible future involvement in the community and a range of leisure and lifestyle opportunities. Information packs for employees approaching retirement, containing financial and other useful information, are also distributed.

Training

Training was a significant focus at the Kwinana Nickel Refinery this year. In 2004, 33,538 hours including 320 separate events were dedicated to training. In addition to these figures the Kwinana Nickel Refinery also held a major maintenance shutdown in March during which there were 203 training events and 6,300 hours training completed.

There are also five full-time staff in the training section that have dedicated approximately 6,400 hours to competency-based training in the operations and maintenance departments. Total site hours dedicated to training in 2004 was 46,238.

‘Success Through People’, a WMC-wide leadership program, has now been completed by 41 managers and team leaders from the refinery. In 2005 it is expected that a further 45 employees will complete the ‘Success Through People’ program.

Our Frontline Management Initiative continued as a core program and ran throughout 2004, with 11 managers/team leaders attending at least 4 modules. The program complements ‘Success Through People’ and aims to improve leadership and management skills.

To assist people with their roles and developmental requirements, specific training tailored to software, trades, chemical and equipment, continually occurs at the refinery.

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