Recently voted a top-100 employer in Canada, Cementation Canada says it is focused on its people and safety.

A number of things are taken into account when Mediacorp Canada names Canada's top-100 employers: the satisfaction of the companies' employees, their focus on safety and the well-being of employees, involvement in the community and compensation and benefits packages, as well as other criteria. Cementation Canada says it exceeded expectations in all categories when it was named to Mediacorp's list.

“It's important for us and part of our mission to be the contractor of choice to clients and employees,” President Roy Slack says. “We work hard at that, and now we have a reputation in the industry as a top employer. As an employer of choice, we have the ability to attract the best people. We certainly feel like we have the best people within the industry in our group, and it looks like Mediacorp feels the same way.”

This achievement, however, is only one of many for the company. In 2005, Cementation was named North Bay's Business of the Year by the North Bay Chamber of Commerce, and the company's vice president of finance, Lois Henderson Campbell, was recognized as the most influential businesswoman of the year in 2006 by Northern Ontario Business publications.
“It was even more notable that Lois was recognized for such an award since mining is such a male-dominated business,” Slack says. “Lois is on our executive board of directors and we were very pleased she was selected.”

Services and Projects
With a full-service engineering group as part of its contracting company – including engineers for mining, mechanical, electrical, civil, structural and geotechnical disciplines – the company has the technical depth to tackle challenges on large infrastructure projects, it says.

Cementation also works on design/build projects, and provides other contracting services, including shaft sinking, mine development, mechanized raising, raise boring, engineering and construction.
It also has specialist expertise in the assessment of rock mechanics and treatment of difficult hydrological conditions.

The global Cementation group, which Cementation Canada is a part of, claims to have sunk many of the world's deep shafts and has completed projects in all ground conditions using a wide variety of ground treatment methods.

The company is recognized as the most active shaft-sinking contractor in North America, both in terms of volume of work, as well as complexity and degree of difficulty of the shaft projects undertaken, it says.

Slack says the company is working on projects all across Canada. For example, in New Brunswick, Cementation crews are working at Brunswick mine doing reconditioning and development excavation, and at IOC, it's doing open-pit glory hole repair and maintenance work in Labrador.

Slack explains Cementation will often go back to mines to perform maintenance repairs if customers call on its services.

Cementation is also working on a number of projects in Sudbury, Ontario, including the sinking of the main and ventilation shafts at the Nickel Rim South project. Formerly owned by Falconbridge but now part of Xstarta Nickel, Slack says, the project involves designing and sinking the two mine shafts; one is 1,660 meters deep, the other is 1,740 meters deep. Early engineering work commenced on the project in 2004 and now the ventilation shaft is complete and the main shaft is nearing completion.

The company also is completing a 6,300-foot-deep shaft for Gold Corp. in Red Lake, Ontario. Completion on that project is slated for the end of this year.

Support for Employees
One of the company's main concerns for its employees is their safety. Employees are exposed to a tremendous amount of training to prevent accidents. “We utilize the Common Core System, a system developed in Ontario,” Slack says.

“We use it on all our projects across Canada and in the United States.”

The Common Core system is a certification process that is registered by the Ontario government. It recognizes mine workers as being qualified for certain kinds of work based on a set of evaluation criteria.

Finding Laborers
Slack says one of the company's biggest challenges is hiring skilled laborers. There isn't a shortage of people interested in the mining industry, he explains, but rather, not every interviewee has the skill set Cementation is looking for.

Cementation, in fact, has no problem attracting employees due to the company's reputation, he adds. “We are a contractor people want to work for,” he says. “We pay the right money, people have options and can be flexible with their work schedule.

“For people who work remotely on our projects in faraway locations, we canvas those locations and figure out a rotation among employees that would work for everyone.”