Social

Providing a healthy work environment that’s as safe as possible for our people is of the utmost importance to Orla and critical to our long-term success. Safety goes beyond just rules and procedures that we follow - it’s a value we live by.

The health and safety of our people is fundamental to everything we do as a mining company, influencing all areas and functions of our business. While mining by its very nature involves high risk processes, such as the use of explosives, operating heavy machinery, working at heights, and working with cyanide and other chemicals, we believe that occupational injuries and illnesses are preventable through good, safe work practices and continuous risk management.

Read more about our Health and Safety approach

Our Approach: Centered on Individual and Company Success

To achieve that goal, planning, developing and optimizing our human capital is a strategic focus of Orla’s workforce approach and sustainability agenda. We invest continuous effort in our talent strategy, focusing on all aspects of the worker experience — from recruitment and development to compensation and culture.

Our “People Systems” are designed to enrich a company culture where employees want the company to succeed and to work with us feeling they can be part of something important and want the Company to be successful because that means they are also successful.

Read more about People Management

Making a Positive Contribution

Mining companies like Orla have a civic responsibility to consider, and contribute to, the sustainable development and well-being of the communities in which they operate and depend. Businesses that are active in foreign countries, and in rural and remote areas, must also be respectful of local traditions, customs and beliefs, including those of Indigenous Peoples.

Community relations is a way for companies to create and maintain mutually beneficial relationships with host communities and ensure that communities benefit from mining activity in both the short and long-term. Engaging local communities in a meaningful, transparent manner, and incorporating their views, is essential to building positive relationships and goodwill over time. For Orla, community relations and its critical components, such as providing environmental, economic, and social benefits, are prioritized by our stakeholders as a top material issue.

Supporting and collaborating with our communities is crucial, not only because they host our operations but also because our workforce comes from these areas (across our three sites in 2022, close to 60% of our employees were from direct local communities and almost 99% were from our host countries).

We have active community relations programs at each of our sites, which manage their own budgets and initiatives. Our community and social framework is outlined in our Code of Conduct and Ethics  (ESP), our Environment, Sustainability, Health and Safety Policy  (ESP), our Human Rights Policy, and our CSR Policy (ESP). These governance documents provide guidance and metrics for effective community relations management.

Good community relations is an important part of Orla’s sustainability approach.

 

Read more about Orla’s relationship to its communities

 

Addressing Risks And Impacts

From exploration to closure and post-closure, Orla is committed to respecting human rights— in our workplace, in our supply chain and business relationships, and in the communities where we live and work.

Respecting fundamental human rights is a global standard of expected conduct for every business, and a responsibility formalized in the United Nations’ Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights (UNGP). At Orla, we recognize our mining operations and other business activities can affect people’s rights in good and potentially negative ways. It is therefore important that we take meaningful steps to understand, support and protect the human rights of everyone we can impact, from our employees, contractors, and business partners to community members and Indigenous peoples. We believe this approach is vital to our ability to attract and keep employees, mitigate risks across our value chain, and create enduring relationships with all our stakeholders.  

Read more about our commitment to Human Rights