Employee Engagement - Retention and Attraction

Despite our workforce reductions in early 2009, we recognize that employee retention and attraction will continue to be a challenge felt across the industry. The table below outlines turnover rates by gender and age group. As part of our efforts to improve employee retention and attraction, professional and career development is a priority, with a focus in four key skill areas: technical, operational, business acumen and leadership.

All of our management employees receive regular performance and career development reviews. Turnover rates are tracked for planning purposes and to help us develop strategies for recruitment, retention and diversity. Part of our employee retention and attraction strategy is to deliver programs that assist personnel by enhancing skills in order to help them advance their careers. Our human resources programs seek to differentiate us from our competitors and drive our success. Our goal is to attract and retain skilled employees in all facets of our business providing them with the training and resources required to achieve our goals and objectives.

Employee Turnover Number by Age and Gender

Region	Female						Male
	< 30	30 - 39	40 - 49	50 - 59	> 60	Total	< 30	30 - 39	40 - 49	50 - 59	> 60	Total
Canada	21	46	16	14	11	108	62	57	73	109	87	388
USA	8	6	14	5	2	35	59	37	64	56	20	236
Chile	0	11	4	0	0	15	6	35	57	42	3	143

Employee Turnover Percentage by Age and Gender (%) ⁽¹⁾

Region	Female (%)						Male (%)
	< 30	30 - 39	40 - 49	50 - 59	> 60	Total	< 30	30 - 39	40 - 49	50 - 59	> 60	Total
Canada	14	22	8	6	29	13	9	5	5	4	14	6
USA	42	40	42	23	25	36	46	32	40	32	35	37
Chile	0	18	18	0	0	14	3	9	11	18	11	10
(1) Employee turnover percentage is calculated for each gender, age category and region as: Employee turnover number / (number of employees at year end + employee turnover number)

Recruitment and Training

As more employees become eligible for retirement, attracting graduating engineers and offering them comprehensive development programs becomes increasingly important. We hire engineering and geology graduates from around the world and actively recruit at all major universities in Canada and four universities in Chile. We have established Engineer-in-Training (EIT) and Geologist-in-Training programs at most of our operations and a formal program of EIT rotations to various operations is being introduced this year.

Data on training hours was collected on a company wide basis; however, the results indicated that the methodology for tracking training was inconsistent across Operations. It was determined that operations do collect this information; however, the results cannot be reported at the corporate level as there is too much variance. We intend to report on this in the medium term.

Employee Recognition Programs

The CEO Awards recognize exceptional contributions towards our success. Twenty individuals were recognized in 2009. See the Celebrating Excellence case study for more information.

Leadership and Development

We provide leadership and management skills training to our supervisors through several development programs. We also continue to offer graduate-level business courses through our Business Education Program, in partnership with Simon Fraser University (SFU). This program was recently recognized by the Canadian Council on Learning for providing excellence in learning.

In September 2008, we launched our first internal MBA program, in co-operation with SFU. The first group of 25 employees is working towards graduation in 2011, while continuing to work full-time.

In 2007 we developed an Emerging Leader Program (ELP). This program focuses on developing future leaders for key senior positions in the company and aims to:

Broaden understanding and knowledge of our business;
Deepen understanding and commitment to our business strategies and values; and
Enhance leadership capabilities.

The program is now well established, with 29 employees in two groups having completed it over the past two years. Plans are under way for a third group of employees to begin the Emerging Leader Program in 2010.

Performance Management

Building Strength with People is our performance management program, encouraging discussion between employees and supervisors about performance, development and career planning. We are pleased to report that the program has now been successfully implemented in our Chilean operations and offices.

Scholarship Programs

We have established several scholarship programs to support students pursuing academic excellence and encourage studies in fields that lead to challenging careers in the mining industry. The Teck Scholarship Program offers annual support to students who are pursuing post secondary studies and are dependants of Teck’s Canadian and American employees and retirees. These students can apply for the Teck Scholarship Program and receive support for up to four years, being awarded $1,750 or $1,250 for each year of their studies, depending on their scholastic achievement.

We give scholarships to students at selected universities around the world in the areas of mining engineering, mineral processing, geoscience, metallurgy and related disciplines. We work in partnership with universities to award the scholarships to students who have high potential and have achieved academic excellence while demonstrating a strong commitment to giving back to their community. In Chile we are currently involved in a project that promotes careers in the mining sectors to students of local schools in Andacollo, with the goal of offering job opportunities to young people in the community and providing scholarships for students with limited means to support their studies beyond high school. We are working on a strategy to engage educational institutions in Chile to offer practicum and scholarship programs for students. Teck Scholarships have been created to support unique programs at a variety of institutions.