The wellbeing of our people directly correlates to the wellbeing of the Group.
The quality of life of our personnel and their families can be a competitive differentiator, thus we place significant emphasis on fair labout agreements with both union and non-union workers and competitive wages and benefits for all. In the areas where we operate, and particularly in geographically isolated regions, we provide basic services such as housing, medical services, education and transportation as well as other benefits like access to communications and recreational and sport facilities.
We invested US$1.2 million in professional development training programmes. These primarily focus on creating a result-oriented culture through leadership, process improvement, innovation, productivity and management skills. To ensure personnel alignment with our health, safety, environmental and community relations standards, more than US$215,000 was allocated specifically to HSECR training. Personnel recruitment efforts included internship programmes for engineers to ensure a next generation of skilled mining and exploration professionals.
Contractors are seen as strategic partners and we continue to integrate them into our management systems and training programmes. While HSECR issues are covered within our contractual arrangements, we intend to strengthen training and supervision in this particular area.