There's no doubt about it, a summer job at Mosaic Potash Esterhazy is a great way for post-secondary students to take a break from their studies, live at home, reconnect with high school friends, and earn an enviously good wage. However, from Day One, the students are made aware that their time with Mosaic is much more than just a job.
Again this year, Mosaic Potash Esterhazy has hired post-secondary students at the company's K1and K2 sites, as labourers/helpers underground, on surface and in the warehouses; in the accounting, human resources and environment departments; and in the lab. A total of 36 students have been hired for the summer under the Sons and Daughters program. As well, 19 technical students have been hired for four-month, eight-month or 16-month work placements.
The students gathered at K1 during the company's 3rd annual Earth Shattering Experience program, on August 4, to demonstrate just how much of a life-altering experience their time with Mosaic has been. The students made 10-minute team presentations to an audience of management, supervisors, and coworkers, highlighting how the company's safety training, on the job coaching, internal communications, and technology had impacted on their work experiences and to demonstrate what they had come to understand about the company's vision and global presence.
Some of the students were taken aback when, on their first day on the job, they were told that they would be required to prepare a report, according to Bernie Moore, Senior Human Resource Associate, who spearheads the Earth Shattering Experience program. "The idea of the program was to make the students think about their work experience with Mosaic. After all, we are developing and coaching them for the next stage of their lives" she said.
The quality of the presentations, the depth of the students research, their public-speaking abilities and their strong communication skills continue to impress the judges each year. As one of the staff engineer team presenters, University of Saskatchewan engineering student David Yanke, stated: "Seventy per cent of what an engineer does requires strong communication skills. Teammate Karisa Kaskiw, a U of S environmental engineer student, said that she welcomed the opportunity to develop good relations with the regulatory agencies and professional organizations with which she, as an environmental engineer, will be required to communicate. "At university we learn the technical engineering skills, at Mosaic we learn to connect with people," she said.
The students were asked to relate their personal work experience to one of four themes: Safety and Environment, Development and Coaching Others, Industry Technology, and Connecting People. The students spoke of the area of the mine sites where they had to put into practice on a daily basis what they had learned during their safety orientation sessions, including working in confined spaces and in situations that required fall arrest equipment and knowledge of the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHIMS), as well as their driving safety training. As University of Alberta engineering student Brett Sach stated: "We've learned that safety is not simply something that is talked about. It's an attitude, a culture."
The number of new hires at Mosaic's Canadian operations has been steadily increasing during the past five years and will continue to do so in light of the multi-billion dollar expansions and the construction of the new K3 mine site in the Esterhazy area.
The student work experience has developed into a useful recruiting and assessment tool for Mosaic, according to Mosaic Potash Esterhazy Human Resources Manager Chandra Pratt. "These are well paying summer jobs that help students and their parents pay for their higher education," she said. "They are also jobs that develop the students' work ethic and hopefully show that mining can be a great career option. In some cases students return to us as professionals and become permanent employees
Submitted by
Helen Solmes, Site Communications Liaison
The Mosaic Company Esterhazy, Saskatchewan
