In Voisey’s Bay, 79 is a prime number for new hires

The Voisey’s Bay fixed plant maintenance crew, pictured on Christmas Day, 2017. Front row, left to right: Blaine Hodder, Gary Murphy, Max White, Kevin Sheppard, Barton Davis, Keith Normore, Richard Pittman, Devon Russell, Ken Mesher. Back row, left to right: Robbie Normore, Gary Dimmer, David Galway. Photo: Vale Archive

It’s a good-news story when the company hires 79 new employees. It’s also a huge amount of work – but totally worth it in the end.

“It was probably the biggest hiring process since Voisey’s Bay started operating in 2005,” said Jenny Gulliver, senior recruiter with Vale. “There were 79 employees being hired, all with start dates within a month and a half.”

This has gone extremely well, within a short timeframe and without any major disruptions … Kudos for a job well done!

Obviously, the hiring created loads of administrative work, but training 79 new employees – for 24 management positions and 55 hourly positions – wasn’t as difficult as it might sound: The majority were already working at the site, through an outside contractor. The decision was made last spring to have Vale employees, not contract workers, handle the site’s fixed plant maintenance. Fixed plant maintenance covers anything that’s not on wheels or tracks, and almost everything that’s in the mill building and the port facility.

Robbie Normore, a mechanical maintenance supervisor at our Labrador mine is one of the successful candidates in the mass recruitment process and sees his new role as a great opportunity; one that will allow him the ability to confidently plan for his future.

“Having worked at Voisey’s Bay, I’m excited to now have a more established position,” said Robbie, whose father, William Normore Jr., has worked at Voisey’s Bay since 2005, and whose brother, Mark, captains the Umiak, the ice-breaking vessel that brings ore from Voisey’s Bay to our Long Harbour Processing Plant. “I have a future here.” [Keep reading to the end of the story for a fun fact about the Normore trifecta.]

In an email, Peter Langlois, director of Labrador operations, thanked everyone involved in onboarding the new employees, including a core group of employees: Jenny Gulliver, Anne Marie Waterman, Megan Doyle, Steven McGrath, Eric Sheppard, Vanessa Bowker, Shawn Rideout, Neil Hicks and Lyndon Flynn.

Peter’s email read, in part: “This project turned out to be an enormous amount of work in a short period of time, from planning and executing the recruitment campaign, organizing and securing pre-employment clearances, scheduling co-ordinated start dates, transferring and securing required IT systems, co-ordinating benefit enrolments, onboarding and training employees.

“This has gone extremely well, within a short timeframe and without any major disruptions … Kudos for a job well done!”

Fun fact: When Captain Mark Normore docks the Umiak at Voisey’s Bay, he goes up to the Site for some meals with Robbie and their father, or Robbie and dad will go down to the ship to spend time with Mark. You can read more about this close-knit family by clicking here.