Improving mental wellbeing

Our mental health programme, the Khethimpilo (Zulu for “choose life”) campaign, focused on mental health awareness, suicide prevention, substance abuse and zero tolerance towards violence. This programme is crucial to mitigate stress induced by, among others, emerging risks, such as disease outbreaks, the economic climate and increased gender-based violence in society. We encourage employees and their families to use the counselling services available at Harmony, which include hybrid, on-site and telephonic counselling provided by resident social workers and an independent service provider.

The Harmony Khethimpilo campaign was created in response to the many challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, driving and enabling us to enhance our psychosocial programme and safeguard our employees’ mental health.

The campaign is a multi-stakeholder and collaborative effort between internal and external stakeholders to determine employees’ mental health-related needs; embed mental health as a key aspect of an employee’s safety; create healthy work environments; and support related initiatives in the workplace and host communities. Recently, we have expanded the campaign, which has garnered immense support across South African operations, culminating in the establishment of a formal company mental health charter.

In FY24, we upskilled our psychosocial team on substance abuse disorders and worked to enhance awareness. Addiction, mostly substance abuse (including off-site abuse), has significant implications for our employees’ fitness for work and ability to operate safely and effectively. Effectively addressing the issue of substance abuse requires an integrated, multi-stakeholder approach that includes human resources, safety, security and health functions.

Khethimpilo was designed to:

• Project and model a caring culture within Harmony through updated policies and practices and the committed engagement of well-trained leaders
• Promote employee mental wellbeing through awareness and education campaigns, the mobilisation of ambassadors and a peer support programme, and active union engagement, all of which is enabled through the use of technology
• Mitigate or prevent psychosocial risks and mental health conditions by fostering early identification through screening, assessments and management
• Support Harmonites with emotional distress, mental health illnesses and psychosocial disabilities through 24/7/365 counselling services, a substance abuse programme, and interventions to treat mental health conditions
• Capacitate employees with better mental health literacy through workshops and awareness campaigns that consistently address suicide prevention, substance abuse, violence and the destigmatisation of mental health.

Among other initiatives, the programme inspired the formation of men’s forums, designed to destigmatise mental health issues, encourage men to openly talk about emotional distress and
other personal psychosocial struggles, and advocate for positive masculinity in the workplace and community. These forums have grown into a platform that encourages men to advocate and work
against social ills, including gender-based violence, in collaboration with industry groups such as Women in Mining.

Our mental health campaigns continue to gain traction, with more employees using the available support services. Khethimpilo is actively contributing to employee safety, productivity and
livelihoods while supporting employees with the resources they need to better manage their mental health and personal challenges.

Key highlights