Language coaches to provide support

As U. S. Steel Kosice President George F. Babcoke announced at last week's meeting with leading staff, Company management has made the decision that English language will be used in everyday communication around the steelworks more intensively than previously. "We are convinced that this step will not only help to achieve the objective we have set, but it will be beneficial above all for our employees, in the sense that it will enable them to progress in their personal development," said GM Human Resources Staffing and Development Milan Polca.
He went on to specify that in line with the general decision, meetings of the President and Vice Presidents with their subordinates will be held in English with immediate effect, and in the case of General Managers' meetings with their subordinates, as soon as possible, but at the latest from April 1st next year onwards. "The required level for coping with active communication in English during meetings is level four on the scale from one to seven, where one means beginner and seven means fluent speaking at mother-tongue standard.
It is necessary for employees taking part in the category of meetings I've mentioned to reach this level four, and the same goes for other selected employees at lower staff levels, by the end of 2010 at the latest. A very important role will be played in this process by constant support and motivation provided by managers, because without this, just as without employees' own self-motivation, it will not be possible to achieve this objective."

Refrako in Ukraine

One of the new products which USSK subsidiary Refrako hopes will make a break-through on the market is the ultra-light insulating firebrick material which has been given the name KOLAS 50. "The development of this high-quality product, which we worked on intensively all of last year, has enabled us to extend our standard range," says Refrako's General Director Gabriel Torhany.
"We were motivated mainly by the great market interest in this kind of product. In the past we used to supply it to our customers as subcontractors, but we always knew we could produce it ourselves as well. And so we set about it. This product is ideal for use in insulation linings in heating installations - boiler-rooms, boilers, sintering furnaces, or in power-plants, for example." The first consignments have already left the factory gates, heading for our commercial partner at Krivoj Rog in Ukraine, where they will be used in the refractory linings of the sintering furnaces making iron-ore pellets.