We're very pleased to be partnering with Mining IQ to present a regular podcast series called "Mondays with Mining Man".  In a series of short audio podcasts, I'll be exploring a range of different topics related to health and safety in the mining industry.  You can expect to see a new topic each month.
  

Episode 2: Safety and Mental Health in Mining

In the second podcast of the series we discuss safety and health in the mining industry.  We take a look back at the path we've followed so far in improving safety in the industry, a look at what makes the most difference to safety on site, and a look at how safety and health might be affected by future changes in the industry such as FIFO and the increasing number of new workers.

Click here to listen to the podcast via the Mining IQ podcast homepage, or subscribe to their podcast feed via iTunes so you never miss an episode!

A transcript of the interview is below, and we'd love to hear your feedback or thoughts in the comments section. 

 

Interview Transcript

Click here to listen to the podcast

Mining IQ: Last month we discussed the national harmonisation laws, but regardless of legislations and regulations, all workplaces – particularly when we’re talking about mining here – must have a safety culture ingrained in them. So let’s start by talking about where safety is at in the mining industry at the moment – are things improving?

Things are still definitely improving, although making improvements is getting harder and harder as our performance gets better and better. There’s no doubt we’ve made a lot of headway of the last fifty years in terms of mine safety. Our statistics will attest to that.

And how we’ve done that:

  • Legislation changes
  • Inspectorates
  • Consultation
  • Procedures
  • Management Plans
  • Risk
  • Hierarchy of controls
  • Behavioural Based Safety

Our injury and fatality graphs have been showing consistent improvement. But we are plateauing out and I guess the question is how to we keep pushing improvements.


Mining IQ: What do you think are the fundamentals of an outstanding safe culture within a mining operation?

Well isn’t that the million dollar question! I think the fundamentals to achieving an outstanding safety culture include:

  • Effective leadership
  • Ownership of safety all the way through the organisation
  • A focus on managing the things that could cause extreme injuries or fatalities, and not a focus on preventing minor injuries to help reduce statistics.

If you have those three things then you really have people worrying about what matters most, and worrying about how to keep themselves and others safe. That’s really the goal at the end of the day – the paperwork and systems are important, but they’re just a by-product.

But it’s also true that in a hazardous industry like ours, where things are changing all the time, experience also has to play a part.

Each year I take a look back in detail at the injury and fatality statistics in Australia and the USA, and interestingly what I’ve been seeing as a trend over the last couple of years is fatalities related to:

  • Time in the industry
  • Time at the mine
  • Time on the job

Now it’s hard to teach experience, except by experience itself, right? But what I think we can take from this is how important hazard identification is. Experience is partly what teaches us what is going to hurt or kill us. And the only way we can hope to manage the things that are going to hurt us is if we can identify them in the first place.

So I think the focus area for mines over the coming decade needs to be on how we improve people’s ability to identify hazards, the things that will hurt them. Even if they don’t have the specific experience on that job or that site. Once a hazard is identified we’re normally pretty good at managing it!


Mining IQ: When we think of safety, we think of mostly physical injuries, but there have been reports of mental health and depress issues within mine sites. How can we better integrate this knowledge and understanding in mine sites?
I think with the newer styles of working arrangements for mining operations, particularly things like FIFO, DIDO and longer shifts, we are seeing a shift in both mining “culture”, and the effects that may be having on people. We’ve also got a LOT more people working in the industry now, and a lot more living remotely or FIFO for long stints away from home.

These arrangements do put extra stress on people’s mental state, and I think mining companies are starting to put a lot of effort into helping manage this stress and these effects.

And it’s not only the effects on the workers, but also on the families and communities they come from.

And amongst all this, we’re slowly losing one of the really great things about working in the mining industry, which was working in really close nit teams, and working with the same team of people for a long time. The industry is so dynamic now, people move around a lot – meaning teams change and you’re working with different people all the team.

FIFO and other arrangements mean many people now don’t live in the same towns as the people they work with, taking away really important social aspects of the industry.

Loosing these elements also takes away a support mechanism – now we’re putting people onto long shift stints away from home, and getting them to work with people who might be different on each tour and who they don’t really have bonds with.

That’s going to create very unusual and mentally stressful conditions over the long term, and I think mining companies need to critically aware of that.


Mining IQ: With mining companies hiring more new miners, there will no doubt be a change the workplace culture of mine sites. Do you see this as an opportunity to improve workplace safety? How would this pan out?

I think there’s an opportunity and a risk there. As you say, with newer blood coming through we do have an opportunity to improve people’s safety attitudes from the word go. But I think we risk putting so much focus on procedures for these newer people to follow, that we are not teaching them about how to identify and manage hazards for themselves. I mentioned earlier that types of data I’ve been looking at, and one of the things is shows is that people are quite safe when they are very inexperienced – they have a fresh set of eyes and are often overly cautious in an unfamiliar environment.

But there’s then a period between one year and five years (like we see with P-plate drivers) where people are most at risk. This is the period where they feel confident in the work and the environment, but in reality are still learning about the risks in the workplace and how to identify and manage hazards.

Workers in this band are at an increased risk and need increased coaching and support. We need to ensure we give them sufficient authority to chose their own way to work, and not just mindlessly follow procedures, but also make sure we help them identify hazards and take the time to do the job safely.

With the continued expansion of our industry, and the percentage of the workforce we are going to see retiring (who are also our most experience percentage), we’re going to have a LOT more new people coming into the industry. We need to find that balance between keeping them safe with procedures, and giving them the opportunity to learn for themselves.

 

In the next podcast in the series we discuss the concept of "Zero Harm" - whether it is really achieveable in mining, and whether it is still relevant to the industry today.

 


- Jamie Ross

Mining Man - Practical Safety, Leadership and Productivity Ideas for the Mining Industry

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