03 Apr Structured employee engagement – key to improving safety on mines
3 April 2012: Improving mining safety in South Africa is a long-standing but growing concern. In order to truly improve the safety statistics of local mines, management of mining houses need to foster a culture of safety that is not only measurable, but becomes a core component of employees’ tasks.
This is according to Tjaart Minnaar, MD of OIM International who, says following increasing pressure over the past year regarding safety, most CEOs have made mining safety a priority agenda item. However, he believes that the urgency of the message is often diluted by the time it is communicated at an employee level where the focus often shifts to output and efficiency.
“Safety will always be vital as South African mines are amongst the largest and deepest in the world and mining is such a labour intensive industry. However, educating workers about safety is not just a case of putting up posters and distributing hard hats. In order to see sustainable improvements, management must show their commitment to this and this must become part of operations at all levels in mindset regarding safety as a priority to production is required,” says Minnaar.
According to Minnaar, in order to propagate this commitment to safety throughout the entire organisation, there needs to be constant structured communication around safety so that each employee can clearly see how the principles apply to their individual tasks.
“In a practical sense, this means bringing team leaders and employees together and encouraging them to analyse the safety status of their work process daily. Team leaders and employees should identify all of the tasks that each employee will be required to perform on a daily basis in order to meet certain objectives and outputs. Each task is then dissected to identify the potential safety risks to the worker and what needs to be done to ensure safe working conditions.”
He says that through this process, each employee is continuously made aware of exactly what they should look out for and what potential hazards they should avoid as they go about their daily tasks and will adapt their behaviour accordingly.
“By regularly assessing and measuring the attitude and compliance towards safety procedures on the mine, mine managers can clearly monitor the effectiveness of the communication channels throughout the mine.”
Minnaar also recommends that safety compliance should be a standard part of goals and targets so that they are incentivised to consistently measure and improve their own safety behaviour.
“If employees are remunerated according to both their output and their safety goals and targets, it is likely that not only will productivity be improved, but safety levels will be valued as well. At the same time, irresponsible and inefficient employees can be held accountable for non-adherence to standards.”
He says that this cycle of communication and assessment needs to be long term and continuously exercised in order for mining houses to experience the results of improved safety and improved efficiency.
Minnaar refers to recent statistics revealed by Mineral Resources Minister, Susan Shabangu, which indicated a slight drop in mining fatalities to 123 in 2011 from 127 in 2010. The statistics also revealed that 13 miners have been killed locally so far this year. “While any improvement is encouraging, by making production and safety a dual focus, both the efficiency and the safety record of South African mines will see improvement.”