Managing diversity in mining

Workforce Management Managing diversity in mining

HAVING DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE IS CRUCIAL IN ENSURING WORKERS FEEL VALUED, APPRECIATED AND REPRESENTED. IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOT ONLY HAVE DIVERSITY IN MINING COMPANIES, BUT ALSO TO MANAGE THAT DIVERSITY THROUGH THE VALUE CHAIN.

Mining companies understand the value and need to manage diverse workforces.

This is becoming increasingly critical for the workforces’ strategies like talent attraction, retention and career development.

Mining operations where the workforce better reflects the community in which it operates, have increased mine productivity. However, understanding the richness of diversity in diverse workforces is mostly limited.

Given mining companies are heavily reliant on data in their day–to–day operations, a data-driven approach gives companies an opportunity to understand diversity in its entirety.

The mining sector is growing as a more attractive industry for women, with about 40 per cent of entry-level roles being filled by women.

However, retention is another issue.

Women represent an estimated 8 to 17 per cent of the global mining workforce, as the drop-off from entrylevel to executive roles for females in mining is quite significant.

The top reasons for women leaving the industry are feeling that work is no longer intellectually challenging and having the perception that there are fewer advancement opportunities than there are for their male colleagues.

Cultural Infusion is a Melbournebased company that has established itself as a leader in promoting intercultural understanding worldwide.

The organisation began when founder and chief executive officer Peter Mousaferiadis, a renowned composer, conductor and musical director, embarked on a quest to bring musicians from an array of culturally diverse backgrounds and experiences together in order to create exquisite orchestral music.

Cultural Infusion has won more than 15 international awards, including the United Nations Alliance of Civilization Intercultural Innovation Award.

Mousaferiadis was meant to speak at the International Mining and Resources Conference at the end of January, but since it was rescheduled until October 2022, Safe to Work spoke with him about his keynote speech.

“At IMARC, I was going to cover the importance of the mining sector and how it needs to look at its processes through a diversity lens,” Mousaferiadis said.

“The mining industry brings so much value, but I think it would be a lot more value to the sector and every single mining company in the world, to apply the sort of methodology they use in mining activities when it comes to human resources.

“It employs huge workforces from all over the world, and it’s not just about how diverse the workforce is, it’s also about how that diversity is managed.

“What sort of strategies can these mining companies implement to make their workforce more representative of the community?”

Cultural Infusion has a tool called Diversity Atlas, which is a unique diversity data-analysis platform that provides insight into cultural and demographic diversity within an organisation.

It enables organisations to understand

“The mining industry brings so much value, but I think it would be a lot more value to the sector and every single mining company in the world to apply the sort of methodology they use in mining activities when it comes to human resources.”

the diverse richness of its teams and to better measure, understand, acknowledge and act on its diversity, inclusion and development strategies.

“Diversity Atlas is for companies to be able to inform strategies that will make their organisations more inclusive, representative and equitable,” Mousaferiadis said.

“They can ask, what are we doing to be able to recognise aspects of our workers’ identities so they can feel safe to bring that aspect of their identity to work.

“If they feel that aspects of their identity are being appreciated and valued, then they’re going to give more of themselves to those organisations.”

The Diversity Atlas platform makes it easy for teams and organisations to measure, understand and tell their diversity stories for better inclusion and greater value of cultural identity.

Once data is collected, it is interpreted via an interactive dashboard, which allows the company to understand the diversity gap for each team and across the whole organisation, highlighting diversity achievements and where there’s room

Women represent 8 to 17 per cent of the global mining workforce. to improve on inclusion. It shows where a company sits across key diversity metrics and measures against its own organisational and team goals.

Companies can compare the difference between the workforce’s diversity profile, and that of the target community or customer base, and compare teams with each other, to understand the cultural and demographic balance.

Using these insights can shape the hiring, engagement, and inclusion strategies by featuring all the diversity and inclusion data in a single secure place.

Diverse teams were reported to have an 11 per cent higher adherence to a production schedule and to have safer practises, with a 67 per cent lower total recordable injury frequency.

“If you manage diversity well, think of how it not only fosters greater productivity but think of how it fosters innovation,” Mousaferiadis said.

The research clearly shows that diversity can be a source of innovation, productivity and expertise.

However, mismanaging diversity can impact team performance and create employee disengagement. Diversity Atlas provides organisations and communities with the tools to thrive and unlock new opportunities in a diverse and globalising world.

“Recognising that every single person has an aspect of identity that, if ignored, they’re not going to be feel valued,” Mousaferiadis said.

“Mining companies are 24–7, so if they have, for example, seven per cent of their workforce that identify with Islam or maybe 10 per cent identify with Hindu, and they’ve got a big religious day coming up. Why don’t we encourage them to have those days off rather than Christian holidays like Christmas?”

Within Diversity Atlas, there is an international calendar with more than 4000 diversity days and religious events in it so an organisation says can use it to understand the miners and potentially organise something for the workforce for these days.

“Mining companies employ so many people, and they’re not all going to want the same days off, substitution is easy and it makes employees feel seen,” Mousaferiadis said.