We discuss the pivotal points in an individual’s mining career with Boikanyo Refilwe Kgosi, Business Optimisation Portfolio Manager from Debswana Diamond Company.
Q: What are the processes needed to reskill, retool, and upskill those mining experts who are in a place where they are ready to leave the industry?
Roles in mining have mostly been process focused, especially in the production, maintenance and technical support functions.
In these areas, the focus on reskilling or retooling should look at workers’ capabilities in areas of business management, entrepreneurial and strategy skills. Upon their exit, they will have to compete for opportunities often with seasoned entrepreneurs who are already doing business with mining entities.
Exiting employees also provide a great pool of expertise which can be contracted and leveraged by mining houses as a source of flexible workforce.
Q: How do mining companies make technology work for their people and not the other way round?
People are the cornerstone of the mining industry’s success. And as such, the process, technology, and skills gap must be simultaneously evaluated for any new technology/digitally optimised process to deliver value.
Well-constructed change management strategies and supporting plans are key for buy-in, to close knowledge gaps and sustain the new ways of work.
Leaders and employees must tackle the fear that comes with buzzwords such as ‘automation’ and ‘AI’ and address them honestly. Only then can the notion of re-skilling and re-tooling be trusted by those who fear the change that lies ahead.
"People are the cornerstone of the mining industry’s success."
Q: How is flexibility shown from the top down in companies in order for individuals to continue working in the mining industry?
COVID-19 proved our ability to be flexible. Flexibility can be demonstrated by showing trust in employees to deliver from anywhere.
It challenges the metrics we have in place and KPI/KPAs for delivering value such as productivity (including measures that are more intrinsic vs extrinsic and motivate discretionary effort).
Mining will also need to re-think its talent attraction and retention strategies and understand the changing dynamics across multiple diversity intersections (age, gender, mobility options, and so on). Roles of men and women are more fluid, and couples adopt more dynamic family arrangements than in the past, which need to be considered. Skills-based talent strategy will be key for improving organisational agility.
Q: Could you explain how change management and awareness is key to helping workers focus on short term goals to achieve the long-term vision?
The significance of change management stems from it being any strategy’s underpinning enabler. There should be a comprehensive, customised implementation framework with clear areas of focus. These include ensuring employees have been informed from the time of strategy formulation, through to its plans, roadmap, updates on its progress and performance in achieving the desired end state.
Change management models provide leaders with an ability to develop plans, tools and the organisation’s internal DNA. These are built on developing individuals, especially through the conduits of middle management strategy ownership, cascading it downwards and feeding back to the executive suite.
Q: Is trust important for mining companies wanting to help workers progress in their roles?
It is an absolute must-have. It should be in place and companies must intentionally cultivate this.
In an era of transformation of work - from manual to automation, machine learning, AI and big data - employees can easily become more distrusting. This can affect their willingness to pursue self-development or employer-offered training which are critical for developing key competencies.
Without this, growth and progression are at risk and widening inequalities will remain a threat to society. This circles back to change management - employees need to be kept informed and engagement channels should be left open for transparency and all-round accountability.
"[Trust] is an absolute must have, must be in place and must intentionally cultivate."
Q: What hinders progress and short-term success in the industry?
I recently undertook some research to explore the effects of operating contexts of mining companies to innovate on their business models. I found the tendency of the mining industry, especially in the regional context, was having a low appetite for innovation of business models, as well as a low level of open innovation and collaboration across the industry.
There was a call-to-action from Mining Indaba 2023 for mining to move towards collaboration vs competition and secrecy. Perhaps the low appetite for business model innovation can be attributed to the focus on improving efficiency, sweating assets and deriving more revenues from the same or less resources.
It will be interesting to see how mining’s top leadership teams will leverage technology, automation and emerging innovation from other industries. This will help to drive progress and attain increasing demands for demonstrable lasting environmental and social impact in openly auditable governance processes.
Changing the mindset and understanding what it takes to deliver efficiencies through more investment in research and technological development and building innovation and entrepreneurial mining organisations as a way of providing insights, is what’s needed for short-term success.
Q: Does the mining industry embrace equality in the workplace and if not, how could it improve this and speed up acceptance that there is a need for change?
Yes, the mining industry embraces and is taking viable steps to address inequalities across several diversity intersections, such as gender and identity, race, age, and disabilities.
More can be done by following through on set targets and practical plans that progress the closure parity gaps, whether in gender or income.
Honest conversations must be had among leaders and their oversight boards regarding unmet targets and realistic plans to address shortfalls as well as maintain equality performance measures that project and forecast sustained parity once reached.
Leaders must leverage their change management plans and strategies, and be transparent when communicating aspirations, targets and performance. This will help close gaps as well as set clear roadmaps that enable implementation of support programs such as workplace coaching, mentoring and sponsorship.
There should also be programs for talent pipelines from foundation level to tertiary feeder education institutions. All would support and speed up a change and help to embrace equality.
"Leaders must tackle the fear that comes with buzzwords such as ‘automation’ and ‘AI’ and address them honestly."
