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Safety Training And Your Mine Site - Mining Iq Industry Focus
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Safety Training and Your Mine Site - Mining IQ Industry Focus
Mining IQ recently interviewed Ruth Jenkins, Director for Sina Safety Solutions. Ruth is an accomplished mining industry professional with experience that spans three continents and over 20 years experience. Under her belt she has a broad range of experience including drill and blast, mine management, safety systems, risk management. Today, however, she talks to us specifically about the challenge of establishing a mine site safety culture and the importance of embedding it in the psyche of all staff.
To what extent is safety a behaviour rather than a process?
Well, a safety ‘behaviour’ is the action or reaction of a person in response to external or internal stimuli. Conversely, a safety ‘process’ is a disciplined framework for managing hazardous systems and processes by applying good design principles, engineering and operating practices.
How can you instil the motivation in an individual to make the right ‘safe’ choices every day using safety training?
Not an easy overnight fix! A third party cannot instil motivation - the individual has to do this themselves.
I ask people what’s important on a personal level (family, parents, Hobbies, travel, friends etc) and align that priority to their safety as a ‘motivator’. Employee’s motives and psyche have changed appreciably in production. All employees want is the opportunity from the management to prove their worth. Employees do not want to be "driven", but, rather, to be "moved", not to be "ordered", but to be "shown the way" and not to be "paid" but to be "compensated". When I am out in the field listening to the guys - it is very clear that they are self-motivated. I just remind them of why they are working the long shifts and are far away from their loved ones.
You choose to make a difference to one person at a time when you are advising safety choices and implementing safety training – why is this and what is the benefit of doing so?
When I first started out in mining I wanted to change the world - when I went into a safety role I realised that I was setting myself up for failure with my big dream of making a difference. So, now it’s about one person at a time and one-on-one conversations that count.
It makes it personal and that’s when a culture of care and trust can be created - slow and steady. Its builds momentum when all levels of management are on board with the process of field leadership.
Why is safety training imperative in an organisation and specifically safety leadership training?
I have come across some amazing individuals over the years that are thrust into the role of Supervision - only because they were fantastic on the "tools". This does not make them leaders. I support the leadership teams in listening to their people. A true leader walks the walk.
Can you explain ‘human error prevention’ and what it means in real-world terms in a mining workplace?
Human error is defined as a “departure from acceptable or desirable practice on the part of an individual/s that can result in unacceptable or undesirable results”.
So obviously we want to prevent these results from occurring. Everyone makes choices on how they do things. In the mining context, this is a way for mining companies to look at ways to work with their employees so as to ensure that these errors are eliminated. So how to prevent human error? Firstly, you need to ensure that there are robust policies/procedures in place. Coupled with the policies and procedures – you also need to keep things simple (the KISS principle – keep it simple). Field Leadership is also incredibly important as being visible is what makes a massive difference around the prevention of human error. In all honesty, this is also the main area that lets down many of the mining companies as they become more and more complex.
How can you ensure that a change in behaviour is sustained and not simply surface level?
I work with the 6 logical levels of NLP. If you only focus on the behavioural change then it will fail. I take people to different levels to help them understand why their beliefs and attitudes cause human error. You have to remember that no matter what happens - it is always done with a positive intention which comes back to a person’s deeply ingrained beliefs. A safety culture is about so much more than just issuing policies and procedures and then expecting them to reduce incidents. It is about engaging an individual at a belief level and putting safety into a context that matters to them.
Mining IQ recently interviewed Ruth Jenkins, Director for Sina Safety Solutions. Ruth is an accomplished mining industry professional with experience that spans three continents and over 20 years experience. Under her belt she has a broad range of experience including drill and blast, mine management, safety systems, risk management. Today, however, she talks to us specifically about the challenge of establishing a mine site safety culture and the importance of embedding it in the psyche of all staff.
To what extent is safety a behaviour rather than a process?
Well, a safety ‘behaviour’ is the action or reaction of a person in response to external or internal stimuli. Conversely, a safety ‘process’ is a disciplined framework for managing hazardous systems and processes by applying good design principles, engineering and operating practices.
How can you instil the motivation in an individual to make the right ‘safe’ choices every day using safety training?
Not an easy overnight fix! A third party cannot instil motivation - the individual has to do this themselves.
I ask people what’s important on a personal level (family, parents, Hobbies, travel, friends etc) and align that priority to their safety as a ‘motivator’. Employee’s motives and psyche have changed appreciably in production. All employees want is the opportunity from the management to prove their worth. Employees do not want to be "driven", but, rather, to be "moved", not to be "ordered", but to be "shown the way" and not to be "paid" but to be "compensated". When I am out in the field listening to the guys - it is very clear that they are self-motivated. I just remind them of why they are working the long shifts and are far away from their loved ones.
You choose to make a difference to one person at a time when you are advising safety choices and implementing safety training – why is this and what is the benefit of doing so?
When I first started out in mining I wanted to change the world - when I went into a safety role I realised that I was setting myself up for failure with my big dream of making a difference. So, now it’s about one person at a time and one-on-one conversations that count.
It makes it personal and that’s when a culture of care and trust can be created - slow and steady. Its builds momentum when all levels of management are on board with the process of field leadership.
Why is safety training imperative in an organisation and specifically safety leadership training?
I have come across some amazing individuals over the years that are thrust into the role of Supervision - only because they were fantastic on the "tools". This does not make them leaders. I support the leadership teams in listening to their people. A true leader walks the walk.
Can you explain ‘human error prevention’ and what it means in real-world terms in a mining workplace?
Human error is defined as a “departure from acceptable or desirable practice on the part of an individual/s that can result in unacceptable or undesirable results”.
So obviously we want to prevent these results from occurring. Everyone makes choices on how they do things. In the mining context, this is a way for mining companies to look at ways to work with their employees so as to ensure that these errors are eliminated. So how to prevent human error? Firstly, you need to ensure that there are robust policies/procedures in place. Coupled with the policies and procedures – you also need to keep things simple (the KISS principle – keep it simple). Field Leadership is also incredibly important as being visible is what makes a massive difference around the prevention of human error. In all honesty, this is also the main area that lets down many of the mining companies as they become more and more complex.
How can you ensure that a change in behaviour is sustained and not simply surface level?
I work with the 6 logical levels of NLP. If you only focus on the behavioural change then it will fail. I take people to different levels to help them understand why their beliefs and attitudes cause human error. You have to remember that no matter what happens - it is always done with a positive intention which comes back to a person’s deeply ingrained beliefs. A safety culture is about so much more than just issuing policies and procedures and then expecting them to reduce incidents. It is about engaging an individual at a belief level and putting safety into a context that matters to them.
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References
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