When it comes to success stories in mining, a win for one organisation is a win for the entire industry. This is why the news of global mining companies’ adoption of Wyzetalk’s employee engagement app is vital in terms of the shared value for the sector as a whole.
Companies are driving employee engagement and improved safety and productivity for mines across the entire value chain using this app.
Here is how it happened:
The mining industry has rigorous rules and regulations it has to follow, and with good reason.
2019 saw South Africa’s mining sector record 51 fatalities for the year – the lowest number on record, according to the Department of Mineral Resources. Unfortunately, in 2020, this figure rose by 18%, with accidents related to fall of ground and transportation contributing to the increase.
Stats like these indicate failures in the system and highlight the need for constant and consistent renewal, both in communicating and executing collaborative safety efforts that involve every employee, from top management down to ground level staff.
The key to successful implementations has been a collaboration between those who enforced corporate decisions and those expected to carry them out. Information and data with complete visibility and engagement is a key differentiator.
With the mining sector complying with its own health and safety regulations, its mandate is to mitigate risk to its employees. Initiatives to educate its workforce are largely traditional.
The same applies to the multinational mining organisations in question.
Teams tasked with managing and communicating improvements to safety procedures, along with the training to implement these improvements, remain faithful to tried-and-tested toolbox talks (or safety moments) and recycled, conventional methods of sharing content.
Statistics and reporting dashboards were shared in the same manner. When a specific incident occurs, the safety training that follows often continues according to a pre-scheduled calendar only sometimes adjusted to refresh safety protocols in the particular area that the incident took place, as opposed to the organisation as a whole.
This rote approach to safety briefings leads to employees becoming conditioned to the content and indifferent to the message. Multinationals need ways to increase and encourage ‘learning on the go’.
These multinational mining organisations knew that a new mobile channel would bring a new interest in engaging in the content. Wyzetalk took its employee engagement app and integrated it into the mining company’s existing systems, allowing a seamless transition from outdated modes of engagement to a new, unified learning experience.
The Wyzetalk platform overhauled and redesigned the method by which the company communicated its leadership messages, production updates, safety protocols, health campaigns, ESS and so much more into a practical digital tool that achieved the following milestones:
Before, mining companies filed formulaic reports of incidents that occurred and where they took place. Although the cause and outcome of these were eventually shared with the workforce, by the time employees saw the reports they could not be used to create a behaviour change.
Now, incidents can be reported on the app and updated in real time. This allows a dynamic view of the company and its incidents. Employees can see both the current incident records and their production achievements.
This is important when performance bonuses are tied to the rate of incidents, i.e. fewer incidents mean higher bonuses. An instant view of incidents means instant access to an employee’s projected bonus.
This means that by the time month-end arrives, employees already know how they have performed.
Feedback forms can often be mistaken as a way for employees to air their grievances. Although that facility is available, feedback forms also serve to survey, invite and gauge employee knowledge incrementally. This allowed systematic and constant awareness of how each employee feels and is progressing.
For instance, when launching a specific campaign related to a new theme, updated regulation, or experimental process, the feedback forms are a great way to review the level of success in onboarding employees.
The information pitches the next stage of learning, once again in real-time.
Furthermore, if you are concerned about participation at scale, incentives often prove to be a simple method of achieving full engagement.
Incentivised collaboration not only provides a method to collect precise data on initiatives, but it also enables your organisation to measure the collaboration’s effectiveness with employees and improve their understanding.
Each company’s systems are different, which means a custom solution that easily integrates is essential if it expects to make the most of its diagnostic tools.
The companies achieve this with Wyzetalk’s employee engagement app, drawing on quality analytics that enable the company to review, revise and adjust behaviour, as well as the employee engagement solution’s implementation, where necessary.
No single method or means of communication will work for every department, especially not within an industry as large as mining. For instance, a generic memo related to facilities management will not be of much use to employees working within functional materials.
With its new employee engagement solution, the company curates segment-and-department-specific information to ensure the right employees see the correct information related to their job or family life.
The employee engagement solution gears content towards addressing vulnerabilities in a particular area of the mine without inundating employees based elsewhere with irrelevant information.
The employee engagement solution is also able to provide “feel-good” content and messages, such as important dates like birthdays and personal or professional milestones.
Wyzetalk’s employee engagement solution introduces a peer element to learning and development that equips each employee with an agency to track their understanding and progress daily.
Providing each employee with first-hand access to the mine’s learning plan allows for more opportunities to test and track areas for improvement within departments.
This encourages ‘micro learning’, which allows creative ways to distil important safety information that promotes engagement and inspires improvement. This leads to a stable workforce where everyone is rooting for their ‘buddy’.
In the traditional mining hierarchy, levels of reporting are fixed. This rigidity removes real interaction between management and all levels of the workforce.
When the companies introduce their employee engagement solution, it clears through this bureaucratic clutter.
For example; if an employee working with a new brand of drill bit were to realise that it was incompatible with their existing tools, the employee could log this on the employee engagement solution and alert the relevant people of this issue.
From entry-level to the executive, this provides every employee with the ability to see the organisation’s collective engagement at work. Employees can see their contribution recognised and that the executive floor is listening and being responsive, ideally immediately.
Safety in the workplace must extend to safety at home to guarantee a full-circuit safety profile. The multinational mining companies employee engagement solutions includes an employee assistance programme (EAP), which offers wellness assistance inside and outside the workplace.
Employees are encouraged to reach out for any help they require. This holistic approach closes the circle on challenges employees face and allows the company to extend its reach to the broader community.
Innovating for innovation’s sake without integrating existing systems and processes becomes (ironically) a paper exercise. However, when you leverage mechanisms that work and take them into an appropriate digital space, you will immediately see enhanced cohesion in your company culture and improved productivity.
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