24th edition of Mining Indaba: how does the global digitalization & automation transformation affect the industry & which impact for all stakeholders?
From 5 to today 8/02 was held the 24th mining Indaba conference in Cape Town, South Africa. Over 150 mining companies met investors, service providers, technology and research & development partners as well as government, researchers, analysts and journalists to strengthen ties of an industry in transformation and with a lot at stake for the broader society. Over 5000 people brainstorming, doing business, connecting and learning.
Polyglot has been partnering with the Mining industry for over 20 years. Our Global head of Mining, @Eric Ortolan was attending the conference for the 10th time and with the recent opening of our South African office led by @Simon Miclet, we met our clients to strengthen relationships, met new mining players and discussed their recruitment, translation and HR needs.
Mining’s semantic follows a global trend of transformation in a digital context. Information circulates faster, end consumers get interested about not only where minerals come from but how it was extracted and the behaviour of those leading the industry. Workforce expectations are higher than ever before.
Listening to the last round table, “the skills for success” in what Timothy Schultz introduced as a “digitalised and automated world”, we got to reflect on the challenge ahead for mining to truly partner for sustainable partnership with all society stakeholders.
Historically, the industry led this topic with large players sophisticating CSR (corporate social responsibility) & CSI (corporate social invest policies and governance for years but the sector and its NGO, government, universities and media partners are not exempt to the general impatience and acceleration requirements that strategy execution struggles to follow.
How to attract investors while changing the way mineral extractions is managed? How to tackle Millennials’ workforce who are far more environmentally focused, less ready to follow strict hierarchy which has dominated the industry for many years? How to create transversal skills bridges to make the industry smarter and allow improved practices strategy execution at a faster pace while communicating and educating all stakeholders about what’s at stake?
How to attract a more diverse and skilled workforce? How to rethink the boards’ role in this fast paced environment?
These challenges are not new to the mining industry and the topics were once again brainstormed during the conference.
Mining 2050 will be about modernization of mining starting with development of top critical skills which PWC in its 2017 report ranked in the following order of importance:
- Problem Solving
- Adaptability
- Creativity
- Leadership
- Emotional intelligence
The fact that technical skills are now prerequisite and not part of the top 5 is the continuity of a significant and profound change affecting industries across the board.
Leadership, decision making, transversal and multi-disciplinary teams are under scrutiny and this is leading the change for a more sophisticated ecosystem and improved democratic and transparent industry.
Full report available here.
Of course, there is still a long way to go to drive change. But the change in the words is the first step to a structural change and after 2 years of low commodity prices and morale for the sector, we definitely noticed a change. For the better. And we look forward to next year already!