The challenge with attracting talent in the Mining Industry

The challenge with attracting talent in the mining industry

Whilst I feel this is a subject that has been discussed to near exhaustion over the last several months, I can’t escape the fact that I’ve been asked to discuss this subject and make recommendations to several employers recently. I’ve been recruiting in the mining industry in Australia and Globally for about 20 years and I’ve seen a lot of changes in that time but finding talent for many of those very specific senior technical roles has always been a challenge.

Broadly speaking in Australia the industry has adapted well to many of the challenges that have occurred over this time however at the same time many of the industries practices and flexibility particularly around attraction, recruitment and engagement have not done as well.

Please note my brief thoughts are based what I’ve observed many companies have done to varying levels of success to attract talent in a very competitive environment. I’m definitely not passing judgement if these adaptions are necessarily better for the industry or the development of future leaders or talent in the industry, that’s another discussion all together.

To start with what do I think are some of the things the industry has done well to adapt to attracting talent.

·????????In the 2000s residential was far more normal and any FIFO rosters (expat or local) were typically far longer on site then what we see today and in some commodities and many locations FIFO was not an option. Just look at the Australian East Coast Coal in the early 2000s, FIFO barely existed however move forward to the mid to late 2010s and now 2020+ and most all sites offer FIFO and the traditional 5/2 working week (at the engineering and leadership level) is now often standard 5/2,4/3. Not to mention equal time rosters for many other site operational roles. Offering more flexibility particularly more time at home or time off is obviously appealing to many people and helps compete with the vast majority of the Australian working environment who remain the tradition 5/2.

·????????Over this time, we have seen a significant rise in corporate based roles. While historically corporate roles were for Executive Management, Project Study, Corporate Financial Services and maybe some specialist roles we increasingly see corporate based positions having a significant direct influence in running a mine site allowing more employees to choose to live in a major centre rather then moving to a remote or regional location that can be a challenge for families. Many pros and cons exist with this trend but it certainly offers increase options to attract talent then from 10+ years ago.

·????????Remuneration in the Mining Industry has grown significantly over this time and certainly at a rate higher than most other industries that compete for talent. On top of this more innovative bonuses, sign on incentives and additional benefits have become far more common. Generally this makes the industry more financially attractive than many competitors.

·????????In the last several years many employers in the industry have gone out of their way to get a better gender balance and thus open a potentially larger pool of talent to source from. If you look at this just from a logical point of view (outside of the obvious ethics) the opportunity to be more attractive across a wider selection of the talent market is important and if the mining industry didn’t compete other industries will take this talent pool.

What do I think are some of the things the industry has done less well to adapt to attracting talent?

·????????One of the challenges with the rise of the corporate function in many of the mining companies is the rise of set standards and procedures that (unknowingly or otherwise) create barriers to applicants, overly long process and bureaucracy that impedes attracting and hiring highly valuable talent. I will quickly mention one example I know of that happened this month. A GM level experienced professional in the industry recently saw an advert of a role with a competitor they were very interested in. For the first time in 15 years, they actually went to apply for a role and had to use the company’s portal as instructed by the advert. However halfway through using the portal the constant laborious repetition and time-consuming process completely drained the persons enthusiasm to apply and they ultimately didn’t complete the process or submit an application. This is a story I hear regularly and have tested myself. Many companies are missing opportunities to bring in crucial talent purely because of this.

·????????The Industry has been late to the party in promoting its importance and value at a social level in a changing world that can (wrongly) see mining as a harmful industry and negative career path. At a practical level fewer students are taking mining courses at universities, there is an increased social pressure on people in the industry to leave and talent who can often transfer their skills can go to the renewables sector as one example. The industry is reacting, slowly, but I’d argue with less vigour than it could.

·?????????As a general rule when mining companies advertise a role the content lacks specific relevant information that is crucial to “promoting/selling” the role and is usually filled with an exceptionally large amount of non-relevant information (I understand brand and marketing elements). As a result, potentially relevant talent who maybe actively looking (a rare occurrence) will most likely skip over the advert or if they are tempted to investigate find no contact information or ability to make confidential enquires. Ultimately the talent now must choose if they are willing to take the risk and apply (it’s a remarkably small industry and confidentiality is always a concern) through the portal process (which leads me back to an earlier point) without sufficient detail for them to determine genuine interest in the role. As a result, most don’t apply. ??

·????????Remuneration is always a bugbear that causes challenges. My main observation here is some organisations have been a lot more progressive and adapted to the market conditions while others are constantly running 2-4 years behind industry remuneration. If you are looking for the best people but can’t pay an industry competitive remuneration you are fighting an up-hill battle from the start.

This is really a very basic summary of a few key points of what I’ve observed. I believe the industry and especially specific companies and employers have an opportunity to make a lot of improvements (some obvious, some more subtle) in what they do and get a much improved outcome.

PS – while I’ve been talking about the Mining Industry specifically many of the observations and particularly opportunities to improve can be applied to related industries especially O&G, construction, infrastructure, and the growing renewables space.?

Adam Harris has been running Executive Search assignments across the Mining Industry for 20 years both within Australia and Globally. His clients include Global Mining Houses, Contractors and Consultancies.