Following feedback from readers, I’ve realised that I missed a crime that should have made the Top 10 in my book Crimes Against Mine Planning. That crime is having inadequate engineers in mine planning roles, either because they’re inexperienced, inadequately trained, or incompetent.  This should have been a chapter in my book and so the following series of articles will cover this crime.

Fundamental to having quality team members is quality training and the first training that occurs in any company is the onboarding process for every new starter.  Let me tell you the story about my introduction to the mining industry.

I graduated as a civil engineer from university and was working in the Main Roads Department on road and bridge construction.  It was a condition within this organization that I would need to do country service at some point, which suited me fine because I actually wanted to see what living in small regional towns was like.  However, I figured if I was going to do country service, then working in the mining industry seemed a much more appealing option than working in the Main Roads.

I made some inquiries with an engineer working in the mining industry and he told me that whenever I saw a position advertised for a mining engineer, to just apply for it.  There was a shortage of mining engineers and therefore, mine sites finished up employing civil engineers a lot of the time when they couldn’t find mining engineers.  So I started applying for mining engineering vacancies and sure enough, after a couple of months, I scored an interview.  That process started with an interview with their recruitment agent and the associated psychometric testing.

I mustn’t have gone too badly with that, because I progressed to the next stage, which was to fly to the mine site for an interview.  I thought the interview at site didn’t go too badly, other than my complete naivety about what to wear to a mine site interview and so I was dressed (inappropriately) in trousers, a white shirt, and a tie. But I thought things went well and so I went back to my job in the Main Roads and waited for news.

A couple of months went by and I hadn’t heard anything, so I contacted the recruitment agent and he told me the mine site was still trying to decide what to do.  I continued waiting patiently, but then about five months after my initial interview, I saw the job I had applied for advertised again in the newspaper. I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t happy, as I hadn’t been advised either way, so I contacted the recruitment agent again and was informed that although they thought I was a reasonable applicant, they really did want an experienced mining engineer and so we’re checking the market again.

A few more months went by and eventually, I actually got the job.  It turned out that the engineer I spoke to a year earlier was right, mine sites finish up having to take civil engineers because there was a shortage of mining engineers. Now I was pretty excited – a change in industry from civil to mining, combined with a move to a new town and a totally new lifestyle had me raring to go. I couldn’t wait to get to site to get my teeth into a new role and all the associated learning.

So I turned up at my new job ready to hit the ground running and I was excited.  But unfortunately, it turned out that the mine site was not quite as excited about me starting as I was.  Basically, I was given a corner desk in the survey office and a pile of reports, such as previous mine studies, investor reports, and other dry information sources, and told to read them to get myself familiar with the mine site.  I got to leave the survey office on a couple of occasions for a trip down the pit or to attend a site meeting, but they were rare.  I predominantly just sat at my desk and read and I must admit, it was pretty boring.  It was an extreme anti-climax and in the scheme of things, it was all-round pretty disappointing.

Now it turned out that the mine site did actually have some luck in finding a mining engineer with experience.  There was someone else starting at a similar time who had about five to ten years of mining experience and who was going to be my supervisor.  He was starting two weeks after me and so effectively they were really just waiting for him to start and then he could manage me.  Consequently, no one really gave me any training in that first couple of weeks or invested any time into me. When my new supervisor turned up in my third week, then effectively all the effort was put into familiarizing him with the mine site, the key people, the meeting processes, and how everything worked.  A couple of weeks went by training him about how the mine site worked and I was still pretty much left at my desk in the corner of the survey office, trying to fill my days.  

Eventually, after about three or four weeks, I came onto the radar and I had to be given something to do.  I didn’t have any mining experience, but I did have civil experience and so I was put into a project engineering role and given civil works to manage.  That was disappointing, as I really wanted to get into something in the mining space, I didn’t care what it was, but I wanted to do mining engineering rather than civil engineering. I worked in the project area for about six to twelve months before I was finally given a crack at a mining role.

Now I get that there may have been extenuating circumstances.  There might have been a shortage of people in the Technical Services team and therefore no one had time to train me.  I get there was a need to get the experienced mining engineer (my supervisor) on board and up and running.  But that is not how you onboard new starters!

And that’s certainly not how you start their training towards being an effective mining engineer.  At the very minimum, I could have just tagged along with the other Technical Services team members for that three to four week period. Putting me out with the surveyors would have been a good way to introduce me to the mining operation. Or, I could have spent time with the dragline engineer and just tagged along with him, including attending all the planning and other associated site meetings. Or, I could have been put out with mining supervisors for a week to drive around with them and learn all about the operational side of the mine.  There are so many things that could have been done, that would not necessarily have been time-consuming for other team members, that would have been much more effective than leaving me sitting at a desk reading manuals.

Training is a critical component in creating mining engineers who are more than just competent at their role.  I want to use this story of what you “shouldn’t do” to build into a series of articles on what you should do instead.