The 2020 Women in Mining WA (WIMWA) Summit held in September was backed by Gold Industry Group members IGO, Gold Fields, Northern Star Resources and Regis Resources and featured insightful speakers from around the world addressing current challenges experienced by both women and men in the workplace.
The annual event connected attendees and inspired action, with attendees either live streaming in or in attendance at Optus Stadium in Perth WA.
This year’s Summit tackled various key topics of workplace culture around diversity, leadership, mental health and adaptivity.
Day One
The afternoon session on Day 1 included an industry panel discussion around the topic ‘How can we change the world of work for good?’ Speakers included IGO Limited Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Peter Bradford, Gold Fields Vice President: Legal & Compliance Kelly Carter, with KPMG Associate Director Elizabeth Shaw moderating the conversation.
Kelly Carter noted her takeaway from the COVID-19 pandemic, was that it is key to consider how people experience things differently, depending on their circumstances, and how this can be adapted in the workplace.
“Looking at the organisational level first [on COVID-19], what really occurred to me was things like wildly different experiences – from people who really played to their natural strengths, to be able to have that time to work independently and really manage their own schedule; to people who found it just anxiety-inducing battle to juggle all of the competing issues that they were managing,” said Ms Carter.
Peter Bradford lent further insight into IGO’s position and experience of the pandemic.
“COVID-19 affected everyone differently. As a business we are very small, 390 people I think total across the whole business, in the office, in exploration, and at the mine. So we were able to nimbly respond to COVID-19 and as a business we’ve been working progressively to make sure that all of our systems could be used remotely and have been operating in a team environment for some time. So, we were well prepared and that’s kept us in really good stead,” said Mr Bradford.
Day Two
The second session on Day 2 included another industry panel discussion on the idea of ‘Leading by Example’. Member speakers included Newmont Boddington Gold Mine General Manager Jen Bennett, AngloGold Ashanti Australia Senior Vice President – Australia Michael Erikson, and Gruyere Management Pty Ltd Manager: Mining Kate Frost, chaired by Regis Resources Non-Executive Director Lynda Burnett.
The panellists began by discussing their own personality types, as identified through various tests as such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Hogan Personality Inventory, which help workplaces to understand where employees sit on the spectrum of introverts, extroverts and ambiverts.
Ms Burnett commented that whilst the myriad of available tests can be insightful, there’s more to learn about yourself and your colleagues beyond those parameters.
Ms Bennett confirmed that Newmont utilise a colour wheel system, which sorts employee profiles based on whether they are task or people-based, and then either extroverted or introverted personalities. It also includes strategies on how each profile can operate with the other ‘colours’ in their team.
“What I love is it does talk about pulling on all those colours. And when you need to pull on them. The other thing is when we are pulling together a team, we will look at our circle and say ‘we don’t have any greens – where are we going to pull the green from?’,+” said Ms Bennett.
“We really talk to each other about when we get into some conversations that don’t quite work and get scratchy. It helps understanding those colours and understanding why it could get scratchy based on personality profile, and how to deal with that – i.e. the yellows to the blues and the reds to the greens,” she continued.
Ms Frost noted that as a leader responsible for several teams, she makes a conscious effort to get the quieter, more introverted members to speak up – sparking relationships between the culturally diverse workforces.
“In our regular morning meetings, I make sure that everyone has a space to speak, that they have an opportunity to talk about what they are doing today. It’s active listening,” she said.
“My doors always open and that’s a bit of a trade-off as well – not knowing whether I’m going to get my own work done in a reasonable number of hours within the day, or number of days within the week – but I’m there for the people. I just love getting out and talking to people, and making the best of them, lifting them and allowing them to fulfill their purpose,” she concluded.
Mr Erikson shared a moment in his career when he’d struggled to deal with an issue of company values, as something the workforce should believe and live by but instead was falling by the wayside. Recognising it was his job to change this, he drew a line in the sand, rolling out a plan and programs to explain it and re-train the entire workforce. Ensuring they treated each other with dignity and respect, with everyone bringing their whole selves to work.
“I regard myself as a really empathetic person, I really care about people – if people have got problems, I want to know about it, so that’s what I say to my team, ‘if someone is unwell or there’s a problem at home, let us know’. But by the same token if there’s breaches of our values or things are not acceptable, we must act,” he said.
“So, we’ve got to be compassionate and caring on one hand, and we’ve got to be really firm and strict and uncompromising on the other hand. There’s a balancing act and I think it can co-exist,” Mr Erikson concluded.
One of the closing sessions on Day 2, included a presentation by Northern Star Resources Limited Executive Manager Capability and Culture Peta Slocombe, speaking optimistically about mental health in mining and how to move beyond traditional approaches.
Peta said recognising our own mental health challenges and making room for open and genuine conversations about these is paramount to normalising mental health.
One of Peta’s key tips was to conduct proactive mental health checks in the workforce to create an open and supportive culture, saying our mental health is our greatest untapped performance asset.
Hear more from Ms Slocombe on mental health in our Q&A.
A further, separate event will follow in the coming weeks, giving attendees the chance to hear from journalist, writer, women's rights activist, and advocate for gender equality Michelle King on making workplaces work for everyone.