Included in the line-up was a panel discussion focusing on overcoming the various obstacles in bringing inexperienced - or green - employees onto a minesite, and dealing with cultural barriers to safety training, particularly in international operations.
In the hot seat were Tiwest principal advisor Eugene Dardengo, Dyno Nobel HSEQ manager Helen Muller and Leighton Contractors health and environment group safety manager Martin Smith who shared their firms' induction initiatives.
Both Muller and Smith said their international companies had been caught "off guard" by the critical labour shortages brought about by the resources boom and had adjusted employee inductions and training accordingly.
Muller explained one of the challenges was instilling a strong, safe work culture on sites and limiting exposure to alternative safety cultures that could be present in more experienced workers.
She said while Dyno Nobel has many of its safety training modules available online, when it comes to safety there is no better way to teach green employees then one-on-one, face-to-face training.
"What we find with new employees is the retention rate of information from the induction is quite small because of the volume ingested in the short period of time, so we couple each new inductee with a mentor, a seasoned employee, and then check in after a period of time to evaluate the training delivered," Muller said.
"We've had this sort of program in place for many years for our junior engineers and professionals but we're finding it's effective across the board and as our workforce ages it's also a really important retention strategy."
It was a similar story for Leighton Contractors, with Smith outlining the company's new Young Workers Mentoring Program, through which young employees spend intense periods of time working alongside site safety workers and experienced employees.
Smith said each employee generally had a preconceived notion of safety, perhaps gained from a previous work site, or - for young workers, in particular - an idea that they are "bulletproof" and one of the challenges is to break through these notions.
He explained that, particularly in an international company, other barriers, such as language or religion, can become major obstacles, and finding innovative ways around them is paramount to ensure the success of the project, such as using diagrams in multilingual sites and avoiding interacting with contractors who do not share the same notions of safety.
Dardengo said staff retention was a priority for Tiwest, and that after investing time and funds into comprehensively training employees it can be difficult to keep them from being poached by competitors.
He said Tiwest is looking at ways to engage the new generation of workers and that offering a flexible work-life balance has proven to be successful - with about 95% of Tiwest's workforce taking up the offer of a nine-day fortnight.
Dardengo explained that keeping experienced staff was paramount to ensuring a safe work site and that in today's tight labour market employers have no option but to consider what motivates and attracts young workers to jobs, including lifestyle considerations and training opportunities.
