There is scope for employees to be rewarded and retained through the issuing of company shares, especially as more contractors have pursued initial public offerings and have listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.

Delta SBD’s initial public offering in December 2010 created an important corporate structure for the long-term growth of the business. It also created a valuable, one-off opportunity to facilitate staff investment in the company, helping to retain talent and drive commitment, its chief executive Steve Bizzaca told Australian Longwall Magazine.

“In addition, we continue to operate an employee share scheme for senior managers,” he said.

“The interesting and stimulating nature of the projects we work on, along with our strong reputation among clients and existing employees, allows us to attract some very talented people in the industry.

“We operate a number of industry-leading training programs for up-skilling of personnel, particularly for inexperienced personnel, which have a strong emphasis on safety.”

Staff were attracted to Delta SBD because of its commitment to safety and safety performance, he said.

“We are extremely focused on ensuring our employees have a safe working environment through a number of proactive measures,” Bizacca said.

“Delta SBD’s employment arrangements enable key managers, supervisors and operators to be retained on a permanent basis ,which provides benefits both for our people and for our clients.”

Another company finding its own ways around the skills shortages is Mastermyne.

It recently opened its second Queensland Myne Start underground facility – located in Brisbane and officially opened this month.

The facility is part of the company’s strategy to attract, train and retain staff and promote itself as an employer of choice.

The Myne Start training programs are a pathway into the mining industry and not just a training program, according to the company.

Myne Start is a simulation of an underground coal mine that has been designed to introduce inexperienced personnel into the underground coal mining industry through accelerating their skills development and operational readiness.

“What is especially pleasing about the training facility is that we have come up with an idea that is addressing a massive issue in the industry, being the skills shortage,” Mastermyne managing director Tony Caruso said.

Since being officially opened in September 2010, the first Myne Start facility located in Mackay has delivered more than 100 people into the Mastermyne workforce.

The facility was one of the first of its kind and provides specialised underground training to participants in a visually and physically real environment.

In a four-week training program, participants complete in-depth training, with a focus on safety requirements, to make them more productive sooner.

All training courses are based on a user- pay program and upon successful completion participants will be guaranteed a full-time fixed-term position at one of the sites Mastermyne operates in the Bowen Basin.

As part of the program participants will engage in both practical, hands-on training as well as classroom-based learning.

It is expanding the training at the Myne Start facilities to address skills shortages in other disciplines.

It also introduced the Electrical Myne Start program in Mackay to accelerate electrical training for new underground electricians.

The company’s workforce has increased since June from 823 to 1012, 23% net growth.

Retention rates are stable but recruitment of experienced labour has become more difficult. Labour rates escalated in the first half of the 2012 financial year and the company expects this trend to continue.

Masterymyne claims its recruitment and retention strategy is working well but it expects the labour market will continue to hot up on the back of a pipeline of underground projects in Queensland and New South Wales.

Margins were impacted in the first half of 2011 due to the effects of using subcontract labour.

It welcomed its first intake of experienced miners from Poland, with additional overseas experienced underground miners commencing in Mastermyne projects over the remainder of last calendar year.

The Brisbane training centre will up-skill labour with complementary underground skills into coal operations.

In April Mastermyne made the key appointment of general manager of its underground division, with the signing of Anglo American veteran David Sykes. The recruitment push comes as the company consolidates its management ranks and prepares for further expansion.

Caruso said Sykes’ appointment was part of the company’s strategy in 2012 of getting the “right people in the right roles”, which includes changes to the technical services and mining services management roles.

“Culturally, David is the right guy,” he said. “His no-nonsense approach is highly regarded by the people in the mines.”

In other management changes at Mastermyne, Kevin Lonergan has moved to the position of GM services division while Allan Purse has been appointed GM of technical services for the company.

In January Mastermyne appointed John Stuart-Robertson to the newly created position of chief operations officer for the company.

“We continue to build the capability in the management team and are ready for new projects in FY2013,” Caruso said.

It introduced the technical services role to add additional strength across the operations and is continuing its safety transformation to achieve targeted reduction in lagging safety statistics.

“As we grow we are committed to maintaining a team based culture that encourages people to challenge unsafe or inappropriate behaviour and demonstrate trust and respect,” Caruso said.

“We prefer to promote from within and offer opportunities and development to ensure work is fulfilling and worthwhile.”

Safety management within Mastermyne is underpinned by a dual-track approach incorporating compliance and behavioural management.

To effectively manage and monitor the safety and training of its staff, Mastermyne uses safety software INX (Incontrol and Intuition), a web-enabled database in which head office and onsite management can access real time data which is used in the prevention and management of injuries as well as a document management system, audit tool and employee training and records database.

This allows Mastermyne to proactively and accurately manage staff skill levels, monitor ongoing training and compliance, monitor safety trends, track incident occurrence and resolution and provide clients with regular feedback.

This article first appeared in the June issue of Australian Longwall magazine.