While the mining industry has been working towards enhanced safety practices and full compliance with safety standards by embracing innovative safety technologies, creating a culture focused on proactive health and safety has been essential in improving QHSE practices across the industry.
The adoption and use of digital technologies and QHSE management software to mitigate safety risks has been on the rise across mining sites, ensuring worker compliance with health and safety regulations, with IoT enabled devices allowing the collection of critical safety data and enabling mining companies to gain insight and create proactive measures to prevent worksite incidents and safety risks.
With a vision of “zero harm”, it has been essential for mining companies to consider the impact of a strong safety culture, with a focus on worker behaviour, motivation, and attitude towards safety. For work to be carried out safely and efficiently, it is important that workers understand their individual roles in creating a safe worksite.
Companies like Anglo American are engaging employees by involving them in improving health and safety practices in mining. Introducing Global Safety Day five years ago, Anglo American encourages employees to think about the role they play in maintaining health and safety, and discuss steps they can take to improve safety practices. By encouraging employees to engage in safety process and by taking employee opinions and suggestions regarding safety seriously, organizations instill a sense of ownership in employees. Engaged employees will put extra effort into quality of work, offer opinions and suggestions, and overall be more vigilant in making the workplace safe.
The use of technology is an essential component of maintaining a proactive safety culture that no organization should ignore. Using QHSE/EHS software and incident management software such as iTrak to manage health and safety makes safety information more accessible, shareable, and actionable, while also making the process more transparent throughout the organization, from frontline workers up to management. In a workforce equipped with the software to access and share safety information, employees are engaged and actively participating in making the workplace safer.
We hope to see mass adoption of safety technologies across the mining industry, with a combination of innovative QHSE/EHS technologies and a strong and proactive safety culture, mining companies can ensure the safety of employees across worksites. With the detailed logic and technical capabilities to streamline safety processes across the spectrum of connected devices, iTrak allows organizations to manage every facet of their quality and safety processes, from hazard identification, performing inspections, workflows, and audits.
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