One of the great challenges of running a mine can be the task of gathering and managing a quality workforce. Even so, oftentimes, it isn’t possible to gather an entire workforce of experienced miners. For this reason, mines need to learn to work with experienced and inexperienced workers alike. Mines also need to work to give their employees as wide a skill set as possible. From the way you train, to the way you schedule tasks, it will affect the performance of the mine. In today’s blog we’ll lay out a few of you best tips for supporting a multi-skilled workforce.
Emphasise the Fundamentals:
A multi-skilled workforce is fantastic for its ability to allow for flexibility. However, it’s important not to forget the fundamentals. Make sure everyone in the mine is well-trained on fundamentals, especially with regards to safety procedures. This will make further specializing easier and will grant you a more competent workforce as a whole. A basic understanding of multiple disciplines throughout the mine, is something worth teaching every single person. You may even find it beneficial to take it a step further and create a custom SOP. Something like an SOP for mine fundamentals, requiring everyone to complete it. The results will undoubtedly be worth the trouble.
A multi-skilled workforce is fantastic for its ability to allow for flexibility.
Invest Big in Your Personnel:
Spending precious time on training workers on things that aren’t immediately useful may not seem like a great idea on the short term. However, the long term benefits and flexibility afforded to you by creating a multi-skilled workforce are immense. When making decisions regarding a long-term aspect of your mine, like personnel, it is important to think about the long term ROI of additional training. Then, when you find yourself in a crunch, shorthanded because of vacations, sick leave or turnover, you won’t be left scrambling.
This means that the shuffle of moving qualified workers to the right places in the event of short handedness becomes very straightforward.
Leverage Quality Software:
One of the many luxuries of leading a workforce in the 21st century is the opportunity to choose from a wide array of technologies to support your mine. A couple of these technologies in particular are especially useful for supporting a multi-skilled workforce. The first software we’ll talk about is GroundHog LMS. GroundHog LMS is a streamlined certificate and training management. It is incredibly useful when trying to effectively train a large workforce in a variety of disciplines. For instance, you could create a custom training program within GroundHog LMS to reinforce the fundamentals for your entire workforce. Then, simply distribute the course via the GroundHog LMS app and when they complete it, the certification will be available on their profile, along with any other certificates or forms (i.e 5000-23s.) The second product useful for this problem is groundHog. groundHog is a cutting-edge fleet management system that is perfect for task scheduling and monitoring. This means that the shuffle of moving qualified workers to the right places in the event of short handedness becomes very straightforward.
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