The impact of behavioural transformation initiatives on occupational safety performance in the Company XYZ Mining environment in South Africa

Abstract

Occupational safety performance in the South African mining environment has long been a critical indicator of performance due to the moral, regulatory, operational, productivity and business impacts of safety incidents. Existing literature is aimed at improving safety performance, however minimal research has been conducted in the field of behaviour transformation within the mining industry. This qualitative research study aimed to understand the main drivers of occupational safety performance at Company XYZ. This was achieved through an employee perception survey, a safety culture maturity assessment and incident investigation reports. Survey results indicate high levels of safety perception and awareness, and improvement areas, such as safety training and hazard identification, were identified. The investigation reports revealed issues with reporting quality, incident learnings and multiple administrative control failures. The overall outcome of this study is that the current programs aid in improving safety performance, however, there are several optimisation opportunities to further enable the organisation on its journey toward ‘Zero Harm’