Is the mining industry doing enough to ensure vital technical skills and knowledge are passed on to the younger generation of miners?
Is the mining industry doing enough to ensure vital technical skills and knowledge are passed on to the younger generation of miners?
Or does an industry already in the grip of a skills shortage risk losing a wealth of knowledge, skills and experience needed to ensure mine sites can operate optimally, as senior team members retire?
In this month’s MPi Poll we want to look closely at the intergenerational transfer of skills in our industry — and we want to hear from you.
The theory we want to test is whether it’s fair to be concerned that, over the next five to 10 years, a great deal of technical mining knowledge is going to vanish from companies because it hasn’t been passed on by the inner core of senior employees who have held that knowledge for the past 30 or 40 years.
And, if mining companies are experiencing this problem, we’re interested in what kinds of action they’re taking to fix it — perhaps in-house training or intergenerational mentorships.
Intergenerational issues and mining’s skills shortage
At the same time, this is an opportunity to explore factors which might, potentially, help alleviate the skills shortage and address our industry’s major challenge: attracting and retaining the very best talent of the next generation. For example, could experienced operators sharing their wealth of technical knowledge help woo young talent away from other industries?
Or, could it be that the younger generation is desperate for its opportunity to show its mettle, but they feel the older generation isn’t making way for them? And could this be causing a stagnation in the mining jobs market?
It’s fertile ground and we’re fascinated to hear your thoughts — whether you’re new to the industry or have been around for years.
It’s a short questionnaire of 10 “yes/no” answer questions and all answers are anonymous. Let us know what you think here.