First industry-wide survey of mine safety reporting culture highlights strengths alongside areas for improvement
Queensland’s Commissioner for Resources Safety and Health has released a new report, The State of Safety Reporting Culture in Queensland’s Mining Industry, utilising responses from a 2023 survey of over 7,800 people working in the state’s mining industry that aimed to identify strength and opportunity areas in Queensland’s mining and quarrying industry to achieve a stronger safety reporting culture.
Strengths identified include: teams typically look out for each other and support each other to work safely; frontline leaders encourage teams to take appropriate action if something feels unsafe; mine workers usually report their safety concerns and are encouraged to do so by leaders; and there is a high awareness of internal reporting escalation pathways, with 83 per cent of participants knowing how to escalate safety concerns internally.
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In terms of what could be improved, feedback included: making reporting systems clearer and easier to use; improving feedback to workers on the outcomes of incidents as this improves worker confidence in reporting; senior leaders should visit work areas more often to increase their interaction with frontline workers; better recognition of positive safety behaviours; improving planning around timeframes allows workers to focus on performing work safely; and better involvement of frontline workers in safety initiatives reinforces safety behaviours.
“The report establishes a baseline of the safety reporting behaviours exhibited at mine and quarry sites and sets a benchmark for the industry to measure its safety reporting culture against in the future,” Queensland resources safety and health acting commissioner Andrew Clough says.
“The survey was conducted by my office in cooperation with the tripartite Coal Mining Safety and Health Advisory Committee and Mining Safety and Health Advisory Committee.
“The report identified a number of opportunity areas for industry and the safety and health advisory committees to target for further research and continuous improvement.”
The survey can be accessed at: www.publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/the-state-of-safety-reporting-culture-in-queensland-s-mining-industry