Leadership must foster a culture of innovation across all levels of the workforce and clearly communicate the strategic rationale for the successful adoption of modern mining technologies, enabling employees to internalise these changes, a panel of experts agreed during a discussion held on the second day of the Joburg Indaba, in Johannesburg, on October 3.

Fraser Alexander COO Bongani Buthelezi explained the need to align technological transformation with operational goals to prevent technology from lagging behind.

“From a mining perspective, the important thing is always to align the technology transformation with operational ambitions. Because if the two are separated, technology will always lag behind,” he said.

He noted that production pressures often drove operational decisions, but if new technologies offered clear bottom-line benefits, they were more likely to be embraced.

“Everybody just wants to push production, and so, if there's a bottom-line benefit for operations from these technologies, they will take the leap,” he added.

Buthelezi further emphasised the need for leadership to promote a culture of innovation within the company, where employees at all levels understood and engaged with digital solutions.

“The leadership that is required for technology adoption is the leadership that fosters a culture of innovation, generally, not just bringing big bang type of technology, but rather a culture in a business wherein down to the lowest level on the shop floor, people are encouraged to understand digital solutions and engage with them,” he stated.

This inclusive approach would ensure that, when significant technological changes were implemented, they were well accepted across the organisation.

Seriti Resources chief people officer Ndumi Khoza echoed these points, highlighting that change must be driven from the top, with senior leaders actively participating in the process.

“How you make change stick is that it actually has to come from the head, from the highest level of the organisation,” she said.

She stressed that leadership must be visible at the operational level to build trust and ensure employees understood the need for new technologies.

“The leadership must be seen there where the action is. They must be at the coalface, be it at the pit or underground. They must be seen by employees,” she said.

Khoza also pointed out that employees needed to understand the benefits of adopting new technologies and how these changes would impact them.

“People must understand why they need to adopt this technology, what's in it for them. It must make sense to them,” she said.

She pointed out that when senior leadership engaged directly with employees to discuss upcoming changes and support them during the transition, it helped employees emotionally adjust to those changes. This, in turn, encouraged them to take ownership of the new processes.

“You want to make sure that when nobody's watching the employees, they’re doing the right thing because they understand, and it makes sense to them, and because they understand that it's going to be good for everybody. It's good for the company, it's good for them, it’s good for everyone who is involved in it. So stakeholder involvement is quite important in terms of change management,” Khoza said.

She added that it was essential to plan for the future skills required as mining companies adopted new technologies.

“We will need employees that are skilled for that,” she said.

She explained that this required collaboration with operations and unions to forecast future skills needs and develop training programmes accordingly.

“We then start building that in partnership with the operations, with employees and, from a union leadership perspective, they are also part of that process.

“So if we know that we are going to transition at some point, what skills are we going to need? And how are we going to build those skills as well? Because we have the business of today that we need to take care of, but also, we need to think about the business of tomorrow. So how do we build those skills without disrupting the business of today?,” she mused.

DRA Global CEO James Smith added that the discussion of technology must go hand in hand with a discussion on talent.

“You can't have a technology discussion without a talent discussion. Bringing those two things together is where the power really sits,” he said.

He noted that the mining industry often struggled to attract young talent, but the appeal of working with advanced digital technologies and contributing to sustainability could help draw graduates to the field.

“Digital and technology is big. So if you can sell that dream and it is a reality, graduates like that. They see that as progressive. They like to see that we're going to change the world, and we're going to apply new technologies for that,” he explained.

He also highlighted the growing importance of sustainability and environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in attracting young talent.

“Another selling point is sustainability and ESG. People want to know about that. Graduates want to know about that. And we can tell them that if they join us, they can be part of this engineering solution, and we will change the world,” he said.

Smith also acknowledged the talent challenges specific to South Africa, noting that the country was currently a net exporter of engineering skills.

“We must acknowledge that here in South Africa, particularly, we're a net exporter of engineering skills, and we will be for some time,” he said.

He said this made it even more critical to invest in developing local talent.

“Building your own talent from the ground up is exceptionally important in the era we are going into,” he added.

While South Africa had many highly skilled engineers, Smith pointed out that many of them were nearing retirement.

“We've got exceptionally good engineers in South Africa, but many are on the wrong side of 50,” he noted.

However, he said the new generation of graduates offered a unique advantage.

“The graduates of today, the benefit of them is they come technology-enabled. You don't have to teach it to them. They know everything about tech. So if you can marry that tech-enabled graduate with some of the older engineers, you put those two together, you've got a potentially very powerful solution,” he said.