Through its continuous investment in formalised training that delivers recognised qualifications, Concor Mining Services is helping build mining’s skills base from the ground up.

Serving its blue chip mining customers with a range of contract mining services, the company leverages its recognised position for the benefit of the whole sector, according to Niel Fourie, Group Training Manager at Concor. The company is accredited as a training organisation by both the Mining Qualifications Authority (MQA).

“This allows us to deliver the quality and level of training that not only ensures our customers a highly productive offering, but also gives employees portable qualifications as they progress their careers through the mining sector,” says Fourie. “The full qualifications, part qualifications and short courses are all vital to driving the minerals sector – which remains a key pillar of our economy. They are also important stepping stones for our employees, who use them to progress and often to study further.”

Among the roles on which the technical training is focused are dump truck operators, excavator and face shovel operators and support plant operators. There is also a focus on developing blasting assistants and foremen with rock breaking qualifications. Offered through the MQA framework, the training includes theoretical and practical elements, and Concor Mining Services ensures new operators become comfortable with site operations by having them work under the supervision of an experienced operators for a period of time.

“The impact of the training can be clearly seen in our safety and performance indicators, which show employees really benefit from the skills development process,” he says. “We can also confirm the quality of the learning outcomes by the number of our trainees who move on to work for other employers in the sector – including our mining customers.”

He emphasises that Concor Mining Services sees this movement of people as an inevitable aspect of their career development – and the company is proud to have contributed to building the industry’s skills foundation. When a new employee joins the business, their competencies are analysed alongside the new roles they will be required to undertake – and a gap analysis is conducted. The necessary training interventions to fill those gaps are then defined and planned.

“On this basis, we can develop an individual development plan for that employee, which could look forward one to five years,” he explains. “These individual plans are then aggregated into our Workplace Skills Plan for the business as a whole – which keeps us on track with the demands of the future.”

He points to the significance of a full qualification like the certificate in rock breaking, which enables a person to become an opencast blaster. This, he argues, is as important as a university degree – as it is a requirement for anyone seeking to achieve a blasting ticket.

“The mining sector is highly regulated, especially in terms of health and safety, so there is no short cut to reach the required levels of awareness and expertise,” he says. “To comply with these regulations, the breadth and depth of knowledge that employees must learn and apply is both intensive and detailed.”

There is also considerable legal liability to be considered, especially in supervisory positions, making Concor Mining Service’s investment in health, safety and related training particularly valuable. The company’s skills matrix is therefore designed to balance employee’s needs for management, technology, operational and technical training.

“These courses are recognised by the relevant authorities and structures, so they become ‘portable’ assets that raise the overall skill level of the mining sector,” says Fourie. “At the same time, courses we run such as first aid and firefighting add considerable value within our employees’ communities, as they empower individuals to respond to demanding situations outside of the workplace as well.”

The company’s investment in skills over the past five years or so now means that over 95% of surface mining operators employed by the company have earned their industry-recognised certification – enhancing their value to each project and to the safety and productivity of the mining sector more broadly.