The skill of acquiring talent

The metaverse will change training. Credit: Alessandro Biascioli via Shutterstock

“The profit pool for commodities will likely change significantly by 2030,” according to the World Economic Forum. It warns that companies need to adapt their business models to stay relevant, competitive and sustainable in a lower-carbon economy – particularly in mining and rare earths.

In late 2020, with the world firmly in the grips of the Covid pandemic, the body said the global situation was already expediting technological changes disrupting the workforce. It went on: “Investing in skills and collaboration within the industry to respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and prepare for the future of work, is urgently needed.”  

The body said there are seven trends shaping the sector’s future. Among them is the growing utilisation of data, and as such a budding demand for a workforce proficient in data capture and analysis, as well as a technology-focussed workforce. It added that constantly evolving technologies and business models mean miners will have to develop and embrace new skillsets. “The sector will have to increasingly compete with the IT sector to attract top talent from universities in order to drive its digitalization and automation processes,” the report said.

Two years on, professional services companies such as Accenture believe the answer lies in systems that connect learning online: the long awaited metaverse. Accenture’s Asia Pacific talent and organization lead, Gastón Carrión, said that alongside this, advances in automation technology and artificial intelligence (AI), coupled with the drive to decarbonise and mounting geopolitical forces, were continuing having an impact.

“This is likely to mean more autonomous, agile and remote operations, leading to a safer and more cost-efficient business environment,” he said in a commentary piece on the company’s website. “However, it will also mean a major shift in the skillsets necessary to support new digitally-driven operating models, and the most sought-after skills may be in short supply.”

He went on to establish that mining companies had to devise and implement strategies to secure the right talent, and develop the talent already they have if they are to succeed. Traditional approaches, he added, will simply no longer be adequate; a view that, he argued, was supported by the Accenture’s December 2021 Transforming Future Talent in Mining and Metals” report.

Carrión’s rationale lies in the almost insatiable hunger for remote operations. As an example, Accenture believes that by 2032, six in 10 of Australia’s mining workforce will be remote, with that number even greater by the end of that decade. “With so few people onsite at that point,” continued Carrión, “the challenge will be in how to create human connections between those remote workers and the onsite assets and employees they support.”

Accounting giant PwC shares the view that the sector is transitioning, or at least that it needs to. This will require 21% more mining engineers and geotech engineers, and 29% more metallurgists, by 2040 than it had in 2020, it says.

Inside the industry, others share these views. “We need more technologists, more data scientists and more mathematicians,” warned BHP Group’s chief technology officer Laura Tyler late last year. Speaking to a gathering of mining professionals at a Melbourne Mining Club lunch in December, she warned the sector was set to miss out to the “cool kids” like Google and Amazon, as well as the defence and pharmaceuticals industries among others. “Increasingly we need more digital skills in every aspect of what we do,” she continued. “We need to train them now; and we need to make sure they see the mining industry as stable, attractive and dare I say it, exciting.”

As recently as February of this year, management consulting giant McKinsey & Co, asked whether the sector had “lost its lustre” when it came to attracting and retaining talent. “A well-managed, motivated and trained workforce has been a core driver for productivity and safety in mining,” it said, but it warned that an unprecedented skills shortage was “elevating talent to the top of miners’ agendas”.

It went on to say that a challenging combination of changing personal priorities among the workforce, largely as a result of the pandemic, was “triggering far-reaching changes” among the sector’s workforce. An increased focus on digitisation and automation, coupled with more remote working and shifting operation-related demands, add to the scenario.

The increased consciousness of ESG factors also makes accurate tracking of various metrics more important, facilitated by digital skills. Going some way to addressing this, Carrión says Accenture sees a growing requirement to upskill both onsite and remote workers in digital fluency. “Similarly, greater digital fluency will be crucial for maintenance teams moving from traditional mechanical work to managing autonomous maintenance systems.” He adds that the company believes that the best way to prepare is to leverage digital talent development strategies: “That means embracing all that the metaverse has to offer”.

The subject has been the subject of sci-fi movies, books and a compendium of other media for years, each seemingly a little more insane. In reality, they have inched closer to actuality; most recently blockbuster hit Everything Everywhere All at Once. But this world is with us, or at least alongside us, today. There are many definitions of what the metaverse is, but put simply it is a space in which humans can interact with environments that are not physically there through virtual and augmented reality. Given the trend toward remote operations, this has become particularly important.

This technology, Carrión says, offers elements that mining companies can exploit to deliver a workforce that is needed for what he says is a rapidly approaching, digitally enhanced industry. “Specifically, we see the metaverse playing a central role in meaningfully connecting remote and onsite operations, as well as providing an engaging and effective pathway for upskilling employees across all mining operations… Mining companies can use the metaverse as a means of developing digital fluency through their learning programmes,” he writes.

Although Accenture has been working with some of its mining partners in this realm already, illustrating a growing appetite, Carrión has some advice for the sector as a whole: “The question on many people’s minds now is where to get started. A good place to begin is by creating a view of your future workforce and the capabilities and skillsets they will need.”

He says mining companies should start small and leverage available technologies to fast-track development of digital skills, emphasising the importance of quickly realising wins from the technology and scaling from there. But, he continues, each  journey is likely a unique one: “There are many paths to the metaverse that a mining company can take based on their individual business priorities and objectives.”

The challenges posed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution are clear and becoming more so by the day, but the rewards for addressing them quickly and properly will benefit everyone, in turn increasing their chances of success. The question for the sector now is: although much has been done to prepare for tomorrow, are we really prepared, and more so, is the workforce? 

GlobalData, the leading provider of industry intelligence, provided the underlying data, research, and analysis used to produce this article.

GlobalData’s Thematic Intelligence uses proprietary data, research, and analysis to provide a forward-looking perspective on the key themes that will shape the future of the world’s largest industries and the organisations within them.