THE SELECTION, TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT OF
MINE MANAGERS-A CASE STUDY
By
BRYAN J. DREWI AND D. R. WALTON2
INTRODUCTION
It is self-evident that the availability of
well qualified and experienced people to manage
mining operations is vital to the success of an
individual mine and to the ability to develop
new mines either in Australia or overseas.
For larger operations the term "mine
manager" is here used to denote a range of
positions within an individual company. Thus
"mine managers" may be people managing
individual mines at one geographic location
with overall management provided by other "mine
managers" in the roles such as mine super-
intendents, production managers, general
managers, etc. Smaller operations may have
only a single level of management nominated as
limine manager".
In these smaller operations it is usual,
but not invariable, that the mine manager will
be a mining engineer, whilst in larger
operations the managers or general manager may
be from a discipline other than mining engineer-
ing. This case study traces the development of
mining enginee.rs to managerial positions as
practised at Broken Hill in The Zinc
Corporation, Limited and New Broken Hill
Consolidated Limited (ZC/NBHC) mines. Both of
these properties are wholly-owned by Australian
Mining & Smelting Limited (AM&S), a wholly owned
/
I Manager - Mining, The Zinc Corporation Limited
Limited/New Broken Hill Consolidated Limited
Droken Bill, NSW.
2 Ilanager - Personnel, The Zinc Corporation
Ltd.,/N.B.H. Consolidated Ltd., Broken Hill,
NSW.
The Aus. J.M.M. Melbourne Branch, Management in the Mining Industry Symposium, October, 1980
Maouscript received at The Institute 19.8.80
subsidiary of CRA Limited. Generally in the
past the General Manager of the Broken Hill
operations has been a mining engineer trained
and promoted within the local management structure.
GENERAL CONCEPT
There are four basic components of any plan
to ensure that an organization has continually
available the "talent" necessary to achieve its
objectives -
ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
Long-term planning must include an analysis
of the current organizational structure to
determine its appropriateness to meet the
pla~ned future developments of the organization,
and to determine changes needed and the future
requirements for managerial personnel.
PERSONNEL INVENTORY REVIEW
By an examination of the people currently
available, bearing in mind experience, age,
demonstrated ability, etc., an assessment can
be made of the potential available from within
the organization to meet future staffing needs.
From this assessment and the organization
analysis the future gaps, for which people must
be selected and trained can be identified.
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT NEEDS
The assessment of the performance and
potential of current staff will establish the
training and development needs of individuals
and of certain groups.
133
 B. J. DREW AND D. R. WALTON
IMPLEMENTATION OF PROGRAMME
From the first three components, plans can
be formulated for -
Recruitment
Individual and collective training
Development programmes.
At ZC/NBHC organizational analysis and a
personnel· inventory review are carried out
annually, with checks and re-assessments made
from time to time especially in light of un-
predictable staff losses due to resignations.,
inter-company transfers, etc.
FRAMEWORK OF THE SCHEME
There are three distinct stages in ensuring
that well qualified and experienced managers
are available to meet our requirements. These
stages are -
RECRUITMENT
The recruitment of cadets, new graduate
mining ~ngineers and experienced engineers.
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
Undergraduate Training and Development
The training and development of cadets
whilst undertaking their tertiary education on
a part-time basis.
Development of the New Graduate
A period of planned, job experience and
formal courses with increasingly responsible
jobs.
MID-LEVEL DEVELOPMENT
The further development of graduate mining
engineers leading to their ability to fill a
managerial position. Before entering this
stage it is usual for individuals to have gained
the NSW Certificate of Competency as a manager
(of below ground mines).
The Aus. I.M.M. Melbourne Branch, Management in the Mining Industry Symposium, October, 1980
RECRUITMENT
As regards the Mining Section staff, AM&S
has generally practised a policy of "promotion
from within" to meet our Broken Hill requirements
and we also provide for the possibility that
experienced engineers and managers may be trans-
ferred to staff other operations of the CRA
Group. Our recruitment programme aims to give
opportunities to suitable local High School
students to join the company after obtaining tpe
Higher School Certificate, and to undertake a
degree course in mining engineering on a part-
time basis while working as a member of the mine
staff. We also recruit newly graduated mining
engineers from the metropolitan universities.
Graduates from these two sources bring different
strengths and skills to the enterprise in their
formative years. Because normal intakes are
usually adequate to cover termination rates, re-
cruitment of experienced engineers is seldom
required, but may occasionally occur when special
skills or a pressing demand makes it necessary.
TRAINING AND DEVELOPME~T
UNDERGRADUATE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
ZC/NBHC is fortunate to have had for some
20 years a College of the University of NSW
located in Broken Hill providing a six-year
part-time course leading to a BSc (Eng) degree
in Mining Engineering. This course is soon to
be replaced by a six-year part-time course lead-
ing to a Bachelor of Engineering degree
equivalent to the four-year full-time BE course
offered at the University of NSW at Kensington.
Consequently a number of cadets are recruited
each year as trainee mining engineers and during
their course attend university part-time. The
maximum time for which cadets may be released by
the company is eight hours each week. This
parallels an arrangement agreed to between the
mining companies and the craft unions in
relation to "daylight training" for the
 B. J. DREW AND D. R. WALTON
company's apprentices. At work the cadets
follow a job rotation programme which provides
exposure to and experience in a number of mine
servicing functions. (The programme is
summarised in Appendix 1.)
The first four to five years of their
emp.loyment are spent in the mine survey offices,
where they commence as surveyor's assistants,
working with experienced surveyors engaged in
surveying underground in the mine. After two
to three years most cadets have sufficient
experience and skill to take on the surveyor's
duties and then they have as their assistants
the new or less experienced cadets.
While in his early years in the survey
office a cadet may be allocated for six to nine
months as a sampler to the geology department
sampling working faces in the mine.
After four to five years in the survey
offices cadets may be placed in some of the
service departments of the mines to gain a
greater breadth of exposure to technical
aspects of operations. Thus in the research
and development section the cadet may assist
rock mechanics engineers or blasting engineers
in gathering data and in installing ground
monitoring equipment. Some cadets also get an
opportunity to.work with the rockdrilling
engineer, or on stores liaison and underground
fire control.
The precise course followed by each cadet
is determined in part by the need to staff
various staff functions in the mining depart-
ment and this often decides when a cadet is
moved from the survey office and what avenue of
experience he may enter.
In this latter pe!iod the trainee mining
engineer attends a number of formal in-company
The Aus. I.M.M. Melbourne Branch, Management in the Mining Industry Symposium, October, 1980
135
training courses on subjects such as mine
safety, industrial relations and conference
leading.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEWLY-GRADUATED MINING
ENGINEER
Newly graduated engineers may have already
worked for the company for six years as
described above, or may have been recruited
directly from metropolitan universities. In
either case the initial aspiration of the new
graduate is to gain his Certificate of
Competency as a Manager of a Below Ground Mine
and the development programmes for graduates
are planned to take this into account. (These
programmes are summarized in Appendix 2.)
One of the requirements for the Certificate
is that the graduate must have had three years
practical working experience in a metalliferous
mine of suitable standing, this period to
include 12 months at some approved type of
mining work, 3 months of which has to be work
at the mining face. During this 12 months
engineers are required to be members of the
miners' union and function as part of the
daily-paid labour force.
In the company's overall development plan,
there are two different but closely associated
streams. The local graduate continues on the
programme of work experience which commenced
when he first joined the company. The
graduate from the metropolitan university
commences a modified version of this programme,
In both cases at an appropriate time, arrange-
ments' are made for the graduates to gain their
practical mining experience. The local
graduate, because he already will have completed
two of his three years' experience required for
the Mine Managers Certificate, is given the
opportunity to gain his underground experience
as soon as can conveniently be arranged (in rare
 B. J. DREW AND D. R. WALTON
136
instances when his academic load is light a
cadet may be able to gain this experience in
his last year of university study). Some-
times he is needed in the ventilation depart-
ment before gaining his underground experience,
or after gaining this experience he may
progress to areas such as ventilation, budgets
and statistics, rock mechanics and research
and development, underground supervision as a
shiftboss (preceded by more intense safety
training), and mine planning. During this
time he attends further formal in-company
courses in supervision and in counselling.
The new graduate from the metropolitan
university commences a programme of planned job
experience and formal courses along similar
lines to that the local graduate traverses in
the latter part of his under-graduate years and
as a new graduate. It is possible to compress
this programme to a great extent because the
metropolitan university graduate spends only
9 to 12 months in the survey office, while the
local graduate has been employed to fill a
number of sub-professional positions in the
mining departm~nt during his under-graduate
years. Such lengthy experience in these
positions is not vital to the development of
the already qualified engineer.
It is pointed out that this development
programme does not insist on every cadet and
metropolitan university graduate gaining
experience in every facet of the mining depart-
ment mentioned above. The exigencies of
staffing and operating the various sections may
mean that a particular graduate may not have
the opportunity to actually work in all
sections - in this case his knowledge of the
work of the missed sections may be gained by
personal enquiry or by association with the
work at some later stage of his career. In
any case such omissions are limited to less
The Aus. I.M.M. Melbourne Branch, Management in the Mining Industry Symposium, October, 1980
vital jobs.
MID-LEVEL DEVELOPMENT
At this stage there is available a number
of qualified engineers with some technical
experience, a limited exposure to man management
and usually possessing statutory qualifications
fitting them to manage a below ground mine.
It is not possible to provide career path
opportunities to meet everyone's aspirations to
reach quickly a senior position in the
operating, service or engineering functions of
the mining department. Those people with
outstanding potential to progress to senior
levels must be identified so that the less
plentiful mid-level career training positions,
such as senior mining engineer, rockdrilling
engineer and relieving assistant underground
manager can be used to maximum advantage.
From this point a person's development is
based on a review of his previous performance
and his potential to fill one of these mid-
level positions. The most important part of
this phase in the development of' a mine manager
is the experience he gains in "man management".
Some period, measured in months, has been spent
earlier in the programme as a mining shiftboss.
However, experience as a relieving assistant
underground manager or as an underground
.maintenance engineer or sandfi1ling engineer,
provides a deeper experience in this field and
reveals capabilities essential for progression
to senior positions in mine management.
While gaining this operating experience,
the opportunity is provided to broaden the
engineer's outlook by attendance at external
management courses and by visits to other mines
(normally within Australia) to observe their
practices and to discuss mutual problems with
their staff. (See Appendix 3.)
 B. J. DREW AND D. R. WALTON
OTHER ASPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT
Two other facets of personal development
should be mentioned. First is the need to
update people's technical knowledge as part of
their overall development and secondly is the
value of having had work experience in senior
planning and service functions as well as in
operating positions.
He attempt to maintain technical
competence by visits to other mines, by
attendance at internal and external briefings,
seminars and workshops on technical subjects
and by informal technical discussions on the
mine and by a continual study of technical
literature. More senior staff, although
seniority is not necessarily the criterion,
also undertake visits to mines overseas either
to examine specific operations and methods, or
to obtain a broad view of overseas mining
practices.
The experience gained in the more senior
mining engineering positions is of considerable
value in developing a mining engineer's ability
to understand management's economic require-
ments (as distinct from technical requirements
in which the engineer should be well versed);
also the restraints imposed by statutory limits,
union attitudes and policies and company
policy - so that when it becomes the engineer's
time to fill a managerial position he can
approach his duties with confidence and with a
mature outlook.
Dealing with other sections and depart-
ments, discussion with operators on the job and
with supervisors, and on site inspections
enhance the engineer's ability to produce well-
reasoned decisions, observing all the facto~s
present and likely to affect the outcome.
The Aus. I.M.M. Melbourne Branch, Management in the Mining Industry Symposium, October, 1980
137
The successful achievement of objectives
by the implementing of these decisions proclaim
the degree to which the managem~nt training has
been successful and the preparedness of the
engineer for more senior management
responsibilities.
DEVELOPMENT FOR SENIOR STAFF
By this time the mining engineer has had
considerable experience in an operating role
and has been exposed to the planning/service
functions although possibly not at a senior
level. Those who have demonstrated their
ability to perform successfully at a senior
level have been identified and have normally
had the opportunity to act in a more senior
level whilst managers have been on leave, on
overseas study tours, etc.
These earlier stages of training culminate
in the permanent appointment of some engineers
to positions in operating management - assistant
underground manager and eventually possibly
underground manager responsible for the running
of the mining operations.
Alternatively a senior position in the
services side of the mining department ~ chief
planning engineer, underground superintendent,
etc., may be obtained.
Two further steps are taken at this stage,
or a little earlier, to "round off" their
training. The first is attendance at an
Advanced Management Programme and the second is
an overseas tour to obtain a broad view of
mining practices, methods and management in other
countries. Both these steps are aimed at
broadening the views and outlook of the
individual and better equipping him for his
present job and for future advancement.
 THE ZINC CORPORATION, LIMITED APPENDIX I w
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NEW BROKEN HILL CONSOLIDATED LIMITED

IN-HOUSE TRAINING FOR TRAINEE MINING ENGINEERS

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 THE ZINC CORPORATION, LIMITED APPENDIX 2
NEW BROKEN HILL CONSOLIDATED LIMITED

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 THE ZINC CORPORATION, LIMITED APPENDIX 2 :;.
NEW BROKEN HILL CONSOLIDATED LIMITED Page 2 0

IN-HOUSE TRAINING FOR GRADUATE MINING ENGINEERS

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 THE ZINC CORPORATION, LIMITED APPENDIX 2
NEW BROKEN HILL CONSOLIDATED LIMITED Page 3

IN-HOUSE TRAINING FOR GRADUATE MINING ENGINEERS

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 THE ZINC CORPORATION, LIMITED APPENDIX 3 .j::-
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