INTUITIVE CHECKLISTS for global mining
INTUITIVE CHECKLISTS HELP GLOBAL MINING COMPANY MAKE SAFETY THE FIRST MOVE FOR OPERATORS
The background
Having started as a one-drill operation in Kalgoorlie, Perenti have grown into a global mining organisation, employing 8,000 people across 12 countries. Offering both surface and underground mining solutions, the group were determined to develop a culture that makes them indispensable to their clients. Where safety wasn’t just a box to tick — it would be essential to realising their aspirations.
The challenge
How do we get operators to use the critical controls checklist?
After a number of incidents, Perenti realised the importance of involving their frontline operators in managing critical risks. So they partnered with operators and supervisors to understand why this was happening and to determine next steps.
However, despite having the relevant information, Perenti didn’t have the resources to scale the work in a way that would be both easy to use and a genuinely engaging tool.
Our challenge was to connect with operators in a way that communicated the greater why — the larger, more behaviour-driving reasons for someone to use the checklists as a way of controlling daily risks. But that’s not all. Beyond this, we also needed to empower leaders — helping them pick up the skills required to drive the program and cross-check controls were in place.
Our Approach
Create visual solutions to engage a global audience
Firstly, we needed to understand our audience. Given they were spread across Africa, North America, and Australia we went for a more visual approach, using icons and bold typography to create check lists that were universal and scaleable.
We called these CheckMate.
These checklists allowed us to:
Communicate the importance of critical control checklists to leaders around the world,
create a universally understandable visual language for critical controls, and
change on-site behaviours by raising awareness of risks.
Crucially, we made sure that the tool was practical and intuitive — ensuring that it could be easily adopted in everyday situations.
Then, to ensure the checklists had the most impact, we developed a range of supporting tools that leaders could use to embed the program — including toolbox talks and crosscheck critical controls. These are called CheckIns.
The impact
Within months of CheckMate and CheckIn launching, our collaborator saw:
⟶ An increase in quality conversations about critical risks.
⟶ People using the language from the critical control checklists on site — i.e. “I can see the CheckMate is completed, so we can progress with work.”
⟶ Operators feeling more empowered to stop work because the right critical controls weren’t in place.
⟶ Leaders feeling more confident that critical controls are in place through their CheckIn cross-checks.
⟶ Other areas of Perenti requesting their own version of CheckMate for risk management.
“The feedback on the roll-out of program material has been awesome.
We even have clients approaching us and asking who we worked with, how we landed on the design, and the approach. Our own supervisors and frontline have really bought into the program and are seeing a huge uptake across sites in engagement and use of the tools.
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