As Australia's human resources, employee relations and workplace relations communities across the mining, oil and gas industries gathered in Perth for last week's AMMA Workplace Forum, it was clear that employee relations needed to change, the employer group heard.
As large-scale organisational change has swept through Australia's resources sector, particularly in oil and gas since prices collapsed in 2014, international and local experts said the key was to focus on what companies can control.
Yet while industry's battles with unions was not uncommon, or even exclusive to Australia, AMMA executive director of industry services Tara Diamond told Energy News that while union behaviours are largely outside of industry's control, what they can influence is their relationship with their people.
Diamond said that was a major theme from both the international industrial relations experts and oil and gas IR professionals at last week's forum.
"There has been such large focus on recovering from the change in commodity prices that it's an opportunity to reset and set a vision for how we want to develop our workforces and engage our employees," Diamond said.
She said research data from BSP shows that Australia's resources sector is now starting to see small single-digit growth in employment figures, so industry is re-focusing on looking after workers' physical and mental health, re-skilling and allaying fears around disruption from automation and technology.
The AMMA forum represented a collegiate approach across companies and the suppliers to accept the new direction in those areas, Diamond said, with practical guidance on best practice case studies shared.
Diamond said the forum's speakers showed a distinct shift in human resource practices away from "set and forget" employee surveys to doing "pulse checks" every month and quarter, with an eye to establishing strong employee engagement.
"A lot of companies, particularly large multinationals, only do these things every three years, so there was a push to re-build employee engagement and workforce engagement," Diamond said.
