Risk communication during safety planning: A mining management perspective

Abstract

Safety risk communication is pivotal in risk management, especially in high-risk operating environments like mining. The literature that was reviewed identified attributes of effective risk communication and these attributes defined the research question. The focus for this study was on mining management perceptions about effective safety risk communication in the organisation selected (Company KMP, a fictious company name). A total of 393 executives, senior managers and middle managers were targeted from four different divisions and 12 departments. A response rate of 48% was achieved. However, some participants did not complete the questionnaire in full, while others responded with "I do not know" and were therefore excluded from data analysis. The final response rate was 33%, yielding 130 useful responses for the latent variable data analysis. To examine the effectiveness of safety risk communication during safety planning (latent variable) among the three levels of management, a Kruskal-Wallis's test, a nonparametric statistical method, was used. The latent variable identified was measured by the 10 purposes of safety risk communication that were revealed in the literature. The outcome of the research showed that there was not enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis, concluding that there was no significant difference between the three levels of management in their perception of safety risk communication. All management levels are aligned in their perceptions about effective safety risk communication in the organisation, but the majority agreed that understanding risk first is a priority followed by risk communication. It is recommended that this study is conducted on the supervisory and operator levels, to compare the perceived effectiveness of safety risk communication on these levels with the three levels of management that participated in this study. Furthermore, studying the reasons for rating risk understanding higher than other behavioural risk work areas will be beneficial for the organisation.