Building safer, healthier mining workplaces
Through understanding relationships, wellbeing, and psychological strength
Mining is a high-risk industry — physically and psychologically. While significant effort has gone into improving physical safety, many people working in mining continue to experience high levels of stress, fatigue, burnout, and psychological distress.
I am a PhD researcher exploring how relationships at work, particularly between supervisors and frontline workers, influence psychosocial safety and wellbeing in the mining industry. My research focuses on how individual psychological strengths may act as a last line of defence when systems, pressures, or conditions are less than ideal, or fail.
This research is grounded in real experience. It is not about audits, performance reviews, or compliance. It is about listening to people who work in mining and learning from their lived experience.
What this research is about
At its core, this research explores three connected ideas:
- Psychosocial Safety Climate – how strongly psychological health and wellbeing are genuinely prioritised at work
- Working relationships – particularly the day-to-day relationship between supervisors and front-line workers
- Psychological Capital – personal capacities such as hope, confidence, resilience, and optimism
I am interested in how these elements interact in real mining environments, and particularly how they shape both psychosocial and physical safety outcomes.
Why this research matters
Despite strong systems, policies, and controls, mining remains a demanding and high risk environment. When pressures increase, people — especially supervisors and frontline workers — often become the final barrier between risk and harm. In that moment when all other controls have failed the decisions that an individual makes is all that is left.
By better understanding how relationships and personal psychological capacities operate in practice, this research aims to contribute practical insights that support:
- safer workplaces,
- healthier people, and
- more sustainable leadership and work practices.
Who this research is for
This research is relevant to:
- Supervisors working in mining (Study 1 – currently recruiting, subject to ethics approval)
- Frontline workers (Study 2 – will occur later)
- Researchers, leaders, and organisations interested in psychosocial safety and wellbeing
Participation is voluntary, confidential, and ethically governed.
Interested in learning more?
You can read more about the research approach using the links below.
Learn what participation involves.
You must be logged in to post a comment.