Health and safety education in human resource management for mining construction managers
The need for safety and health education and training in reducing incident rates and improving an organization’s safety culture is well-established in the literature. With the introduction of stricter penalties for health and safety breaches across Australia, it is increasingly imperative for human resource practitioners to identify gaps in the education and training of construction site managers to ensure effective human resource management. This study aims to determine the level of health and safety education received by current and emerging construction managers, enabling them to fulfill their legal and moral obligations. An exploratory qualitative methodology was employed, using semi-structured interviews (n = 22) with a purposive sampling technique. Analysis through NVivo software revealed that very few participants had received formal health and safety education or peer mentoring to support their understanding of their role’s health and safety requirements. Their knowledge, instead, was gained piecemeal through on-the-job experiences. The findings from this study can assist human resource departments in implementing processes to better prepare both emerging and current managers to meet their legal and moral obligations.
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