Easing the skills shortage through mentoring

Snowden is addressing the current shortage of skilled people in the workplace by its new mentoring service. This offers technical one-on-one training for mining professionals wanting to acquire new skills and apply them in the workplace. Executive General Manager Phil Snowden said mentoring is offered as an extension to Snowden’s training courses to help delegates put theory into practice. “Snowden became aware of the need for mentoring when clients voiced their concern about applying new skills in the workplace,” he said. “By acting as a mentor, Snowden will offer advice, guide professionals in applying skills, accelerate learning, assist decision making and provide confidence.”

Ann Winchester, Senior Mine Geologist for Cobar Management in Australia is one of the first clients using the new service and is currently being mentored in resource modelling and estimation. She said, “The mentoring process within Snowden showed us that there are a variety of tools and methods for resource modelling using one’s own data. The mentoring process helped to consolidate our knowledge of fundamental ideas and tackle some of the more complicated techniques in resource modelling. Snowden’s varied experience also helped us resolve issues specific to our operation. The mentoring process has given us much more confidence in our ability and the resource modelling techniques we use.”

Another client also using the mentoring service for geostatistics training is Resource Geologist, Bob Lidbury of Gold Fields Australia. “The Snowden staff were all a delight to work with. Tuition from a career geostatistician provided some insight into what a geostatistician looks for in the data. It was a confidence builder to step away from the system we use on site and receive training on how to build your own scripts from scratch.”

Snowden offers mentoring in geotechnical engineering, blasting, resource evaluation, project management, mining engineering, corporate services, information technology, business improvement and performance management.