The stress factors include lack of job certainty, role clarity, resources to do the job, opportunity to participate, feedback, reward and recognition.

The project will explore the relationship between stress factors, organisational commitment and production on the one hand and health and safety results on the other.

It will also promote the use of self-assessment tools as a method of evaluating the impact of culture improvement programs and driving continuous improvement in the mining industry, which will help determine the value of the self-assessment approach.

NSW Trade and Investment mining industry assistant unit manager Heather Jackson said the project outcomes would provide a better understanding of the precursors to production and health and safety and determine if a single set of actions by supervisors and managers could positively influence both production and work health and safety outcomes.

“Through Centennial’s use of the culture self-assessment tools, we will be able to begin to build some data to support and promote the use of the self-assessment method in the NSW mining and extractives industry and help achieve the vision of a world-leading WHS culture and performance,” she said.

The first project task will be to refine the method for assessing the interaction between organisational culture, stress factors, commitment to the goals of the organisation and production and health and safety outcomes.

For NSW Trade and Investment, the primary aim is to promote the use of the culture self-assessment program to the industry.

A secondary benefit would be to demonstrate a common “originator” to both production and workplace health and safety.

For Centennial Coal, the long-term aim is to evaluate the impact of a management intervention framework on organisational commitment and workplace culture.