Speaking at a media lunch in Perth, Resources and Engineering Skills Alliance chief executive officer Phillip de Courcey said that while certain occupations and professions were in high demand and short supply – including geologists, drillers and project managers – it was important to look at skills and labour separately.

“There’s a skill shortage for sure but is there a labour shortage? That’s another matter and I think you need to distinguish between labour and skills,” he said.

“If you’re talking about someone who is willing to step forward and take their first job in an entry level position that’s a little bit different – there’s a big pool of people out there.”

RESA was started in 2007 to collaborate between industry and the South Australian government as a strategic response to skills shortages in the resources sector.

According to de Courcey, the problem is a lack of skilled, experienced workers and, while some of the newer simulation and automation technology could allow the industry to shorten training time a bit by offering more practical experience earlier, it really just comes down to time.

“Tradespeople with experience are definitely in short supply and the question is then how do you take entry-level people and make them into high-quality, experienced tradespeople and that’s a difficult thing,” he explained.

“Usually it’s time based.

“There are some programs that try to address that but usually its time on the job.”

And this is where many companies fall short because a lack of proactive workforce planning and a relatively short-term, simplistic approach to attraction in retention and industry are major threats to productivity.

Failing to create long-term workforce plans does more than send companies scrambling for skilled labour – it also drives up the cost when they find what they’re looking for.

When companies fail to plan ahead, they are left poaching workers from other jobs and are forced to offer a higher salary for the same job.

“So the poach-and-play methodology is one that comes to mind,” de Courcey said.

“That’s a detractor and has an impact on increasing the price of labour without increasing the supply and that’s a problem.”

“So I think that the biggest drag on productivity is the failure of the resources companies we’ve got and again I’m generalising but to adopt more proactive, more thoughtful workforce planning in the development of their projects.”

Some companies may be suffering from a lack of forward planning but others are reaping the rewards of being ahead of the game.

“We do have a very good example in South Australia and that’s OZ Minerals,” de Courcey said.

“They’re a fantastic example of a proactive, thoughtful company in developing their workforce.”

Sourcing labour locally can also lead to better returns.

“There’s some innovative programs around that because most of the companies have recognised very clearly that regional and closely connected workforce turn out to have much better retention rates, so that’s the productivity question again,” de Courcey said.

De Courcey warns that when push comes to shove, companies that fail to plan ahead will have fewer options to boost productivity and profit margins.

“The issue for resources companies who fail to address productivity is that they actually have very little else that they can do in terms of the types of changes that they can make that will enhance their capability and make them profitable,” he said.