It’s fair to say that the speed at which lockdowns happened around the world – with varying degrees of severity – took most organisations, and governments, by surprise.
For those businesses that rely on regular crew rotations, people in transit were unable to get to the location they needed to be in, and those on remote mine sites faced challenging journeys home.
For a mining business the immediate impact on travel plans caused huge challenges to operations. Building in 14 day quarantine periods at either end of a journey, overcoming a lack of commercial flights, and working with governments around the world to ensure ever-changing border restrictions do not overturn plans for
a workers hours away from arriving are just some of the measures introduced in a very short period of time.
And of course, the duty of care responsibility to people has been front and centre of trying to overcome the barriers in play. Duty of care has always been at the forefront of mining work, and in this situation the careful due diligence paid to the mental wellbeing of those remaining away from home for long periods has become ever more important.
