As global commodity prices fluctuate, mining companies often find themselves in periods of care and maintenance. During these phases, internal HR teams may be reduced, leaving the remaining team not fully equipped for the rapid ramp-up required when market conditions improve.
This leaves a number of hurdles for the business from a talent acquisition standpoint, explains Justin Campbell, Head of Projects at Globe 24-7:
“Companies coming out of care and maintenance don’t have the internal infrastructure ready to go from an HR perspective.”
Companies often need to quickly scale their workforce to meet operational demands when restarting operations. “They’ve got the mine site ready to come back online. It might be due to an increase in commodity price that has enabled them to start the mine back up again and they’re going to need a bulk recruitment campaign to fill all the new vacancies that come with that,” says Justin.
This is where Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) comes in. Put simply, RPO mirrors the outsourcing of operational functions, much like how a mining company may outsource load and haul to external contractors. In the context of recruitment, Justin explains that it doesn’t necessarily mean delegating all hiring processes to a third party:
“RPO can assist by bringing in a team to fill those bulk roles on top of the current team that is already working in talent acquisition for the organisation.”
RPO is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Depending on the specific needs of the company, recruitment services can be scaled and customised to deliver exactly what is needed for the project. “This could be roles all the way from trades level positions and operators up to engineers and senior positions,” says Justin. This approach ensures that business-critical roles are filled, minimising time-to-hire and allowing operations to recommence swiftly and smoothly.
He also highlights one of the most compelling advantages of RPO for stakeholders:
“It’s a very cost-effective solution when you’re ramping up for those volumes.”
Meaning that mining companies can avoid the overhead costs associated with building and managing internal HR capacity from scratch and defer to expert RPO teams that are ready to go.
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