PORTIA MALELE Sasol Mining has a Women in Mining forum to address issues such as recruitment strategies, development and growth and retention of female employees
At petrochemicals group Sasol’s mining subsidiary, Sasol Mining, women account for 28% of management positions and 10% of executive positions, with women comprising 15% of all Sasol Mining employees.
This is according to Sasol Mining Twistdraai colliery mine manager Portia Malele, who addressed delegates at training and conferencing company Intelligence Transfer Centre’s recent Women in Mining (WIM) conference, which took place in Johannesburg.
She noted that, in 2014, women working at Sasol Mining in collaboration with the company’s Transformation and Diversity office established a WIM forum to address several issues, such as recruitment strategies, development and growth and retention of female employees at the company.
One of the projects that the forum instituted to assist with skills development and retention strategies for women employees at the company was a boot camp initiative.
“The boot camp was initiated to address a barrier to entry for women interested in joining the mining sector, namely the rehabi- litation and functional assessment (RFA),” Malele explained.
RFA measures physical and functional work capacity and predicts the ability to maintain a safe and productive work pace for an eight-hour shift in a specific job.
Malele pointed out that, before the crea- tion of the boot camp, the RFA pass rate for Sasol’s WIM was 10%, however, since its establishment, the RFA pass rate had improved significantly to 76%.
She said these, along with several other skills development and mentorship initiatives, were “greatly assisting” in empowering women at Sasol Mining.