Gold miner Gold Fields was able to turn its business around, from struggling to turn a profit in 2018 to making more than R100-million in profit in 2019, as a result of a broader cultural and capability-alignment process the miner credited to leadership consultancy OIM Consulting.

OIM Consulting MD Arjen de Bruin says that since Gold Fields took ownership of the South Deep mine in 2006, the mine struggled to produce a sustainable profit, despite significant investment.

“A failure to meet production expectations was forcing downward revisions to its yearly projections, while operating costs continued to climb.”

Yet, in 2019, he says, the first “green shoots of change” started to emerge. “Despite operating well below its full labour complement following the pandemic-triggered national lockdown in March 2020, South Deep continued to show progress on most of its operational measures that following year as well.”

South Deep’s metrics reflected a “deep operational transformation”, says De Bruin, adding that the mine’s production of gold increased by 41% year-on-year in the first half of 2019.

This translated into a 30% increase in tonnes produced per employee, to 26.7 t in 2019, up from 20.5 t in 2018; and a climb in development and destress from 39 m per rig a month in 2018, to 60 m per rig a month in 2019.

“All of this contributed to turning the net loss made in 2018 into a net profit of over R104-million in 2019 – the first time in years that South Deep was able to show a positive bottom line,” he states.

Gold Fields attributed a significant degree of the uptick in performance to cultural and capability improvements made possible by OIM Consulting, which builds front-line leader capability.

At the time, Gold Fields executive VP Martin Preece said, “We have seen a remarkable improvement in most production metrics during 2019, resulting from a culmination of initiatives centred around our people, including organisational culture, processes, systems and technical improvements; a process supported by OIM.”

“Working with South Deep’s leadership team, we were able to create a solid foundation, which they embedded into their daily practices, meaning that they had the freedom and ability to tweak according to their specific requirements,” says De Bruin.

He highlights that OIM Consulting’s protocol is based on three principles – mindsets, toolsets and skillsets. “We were onboarded in 2019 and set to work in changing the mindsets of South Deep’s front-line leaders – the people responsible for driving and delivering on Gold Fields’ strategy.”

In 2020, OIM Consulting completed its programme, leaving the mine with the toolsets it needed to sustain these changes beyond OIM Consulting’s exit.

“Based on the continued improvement we have seen in 2021, these new skillsets were firmly entrenched,” says De Bruin.

He notes that Gold Fields’ changes were not of the “fly-by-night variety”, and that after two years these figures continue to improve.

While 2019 had seen an initial and significant jump in tonnes produced for every rig/employee/month – from 6 708 t a month in 2018 to 11 966 t a month in 2019 – this improvement continued in 2020, increasing a further 8%; while in 2021 it showed an 11% improvement to 14 345 t a month.

De Bruin says the yearly volume of gold produced had initially climbed by almost 33% from 2018 to 2019, continuing its upward trend with a 3% improvement in 2020 and 28% improvement in 2021.

South Deep’s development and destress was yet another area where encouraging productivity trends continued, he explains. “Between 2019 to 2020 there was a 20% increase in rigs per month, while 2021 saw a further 18% growth.”

Since 2019, the free cash flow of the mine has also remained positive and steadily continued to improve, increasing 549% in 2021.

However, De Bruin says there is no “silver bullet” to boosting performance, but rather continuous application of core principles. “After our programme’s initial implementation and roll-out, Gold Fields adopted it and made it their “business as usual”; integrating these principles into the foundation of their organisation.

He adds that this is a testament to the mine’s leadership, which supports and drives change. “Transformation can only be sustainable with the true commitment of leaders, who dedicate themselves to reinforcing change at each and every opportunity.

“We are proud to have played a role in South Deep’s turn-around and are confident that these promising results will continue into 2022 and beyond,” concludes De Bruin.