A large number of Rio Tinto's mining operations are located in remote and rural parts of Australia, on or adjacent to Aboriginal territory. Although every Aboriginal community is different, many are highly disadvantaged when compared with non Aboriginal Australians, having poor health statistics, low levels of mainstream education, limited access to employment opportunities, and associated elevated levels of welfare dependency.

The talk
Consistent with Rio Tinto's global policy commitment to sustainable development, Rio Tinto believes that mineral resource projects should serve to catalyse positive local development involving the company, governments, and communities working together. Accordingly, Rio Tinto has over recent years focused on efforts to provide for better economic participation of local people in regional development associated with Rio Tinto mines. This has lead to a range of initiatives in areas such as education, training, small business development, and in particular, towards achieving improved levels of direct employment.

As a result of these efforts, local indigenous employment levels at Rio Tinto's Australian operations have increased tenfold since 1995.

The walk
Rio Tinto's Argyle Diamond mine is located in the remote East Kimberly region of Western Australia. Up until recently, efforts to recruit locally have been largely unsuccessful, meaning that the majority of the 500 strong workforce is recruited from more than 1,500 km, commuting via commercial jet to and from the mine on a weekly or two weekly rotation.

As part of a dedicated effort to increase active economic partnership with neighboring communities, Argyle reviewed its recruitment and selection methods. This resulted in the development of a new recruitment process that fully involved the community and took into account cultural and individual differences. Results of the modified process have lead to significant win/win outcomes for both the mine and neighbouring indigenous communities.

In the past, large wordy advertisements were employed to advertise job vacancies and the selection process relied heavily on written applications and standard interviewing methods. The new approach was characterised by 'hands on assessment'. Argyle instituted weeklong assessment workshops, which provided the opportunity for groups of around 20 applicants to see what it is like to live and work on a mine. Instead of having the recruitment process conducted only by staff from human resources, the assessment workshops are monitored by a team comprising community specialists, personnel from human resources and superintendents from the department that is recruiting.

Over the week applicants work in teams on a variety of activities including tackling outdoor problem solving exercises instead of largely abstract psychometric testing tools. For jobs where proficiency in using machinery is required, Argyle has set up a small quarry - and, with the aid of an instructor, applicants are guided through a range of exercises using the machinery to determine their aptitude for advanced machinery operation training. Small group discussions are held to air issues arising from living on site during the week, and applicants have an opportunity to discuss any concerns.

As a result of these changes, over half of the indigenous people who have attended the assessment workshops have been offered employment and Argyle has lifted its ratio of local indigenous employees from 4.5 per cent to over 18 per cent in three years. A particular mark of success is that 90 per cent of those people recruited through the programme to date remain employed. Argyle's target is to achieve 30 per cent local indigenous employment by 2005.

There are also business benefits associated with this transformation in local recruitment and workforce diversity, greatly improving the mine's community interface and providing a more flexible workforce. Over time, local employment will also lead to reduced workforce commuting costs.