Published on: August, 2018

Workplace culture is the distinct combination of behaviour, language and tradition that makes your professional life unique. The culture of any workplace is shaped by its history, management style and policies, in tandem with the design of the physical work environment and the everyday interactions between its people. 

Men make up over 80 per cent of the Canadian mining workforce. In most cases, the traditions and policies in mining were designed for men by men. Work procedures often use male pronouns and job descriptions make regular use of hyper-masculine language. Clothing and safety gear tends to be designed for male bodies and often only a single dry room is provided for changing. The external image of Canada’s mining sector is overwhelmingly male. 

This perception of mining workplaces has a big impact on the recruitment and retention of women, as concluded by the Mining Industry Human Resources Council’s (MiHR) 2016 report, Strengthening Mining’s Talent Alloy: Exploring Gender Inclusion. Between 2014 and 2016, MiHR analysed the responses of 280 people who took an online survey – 114 women and 166 men. The women surveyed reported having fewer positive experiences than men in mining workplaces and some had difficulty adapting to mining workplace culture; women struggle to see themselves in the current Canadian mining workplace culture.

Read the full story in Canadian Mining Magazine.