Empathy in Hancock Iron Ore safety: practical lessons for mine supervisors
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on Australian Mining
30 Second Briefing
Hancock Iron Ore safety advocate Dale Harris argues that “engaging with empathy” is critical to designing effective safety programmes across its Pilbara iron ore operations. Harris links lower incident rates to supervisors spending time in the pit and at fixed plant, listening to operators about specific hazards such as conveyor pinch points and fatigue on 12-hour night shifts. The approach shifts pre-starts and toolbox talks from one-way briefings to two-way discussions, aiming to capture near-miss data and behavioural risks that standard JSAs and procedures often miss.
Technical Brief
- Similar large iron ore operations could embed empathetic field engagement into critical control verification and audit regimes.
Our Take
In our database of 650 Mining stories, iron ore operations in Australia feature heavily in incident and near‑miss reporting, which suggests that Hancock Iron Ore’s emphasis on empathy‑driven safety culture is targeting one of the sector’s more exposed risk profiles.
Australian Mining also appears in recent coverage of the proposed BHP–Rio Tinto Pilbara iron ore collaboration, indicating that soft‑skills themes like empathy and leadership are now being discussed alongside large‑scale productivity and project integration moves in the same commodity space.
Across the 1267 tag‑matched Safety/Projects pieces, most iron ore items focus on technology or process controls, so a leadership‑ and behaviour‑centred approach at Hancock Iron Ore signals a shift towards treating psychosocial and cultural factors as core project risk levers rather than add‑ons.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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