INTERVIEW WITH MARK STONE, GENERAL MANAGER OF PEOPLE AND CAPABILITY
Mark Stone is the General Manager of People and Capability at Ok Tedi. With a strong family connection to mining, there wasn’t a question over which direction his career would take. “I’ve been in the mining industry since I left school and my family have always been involved in mining,” he explains. “My father was involved since he was a kid, his father was too and so was my brother, so it was those family roots that got me started.
“I started work in Newcastle which is an Australian coal mining centre. I then worked in several places across Australia, but I have always had an ambition to work overseas so I spent a good deal of time across the Americas and also a bit of time in Africa as well. But that’s what I love doing. Mining has a very special feel and culture to it and people are always wonderful wherever you go in this industry. Mining is in my blood.”
And the pull of exciting new projects is hard to resist for Stone. Reflecting on how his journey took him to Papua New Guinea and Ok Tedi in the first place, he jokes he was relaxing in Panama, where he was then based, when the call came. “I was actually living on the other side of the world,” he recalls. “I had finished a project in South America, and I was contacted to ask if I was interested in applying for the position at Ok Tedi. Back in my early days working at BHP, I came up to PNG a long time ago, so I had a little bit of an insight into the company which stood me in good stead.”
To Stone, from the outside looking in, he could see the true potential of what the country could be. “PNG has great opportunities and capabilities, and there are fantastic people here,” he affirms. “Fortunately, my interview went well, and they felt I was a good fit and here I am, three years later.”
And it was in those three years that the world changed dramatically from the one when Stone began working at Ok Tedi in August 2018. He admits that, as a result of the pandemic, the space is both exciting and challenging in equal measure. “It’s challenging because the whole world economy is obviously turning and in some respects that is quite positive because it has pushed the metal prices up but it’s all very unreliable because you don’t know when that could change again,” explains Stone. “The difficulty is ensuring we’re competitive no matter the price environment. My role is to ensure the people are behind that challenge and are making a difference.
“At Ok Tedi, we’ve set ourselves a vision of where we’d like to be over the next three to five years and people are a big part of that. This is what I do, what I love and what I get excited about.”
Ok Tedi places considerable emphasis on being regarded as the only PNG-owned mining company, something that Stone believes is hugely important because it is about working for the country in which it operates. “We’re not the only PNG mining company but we’re the only PNG-owned one and that is special,” he believes. “Giving back to PNG drives the way we operate the company because we have a very clear vision that our job is to create dividends for the benefit of PNG. For me, that’s a huge source of pride.”
As a result of Ok Tedi’s arduous location, things can go wrong. However, it is the workforce’s unity and dedication that shines through, according to Stone. “Our culture is spectacular,” he beams. “It’s a challenging location and we have all sorts of things that could go wrong, such as earthquakes. We are very dependent on the river for our product to go out and supplies to come in. The river is very dependent on rainfall and we have dry spells where that stops happening. There are plenty of challenges in front of us, the big one being COVID-19, but there is something about the workforce because when they focus on a challenge, everyone works together and that is special.”
Indeed, COVID-19 has disrupted companies in all industries across the world. Ok Tedi understood the magnitude of the pandemic from the onset and quickly established an incident management planning team to mitigate against the virus. Initially, this worked well, however, in August 2020, the company was dealt a blow. “We had to shut down our operations for six weeks,” says Stone. “We had our first positive case and very quickly this spread to being around 180 cases company-wide. This led to us making permanent changes upon restarting operations.”
And those permanent changes involved changing the roster to provide a longer rotation so that personnel travel in and out of site fewer times per year. “As COVID is going to be with us for a while, we formed a Business Continuity department and their role is to continuously monitor the global, national and local situation and check whether the measures we have in place are the right ones and make recommendations,” explains Stone. “This served us well until the end of 2020. However, in January and February, we did start to see a rise in positive cases so we tightened up our measures again.”
And now?
“We’ve survived very well,” he notes. “We had that six-week shutdown but the metal prices helped us out at the end of the year, so we were down on production but financially as a business, we achieved what we set out to do.”
Stone is quick to praise the reaction of his team in the face of an unprecedented situation. He acknowledges that while following measures has had its trials and tribulations, his team has worked well together. “We use this term ‘one team, one culture’ and when we face these challenges, we face them together,” he says. “People obviously didn’t want to be tied down and be restricted with face masks, but they got on with it and understood the importance of do it.
“This even extended to placing a ban on some traditions. There is a custom in Western Province where we operate that at the end of a handshake, you click your fingers with the other person as you separate your hands. We had to stop that because it’s another opportunity for transmission. I love that myself so I hate the fact that we can’t do it, but we have no choice. We, like everyone else in the world, are suffering from COVID-19 fatigue and want our vaccines in order to return to a more normal life but in the meantime we continue to follow the guidance.”
However, despite COVID’s unwelcome disruption, working in PNG offers a host of benefits. Stone is full of praise for the lifestyle that working at Ok Tedi brings. “In PNG, there is a solid mining industry and there are only a few big players, us being one of them. Being a PNG-owned company, this gives us a bit of a boost and people see the advantages in working with a company that is owned by the country. We make sure our remuneration packages are attractive so that people feel like they are being properly rewarded. The lifestyle here is good so people are able to live and work in comfortable conditions. We focus on our culture and the development of people. Today, I’m confident that we’re the mining industry employer of choice.”
But despite salary and reputation being key reasons for recruitment, training and development is another important pillar of keeping employees effective and motivated. Ultimately, Stone believes that training is at the heart of success and personal growth, stressing that great strides have been made to improve and aid development in recent years.
“It’s key to attraction and retention, as well as to people development,” he says. “We have a training centre that we’ve revitalised in recent years. It’s now called the “Dr Jacob Weiss Training Centre.” Dr Weiss was one of our late directors and is a very renowned person within the country, so we thought it fitting to name it after him. Through that centre, we offer a wide range of traineeships for young people as well as on-going training for the workforce. The training centre not only addresses skill gaps in the workforce but provide services to operations as part of the training process.”
Upon the appointment of Musje Werror as Managing Director and CEO, Stone, like all members of leadership, sat down with Werror to discuss their vision for Ok Tedi. This led to the formation of Ok Tedi’s vision for the next few years. By the end of 2023, all of the company’s management positions will be filled by national employees; while by the end of 2025, all its executive positions will be filled by national employees. At the centre of making this ambition a reality is training and development, which demonstrates the importance of the programmes the company offers.
“Our leadership development programme is also vital,” adds Stone. “In 2019, we launched our first programme which was aimed at our frontline supervisors to equip them with the skills they need to lead their teams. And we’re just launching our second leadership programme, which is targeted at the more senior staff which can help them at their current role as well as preparing them to move up to the next level.”
With a considerable amount of change in the last few years, Ok Tedi doesn’t rest on its laurels and isn’t content to stand still. Reflecting on a particularly influential initiative in the recent past, Stone believes there is one that sticks out the most from a business perspective.
“In 2015, we were a very high cost operation and as a result of a dry weather event, operations shut down for around six months,” he explains. “There was a new Managing Director at the time, so it was a fresh start and an opportunity to have a reset. We are now one of the lowest cost producers in the industry globally. This whole discipline around managing business, cost and driving improvement is a key part of who we now are. In terms of specific things, we’ve invested a lot of money over the past few years in renewing much of the infrastructure and equipment. The mine has been in operation for 36 years so some of the infrastructure is beginning to show its age and requires upgrading. An example is the new in-pit crusher.
“This was a major improvement because the previous crusher was in a pretty poor state and was also sitting on top of some high-grade ore. By building a new crusher in another location, we now not only have a modern reliable piece of plant, but also have access to that high-grade material that will make a huge difference to the business over the coming years.”
However, for Stone and his role, he affirms that the focus on people, culture and values within the company has been transformational. “The company’s culture and approach to work is a major contributor to the company’s success,” explains Stone. “We put together a team that we call the Pasin Ok Tedi Team, which was drawn from some of the ‘movers and shakers’ within the organisation. Their role is to help communicate to the workforce what it means to live our values through our daily decisions and actions and to provide feedback to the executive team on opportunities to continue to improve our culture. This has had a huge impact on all of us feeling and operating as one team aligned towards a common set of goals. Unlocking the potential of people to work together toward a common goal is a huge piece of the puzzle.”
With the future in mind, Stone outlines four key pillars that he is focused on over the next few years. These are: maintaining and building on the culture, a focus on national leadership, increasing gender diversity into the workforce and upgrading old systems.
“We have invested time in developing our people strategy because ultimately, people are at the heart of what we do,” explains Stone. “Firstly, we have to ensure that people remain focused on contributing to the Ok Tedi vision and buy into the culture. Secondly, it’s about developing national leaders to take up leadership roles. Being clear, we’re not kicking out expats but it’s about having nationals in leadership positions and having expats provide guidance and mentorship.”
However, Stone acknowledges there is still work to be done to improve gender diversity within his organisation. “At the moment, only around 11 percent of our workforce is female,” he says. “However, by the end of 2023, we want to double that. If the gender mix of the country is roughly 50/50, we should be doing better than our current mix. This is a generational change and doesn’t happen overnight. With the assistance of our very active Ok Tedi Women’s Network (OWN) and by being very intentional about achieving it, we can make a difference in gender diversity.”
Finally, Ok Tedi is modernising its processes and undergoing a digital transformation. “We’ve been here a long time and some of our processes are a bit old-fashioned,” admits Stone. “We’re upgrading all our systems and are just about to launch a new cloud-based HR platform which will streamline tasks, provide greater visibility and reduce the risk of losing previously paper-based information.”
Inside Mark Stone’s role
OTML attracts, develops and retains a highly engaged and skilled national workforce with a small number of expatriates in key roles for a total of around 1,800 employees, operating through a mostly Fly In Fly Out (FIFO) operation. OTML strives to create a healthy and safe working environment, free from hostility, offensiveness, bullying, intimidation and harassment, racial vilification and any form of unlawful discrimination.
Ok Tedi achieves success through open and honest communications with employees about job goals and performance, the delivery of targeted skill development programmes, productive annual performance reviews and feedback as well as competitive individual and team-based performance-based remuneration and benefits.
Ok Tedi is a FIFO operation working 12-hour shifts, four weeks on by four weeks off, although the expatriate rotation is longer at the moment based on COVID-19 quarantine requirements. Some managers, superintendents and employees from the local area rent accommodation and live on site in Tabubil and Kiunga.
OTML respects the rights of workers to be represented by a union. The organisation has had a productive working relationship with union executive members and engage in regular consultation and communication to assist in the quick resolution of grievances and ensure workforce alignment.
OTML has a proud record of nurturing and developing Papua New Guineans to progress their careers within the mining industry. This has enabled the localisation of many positions which are historically held by expats.
