Background

Mining has traditionally been a male-dominated industry. Despite employment equity legislation, women entering core mining roles continue to face barriers such as limited career progression, biased supervisory attitudes, and insufficient facilities.

An international consulting house had earlier developed a Leadership Development architecture for the mine. However, leaders did not undergo the mindset changes necessary for success in team performance modules, particularly in areas related to diversity and inclusion.

Laetoli was tasked with filling this gap by designing and facilitating a programme for all levels of management. Given its impact, Laetoli also trained client facilitators to cascade the programme across the organisation.

Business Challenge

The mine needed to:

• Support compliance with new regulatory targets for women in core mining.
• Shift mindsets to value diversity and inclusion.
• Address unconscious bias and barriers to women’s full participation.
• Establish clear expectations regarding workplace behaviours and harassment prevention.

Laetoli’s Involvement

Building on the Making Differences Work for Us intervention, Laetoli designed and facilitated two additional programmes for rollout across the mines and corporate office:

• Women in Mining (WIM)
• Dealing with Sexual Harassment

The programmes were experiential and focused on the day-to-day realities of women, leaders, and employees in mining operations.

Our Approach

Laetoli applied its experiential change methodology to:

• Build a shared business case for diversity.
• Provide historical and cultural context for valuing differences.
• Explore how unconscious bias shapes behaviour.
• Sensitise employees to barriers faced by women in mining.
• Develop practical guidelines for making WIM work.
• Facilitate team-level action planning to embed next steps.
Workshops were modular, interactive, and tailored to mine, plant, and office environments.

Outcomes

• Increased awareness of diversity and unconscious bias.
• Strengthened processes and policies to prevent and address harassment.
• Practical, team-owned commitments for supporting women in mining.
• Improved situational handling of diversity-related issues at individual, team, and organisational levels.
• A platform for more inclusive workplace relationships and greater trust.

The project and its impact were well received by the client, as reflected in the evaluation forms. A member of the client’s Organisational Development (OD) Unit wrote the following to the Laetoli lead consultant about one of the Laetoli facilitators:

“Let me not delay and start with the reason for this email: myself and one of my colleagues attended the Women in Mining-session on Friday which was facilitated by Memorie Herholdt. And I cannot tell you how amazing she facilitated it. It was an unbelievable session. She is truly VERY good- very knowledgeable, well prepared, great facilitator, I can go on and on, but it was truly an amazing session. If it were up to me, I would want her to facilitate all the sessions for the whole mine. I wish the whole mine could listen to her – she will be able to move and change the mine. Please convey my appreciation to her. My colleague feels the same; I have also already told my manager. You all have a wonderful day in Gauteng.”