Society & Culture
When Jop Havinga accepted a research project to study blast crews in the Queensland mining industry, little did he expect his perception of effective communication to be challenged. With a safety focused research lens, it’s a pleasure to welcome Jop to episode 31 of Beneath the Surface. Jop is a field researcher for Griffith University in Brisbane, working closely with a previous guest in Professor Sidney Dekker at the Safety Science and Innovation Lab. A majority of his research focuses on projects that create safer and more productive work environments. In this episode, Jop talks in depth about his time spent researching blast crews, how his views of what is effective communication were challenged, the theory (and power) of distributed cognition as well as his research-based perspective of whether company employees really are safer than contractors. Hilariously, Jop also shares his observations of some ingenious means of communication on the drill pattern. This is a really interesting conversation and I can’t thank Jop enough for sharing his knowledge and insights of the mining industry.