Fatigue, poor recovery, dehydration, reduced focus, and declining cognitive performance remain some of the most persistent and under-managed challenges across the mining and resources sector. While industry has developed sophisticated systems to manage equipment reliability, hazards, and procedural compliance, far less attention has traditionally been given to the physiological condition of the worker operating within those systems.

The Human Factors Toolbox Program was developed to address this gap.

The program applies principles from sports science, recovery physiology, hydration strategy, and human performance to heavy industry environments in a practical, operationally relevant format. Rather than treating fatigue, hydration, and recovery as standalone wellness topics, the initiative reframes them as critical operational and workforce health variables directly linked to decision-making, reaction time, cognitive readiness, heat stress management, and sustained performance in high-demand environments.

The innovation combines workforce education, practical recovery strategies, hydration support, fatigue awareness, and measurable recovery monitoring into a scalable site-based initiative designed specifically for shift workers and FIFO environments.

The program is delivered through practical toolbox talks and workforce engagement sessions focused on:

Hydration and Heat Stress
Sleep, Fatigue and Recovery
Nutrition and Performance
Human Factors and Cognitive Readiness

The sessions are designed to simplify complex physiology into practical behavioural change workers can apply immediately on site and at home. Topics include hydration timing, electrolyte replacement, sleep quality, recovery behaviours, fatigue accumulation, caffeine awareness, heat stress physiology, and the relationship between recovery quality and workplace performance.

A key objective of the initiative is to help workers better understand how the body functions under stress. The program approaches fatigue, hydration, recovery, and performance through a physiological lens rather than simply a compliance or behavioural lens. This creates stronger workforce engagement because workers begin to understand not only what they should do, but why it matters.

The Human Factors Toolbox Program was intentionally designed to be practical and operationally deployable. Sessions are typically delivered directly on-site in a toolbox format to maximise engagement and relevance to the operational workforce. Content can also be tailored to align with site-specific initiatives, seasonal conditions, roster structures, or workforce challenges.

Unlike many health initiatives that rely heavily on awareness campaigns or generic wellbeing messaging, this program focuses on practical implementation and measurable behavioural change. Workers are provided with actionable strategies that can be implemented immediately within demanding operational environments.

Another key innovation of the program is the translation of elite sports recovery principles into the heavy industry context. In professional sport, recovery quality is recognised as essential to sustained performance. The Human Factors Toolbox Program applies these same principles to physically and cognitively demanding industrial environments where workers are often operating under extended shifts, heat exposure, fatigue accumulation, circadian disruption, and high mental workload.

This has led to the concept of the “industrial athlete” becoming a central framework within the initiative. The program encourages industry to view workers not simply as labour resources, but as high-performing individuals whose recovery quality directly influences cognitive readiness, physical capability, and long-term wellbeing.

The initiative has now been delivered across multiple operational environments through boots-on-the-ground workforce engagement, toolbox talks, hydration and recovery education sessions, and workforce recovery discussions.

In 2025 alone, more than 240 Human Factors Toolbox sessions were delivered across heavy industry operations throughout Australia. Sessions ranged from small crew-based discussions with groups of eight workers through to large-scale workforce presentations delivered to audiences of more than 300 personnel. Each session was tailored to the operational environment, workforce demographic, and site-specific challenges.

The program has now progressed beyond initial delivery into repeat engagement phases, with sites requesting refresher sessions, additional modules, and ongoing workforce education support.

One of the strongest outcomes from the initiative has been the level of workforce engagement achieved across operational environments. Participants regularly report that the sessions are practical, relevant to day-to-day operations, and delivered in language that resonates with frontline workers rather than relying on overly technical or academic health terminology.

A key objective of the initiative is ensuring workers leave each session with at least one practical understanding of how the body functions under stress and one actionable strategy they can apply to better manage fatigue, hydration, recovery, or performance.

Participants have also provided significant anecdotal feedback regarding improvements in general wellbeing and recovery awareness, including better hydration practices, reduced cramping, improved sleep habits, increased energy levels, reduced headaches, and greater understanding of the relationship between recovery quality and day-to-day performance.

From a leadership and management perspective, feedback has highlighted strong workforce engagement during sessions, including crews that are traditionally considered difficult to engage through conventional toolbox formats. Supervisors and site leaders have noted higher levels of attentiveness, participation, and discussion during Human Factors sessions compared to traditional health or safety presentations.

One of the strongest themes emerging from the initiative is that workers are genuinely interested in understanding how their bodies function under operational stress. Feedback consistently indicates that workers want to make better recovery, hydration, and nutritional choices, but often lack practical education delivered in a format that translates effectively into their daily environments.

The initiative has also generated behavioural change discussions across multiple sites, particularly around hydration practices, fatigue awareness, and nutritional habits. Many participants have reported reassessing their hydration protocols, recovery routines, and dietary choices following participation in the program.

A key differentiator of the initiative is the operational integration of measurable recovery monitoring and pilot intervention studies within live mining environments.

As part of the broader Human Factors Toolbox Program, a six-week pilot sleep performance study was conducted within an operational mining environment to examine whether targeted hydration and recovery interventions could support sleep quality and workforce recovery in shift workers operating across rotating rosters.

Eighteen volunteers participated in the study, with nine participants completing the full protocol with sufficient data for objective analysis.

Participants completed a baseline phase followed by an intervention phase incorporating structured hydration during shift work and a nutritional sleep support protocol prior to rest. Sleep metrics including REM sleep, deep sleep and total sleep duration were monitored using wearable technology, alongside daily self-report surveys measuring fatigue, sleep quality, time to fall asleep, night-time waking and morning refreshment.

The study was conducted under real operational conditions without altering shift rosters, duties, or work environments. This was considered critical to understanding whether practical recovery-focused interventions could realistically integrate into live mining operations.

Directional improvements were observed across several recovery measures, including REM sleep, deep sleep and subjective recovery scores. Participants also reported perceived improvements in areas including:

Falling asleep faster
Feeling less fatigued
Waking more refreshed
Improved recovery between shifts
Better energy and focus
Improved ability to return to sleep after waking

The study also demonstrated strong workforce engagement and acceptance of the initiative. The majority of participants endorsed the concept of recovery-focused interventions being made more broadly available within operational environments.

Importantly, the innovation extends beyond products or supplementation. The core innovation is the application of sports science and recovery principles to Human Factors management within mining operations in a format that is practical, scalable, measurable, and operationally relevant.

The initiative recognises that many site stressors commonly associated with operational risk are fundamentally human and physiological in nature. Fatigue, dehydration, poor recovery, reduced focus, slowed reaction time, heat stress, and impaired decision-making are often treated as isolated issues despite being closely interconnected.

By addressing these challenges collectively through education, recovery strategies, and workforce engagement, the program seeks to create more sustainable health outcomes for workers while simultaneously supporting operational performance and safety objectives.

The Human Factors Toolbox Program represents a proactive shift away from purely reactive fatigue management and toward evidence-informed workforce recovery strategies that support healthier, more alert, and better-recovered workers.

The long-term vision of the initiative is to help embed recovery quality, hydration strategy, and physiological readiness into the broader Human Factors conversation occurring across the mining and resources sector.

The program ultimately aims to contribute to:

Improved workforce wellbeing
Better fatigue awareness and management
Improved recovery quality in shift workers
Increased understanding of hydration and heat stress physiology
Better workforce readiness and cognitive performance
Stronger Human Factors awareness across industry
More sustainable long-term health outcomes for workers operating in demanding environments

The initiative demonstrates that workforce health innovation does not need to be complex to be effective. Through practical education, measurable recovery strategies, operational integration, and workforce engagement, the Human Factors Toolbox Program provides a scalable and modern approach to addressing some of the mining industry’s most persistent Human Factors and workforce health challenges.

The problem:

Exposi, our purpose-built occupational hygiene management platform, was created in direct response to industry demand. Mining companies approached GCG seeking a practical digital system that could embed occupational hygiene expertise into daily operations and help them meet rapidly changing exposure‑control regulations.

Across mining, energy, and heavy industry, GCG identified a clear gap: large volumes of hygiene data were being collected but remained fragmented, hard to interpret, and rarely used to drive timely decisions. Existing tools were slow, retrospective, and misaligned with operational needs, resulting in delayed responses and missed opportunities to prevent harmful exposures.

Key stakeholders also expressed concern about their ability to respond to recent and upcoming regulatory changes, highlighting the need for a more robust, transparent, and proactive approach to exposure management.

Using this feedback, GCG developed and tested a minimum viable product with more than 10 mining operations across QLD and NSW. Market research confirmed no fit‑for‑purpose solution existed, and with strong customer validation, GCG’s Senior Leadership Team approved and self‑funded full development of Exposi.

The result is a platform built around real operational needs and regulatory expectations, designed to materially improve exposure control and worker health outcomes.

The solution:

Exposi is an Australian‑developed digital occupational hygiene platform built on GCG’s extensive field experience, including more than 40,000 personal exposure monitoring assessments each year. It is now the most advanced occupational health and hygiene platform available globally.

Importantly, Exposi is a tool for organisations to self-manage their health and hygiene requirements, catering for sites with in-house resourcing and/or external (consultant) resourcing models. You don’t have to be a Hygienist to use the platform - it was built by Hygienists, for HSE and operational teams. It brings the entire hygiene process together in one smart, scalable platform, integrating traditional practice with real-time monitoring and connected systems to deliver actionable, control-focused outcomes.

Development followed a staged, industry‑led approach. In 2021, GCG released a limited proof‑of‑concept tool, Exposi Task, and tested it with more than 30 Queensland mining sites. Their feedback was clear: industry needed a broader, integrated health and hygiene platform capable of managing exposure risk end‑to‑end. This insight shaped the full Exposi platform.

Implementation Approach

A cross‑functional team of hygienists, software engineers, and UX designers worked directly with frontline users across mining, energy, and heavy industry. The focus was practicality: a system that works on tablets and phones, reduces administrative burden, and provides clear, actionable information rather than complex reports. We ensured we emphasised:

Co‑design with industry: Continuous consultation with mining operations to validate workflows, terminology, and usability.

Real‑world testing: Early prototypes deployed on site using real tasks and real data, ensuring accuracy and alignment with jurisdictional requirements.

Progressive rollout: Implementation with foundational clients took over 2–8 weeks depending on site complexity.

Worker Engagement

Frontline workers shaped the platform from the beginning by testing workflows and influencing how information is displayed. This hands‑on involvement created strong uptake and ensured Exposi reflects real work practices, not theoretical ones.

Measuring Effectiveness

Effectiveness was benchmarked against existing systems. For example, data entry for five exposure monitoring results took over 30 minutes for experienced users in a competing platform but only 3 minutes in Exposi, a tenfold efficiency improvement. Early adopters also reported reduced administrative workload and more consistent exposure management.

Exposi gives organisations full flexibility to measure success at their current maturity level. Dashboards and reports can be generated, exported, or integrated via API into internal systems such as Power BI. Common metrics include exceedance rates, sample plan completion, regulatory reporting, health risk assessment status, worker feedback, and control performance.

Exposi is exceptional at evaluating, validating and sharing what controls work. Mature organisations use Exposi as a monitoring tool, referenced within their Principal Hazard Management Plan (PHMP). To support the desired level of integration, each client is partnered with a dedicated customer success specialist who helps define and track success metrics.

Benefits/Effects:

After launching in October 2025, the platform is already delivering measurable health and operational benefits across multiple organisations. Two Queensland mining sites are now live and four more in the planning phase. Broader national rollout is underway, supported by strong industry demand and consistently positive feedback.

Health and Operational Benefits

Refocused effort on risk control: Exposi shifts workload away from administration and back to implementing effective and reliable controls.

Significant efficiency gains: Data entry and workflow tasks that previously took 30 minutes can now be completed in around 3 minutes.

Higher‑quality, defensible data: Guided workflows reduce variability, strengthen compliance evidence, and support earlier intervention.

Upskilling of the workforce: Embedded best‑practice processes and AI tools help less experienced staff produce consistent, regulation‑aligned outputs.

Extent of Deployment

Exposi has been designed for fast, low‑resource implementation, particularly important for Queensland mining operations. It requires no customisation to meet legislative requirements.

Foundational clients range from small operations to large, complex mining sites. More than 100 demonstrations have been delivered to industry, regulators, and innovators, with leading HSE professionals recognising Exposi as one of the most advanced occupational hygiene platforms globally.

Broader Industry Impact

De‑identified Exposi data will support research, technical guidance, and case studies that strengthen industry‑wide exposure management. GCG and the Exposi team actively contribute to national research projects and present at multiple technical events each year, sharing insights to lift practice across the sector.

With 13 Certified Occupational Hygienists, the largest cohort of any provider in Australia, GCG ensures Exposi remains technically robust, scalable, and aligned with modern exposure‑control principles.

Exposi’s strength lies in its combination of frontline practicality, technical depth, and a clear focus on improving worker health. It is already demonstrating its value and is positioned to significantly elevate exposure management standards across Queensland, Australia, and the broader global industry.

Transferability:

Its design is grounded in universal occupational hygiene principles, making it immediately applicable across mining, construction, tunnelling, manufacturing, utilities, and power generation. Workflows can be configured to reflect site‑specific processes, regulatory jurisdictions, and organisational structures without altering core functionality.

The scope of the Exposi platform includes the identification, assessment and control of all health hazards – including physical (i.e. noise & heat stress), chemical (i.e. dusts and welding fume), biological (i.e. e.coli and legionella), psychosocial (i.e. bullying and job control) and ergonomic (i.e. manual handling and lighting).

Exposi’s modular architecture allows seamless scaling from single‑site mines to large, multi‑operation portfolios. Guided workflows, embedded best practice, and intuitive interfaces enable rapid onboarding of new users, even in remote or resource‑constrained environments. This ensures consistent, high‑quality exposure management regardless of workforce size or maturity level.

To support safe and secure deployment across the mining industry, Exposi is ISO 27001 certified, ensuring rigorous information‑security controls and giving operators confidence that sensitive health data is protected to international standards.

This combination of mining‑led design, flexible configuration, and certified data security makes Exposi readily transferable across the entire resources sector and well‑positioned to lift exposure‑management performance across Australia and globally.

You can view an example video of control effectiveness for welding fumes using the below Exposi link and login details.

Link: https://app.exposi.com/shared/comparisons/18
Login name: qmi@exposi.com
Password: qmiHS2026!

Approximate Cost:

Exposi represents a multi‑million‑dollar, fully self‑funded investment by GCG, driven by strong industry validation and a clear need for a modern exposure‑management platform. Development required more than 4,000 hours of Certified Occupational Hygienists’ time to scope, test, and technically validate the system, supported by an in‑house team of eight specialists dedicated to engineering, UX, and product development.

Ongoing costs relate to continuous improvement, maintenance, and feature expansion to ensure Exposi remains the leading digital solution for exposure risk management. This includes user support, security enhancements, and the addition of new functionality aligned with industry needs.

For clients, annual investment ranges from $10,000 to $50,000, depending on site size and configuration. This cost delivers substantial value through reduced internal resource requirements, faster control validation, improved data quality, and lower regulatory risk and administrative burden.

The Problem
At Clermont Coal, the greatest resource is not the coal produced, but the people who make it possible. Treating people as the operation’s greatest resource means investing in their health and wellbeing with the same discipline we apply to safety, production and equipment. Preventative Health Screening is the front door to the site’s broader Fit for Life approach, giving workers early visibility of hidden health risks and connecting them with the support needed to stay fit for work and fit for life.
This program was developed off the back of repeated medical emergencies on site and a clear realisation that serious health issues like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, liver function abnormalities and psychological distress can develop silently within the workforce. Clermont Coal makes the purpose of this program clear: preventative health is not just about identifying risk but about equipping workers with the tools, health literacy and support to become the healthiest version of themselves.
Clermont Coal also identified that many workforce wellbeing initiatives have a big build-up and then disappear or are ‘one-off’ - a gap many workers have called out in the past. This program is different because it iterates and builds on itself – through alignment with our Health Calendar and reinforcement at Team Days and Pre-Starts – and continues with appropriate follow-up and ongoing support year-round. This ensures risks are picked up earlier, workers get timely help and support where needed, and their long term health has a better chance of improving.
In 2025, one Glencore site experienced a series of medical events that reinforced the need for a more proactive approach to our workers health, including several “non-occupational” related events onsite, multiple ambulance call outs, helicopter transfers, and 24.6 hours of site shutdown for non-work related emergencies (Medical Events / Underlying Health Conditions). Incidents such as this highlight the reality that workers can appear well, while underlying risk factors continue to progress undetected.
This challenge is amplified in mining environments where workers may delay seeking help due to several factors:
• male-dominated workforces with lower engagement in preventative health care;
• limited access to GPs, allied health and specialist services in regional and remote areas;
• work, family and caring responsibilities during the “busy” working years;
• cost-of-living pressures and reduced access to bulk-billed care;
• shift work and rosters that make routine appointments difficult; and
• production demands that can make workers reluctant to step away from duties.
We have designed this program to directly challenge those barriers and reposition periodic health screening as a normal, proactive and responsible part of staying fit for work, fit for life, and well enough to show up at home and in the community, where you are needed the most.
The Solution/Innovation
The innovation is not screening alone, but the way screening is used as the front door to an integrated health pathway. Clermont Coal partners with Boncentric to deliver comprehensive onsite preventative health screening through purpose-built mobile clinics that bring clinical capability directly to site. The program uses a contemporary bio-psychosocial screening tool and evidence-based clinical guidelines, supported by secure booking systems, confidential data handling, GP-reviewed individual reports and de-identified aggregate reporting.
The model combines physical and psychological health screening with practical referral pathways, including PSA testing, women’s health checks, skin checks and urgent referral to EAP where psychosocial risks are identified. This links individual campaigns into one broader Fit for Life strategy, rather than relying on isolated awareness activities.
The scale and outcomes of the program demonstrate how this model has moved beyond awareness and into practical, measurable health intervention. Across four years of health screening at Clermont Coal, over 1000 health screenings have been delivered to workers, with measurable improvements observed across key aggregate health risk indicators at each onsite campaign. Targeted follow-on programs have extended this impact further: 100 women have attended dedicated women’s health checks since 2023, resulting in at least 8 referrals for further investigation, while approximately 665 workers have participated in skin checks and received more than 178 GP referral letters, including one melanoma detected. Over the same period, another Glencore site conducted 475 PSA blood tests, with 12 men recording an elevated PSA result requiring further follow-up.
These outcomes show that the program is not simply providing information to workers; it is identifying real health risks, creating clear pathways for follow-up, and helping workers take action earlier than they otherwise may have. The consistently high feedback scores, with an average rating across the onsite campaigns of 9.1 out of 10 and 99% recommendation rate, also show that workers value having confidential, practical and comprehensive health care brought directly to site.
The importance of regular preventative health touchpoints is reinforced by experience across the broader Glencore network. More than 1,000 onsite PSA tests have now been undertaken across Glencore sites, with 33 men recording an elevated PSA result requiring further follow-up. Behind these numbers are individual cases where early detection has materially changed health outcomes. At one Glencore site, a 47-year-old coal mine worker participated in an educational ManUp! talks and completed his own PSA testing in 2023. He repeated the same process in 2025 after a further ManUp! visit to site. His PSA increased from 2.1 in 2023 to 3.2 in 2025, and after further testing rose to 4.1, leading to a diagnosis of late stage 2 prostate cancer. He underwent surgery in late 2025, returned to work, and his urologist advised that had he waited another six months, the cancer would likely have spread and his outcome may have been very different.
This case demonstrates how onsite preventative health activity can trigger life-changing, and potentially life-saving, intervention. It also illustrates the risk of gaps between programs. Clermont Coal’s approach is designed to address that risk by ensuring health initiatives are not treated as isolated events, but as part of an ongoing strategy with regular reminders, repeated opportunities for testing, and clear next steps. Initiatives such as ManUp! Mondays, PSA testing, skin checks, women’s health checks and annual preventative screening all work together to keep health visible and encourage workers to act before concerns become crises.
The program creates a continuum of care and messaging that reminds workers that “feeling off” can be linked to a range of health concerns, but the moment that “something changes” is the time to act. By empowering the workforce with practical tools, confidential information and direct links to support, Clermont Coal is building a proactive health culture that helps workers stay fit for life - at work, at home and in the community.
Benefits/Effects
The benefits extend beyond the mining operation or lease. For workers, the program supports earlier detection of chronic disease and psychological distress, improves treatment pathways and provides personalised health information before a crisis occurs. For families and communities, it helps workers stay well enough to remain present and active as partners, parents, carers, friends and community members. For the operation, healthier workers support safer decision making, reduced fatigue-related risk, lower injury exposure, fewer unplanned absences and stronger team performance.

Transferability
Although this submission is for Clermont Coal, this program has been designed to be transferable across the Queensland resources industry, scalable across interstate operations and adaptable to virtually any mine site. Its core structure of onsite screening, worker education, confidential reporting, targeted referral pathways and follow-up support, can be tailored to suit open cut or underground environments, camp-based or residential workforces, and sites of different sizes, risk profiles and maturity levels.
The underlying health risks being addressed, including cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes, liver function abnormalities and mental health strain, are not unique to one operation. Because the model is practical, vendor-supported and aligned with the realities of remote and production driven mining environments, it provides a strong framework that could be replicated across Queensland and interstate mining operations to improve health outcomes, support earlier intervention and reduce preventable harm across the workforce.
Approximate Cost of the initiative
The onsite health screening program represents a modest investment relative to the size of the workforce and the potential consequences of unmanaged health risk. While there are costs associated with bringing trained health professionals, pathology/PSA testing, women’s health services and skin specialists onsite, these are proportionate to the barriers workers face in accessing timely care.
The value extends beyond the screening appointment. Each visit creates an opportunity to identify risk earlier, provide GP-reviewed health information, connect workers to follow-up care and give Clermont Coal de-identified insight into workforce health trends. This allows investment to be targeted towards areas of greatest need, rather than relying on generic awareness campaigns or reactive responses after medical events occur.
When considered against earlier diagnoses, reduced health risk, fewer crisis events and improved worker confidence, the program represents a practical and sustainable investment in workforce health.