Fly In Fly Out (FIFO), FIFO camps and the Mining Lifestyle

I am a 24 year old Health and Wellness Consultant for RioTinto and I’ve been working in the mining industry for more than 4 years.

I started with a contracting company straight out of university and began by covering at two sites where my approach and enthusiasm soon found me permanently based in the Pilbara. During my time with this contracting company I received employee of the year and worked at another 3 sites over a 3 year period. Each of the sites I have worked at and slight variations in my role, has given me an opportunity to learn what initiatives work effectively, how best to implement them, contacts throughout the industry, where to focus my attention and how to make the role my own.

I have been working directly for RioTinto for two years and in this time have cemented a unique, and what I believe to be very beneficial role within the Tom Price mine site and RioTinto as a broad community. My role includes:

• Sleep screening
• Fitness for work assistance
• Rehabilitation (soft tissue, cardiac, joints and breaks)
• Implementing advertising and developing health initiatives (fun runs, health challenges, fund raising events)
• Readiness for work programs
• Health consultations and assessments
• Implementing healthy practices around site (including fresh fruit being available site wide and the removal of certain crib snacks)
• Health talks
• Presentations at community and mining events
• Exercise classes for employees and community members
• Being involved in organizing and implementing on site health initiatives (including skin cancer talks, men’s health talks, prostate, bowel and skin cancer screens, flu vaccinations and dietician visits)

I am extremely lucky that I am a part of a great health and safety team who are always looking at new initiatives and ideas to better the health and wellbeing of the employees. The opportunities that RioTinto enables with regards to these initiatives, and the willingness of the management, in particular here in Tom Price, has enabled and encouraged these changes to my role and the health calendar immensely. We now run an extremely efficient health calendar from January to December that encourages healthy lifestyles and enables employees numerous opportunities to monitor their health.

I am very passionate about my job as I truly believe in its message and live by the things I talk about.  It is important to me that if I am trying to educate a person about something, that I also follow through on my message with my actions. Everyone has their barriers but it is my job to rationalize and work both around and with these barriers. My goal is for people to be able to achieve their own health goals without sacrificing other aspects of their life.