Our April issue is all about people. Ultimately, the success of a company is driven, not by the products or services it is selling, but by the work put in by its employees. David Allsop, Principal Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire’s Business School, considers the issue of studying teamwork within organisations to improve coal miner’s job satisfaction. Arshad Hafeez, Director of Global Business Operations for the Performance Review Institute, explains why it is so important for people with extensive experience in materials science or metallurgy to become auditors. 

The health and safety of mining employees is always of utmost importance, but as Jim Galvin discovers, recent protective legislation in Australia may actually be doing the industry more harm than good. Keeping on the theme of Australian legislation, Sally Wilkes investigates the relationship between mining companies and Aboriginals now that the rights of the indigenous landowners have been recognised. And in the face of statistics that show only two to three percent of engineering expert witness reports are presented at court, Chris Brookes asks if professional engineers are doing enough to release valuable information to the public.

In our news section, Rupal Mehta reports on an ongoing theme in the mining and energy sector – a lack of highly-skilled personnel – and what the Australian government and industry are doing to improve this situation. Also being covered in the R&D section is the recent discovery that copper surfaces are effective in preventing the spread of Influenza A viruses like E Coli or Avian flu. And in ‘Time to show community spirit’ we get a reaction to Rapra’s fall into administration.