In January, Beament warned the full impact of the “chronic” shortage had yet to be seen and he repeated that message last week.

“We’ve got a global shortage of mining talent and it’s only going to get worse, especially in the underground space,” he told MNN on the sidelines of last week’s Resources Rising Stars conference on the Gold Coast.

Beament said it was important for him and his management team to regularly visit their development sites Woodlawn and Sulphur Springs, and Bellevue, where Develop is the underground mining contractor.

“Every couple of weeks we’re on site and you can’t underestimate how powerful that is,” he said.

“I think management teams from the big companies have gone missing for a while now and when you get a tight labour market like we’re in now, it really hits you.”

Beament reiterated the future of mining in Australia was underground, with the number of mines planned increasing.

“Building underground projects is not going to be easy unless you’ve got the connections and the networks,” he said.

“We’re seeing quite unfortunate examples of people running underground mines that the companies have blown up.

“If you get a dossier of all the undergrounds underway now or about to get built, I don’t know where the people are going to come from.

“If the project can justify it, they’re going to have to pay up to get the right people but other operations are going to suffer because the can’t afford to match.”

He warned there would be more and more miners reporting weak production results.

Beament has spent the past two years building Develop up from scratch, going from about three people to more than 300 over that time.

Develop doesn’t advertise for people and instead goes after the people it wants, which has proved successful so far.

“It’s like a nightclub – everyone wants to join us,” Beament said.

The company’s latest hire is 2022’s Outstanding Young Woman in Resources Elle Farris.

Farris is joining Develop in June as general counsel and company secretary from Newmont Corporation, where she is senior corporate counsel and external relations.

One thing that has surprised Beament is the connectivity of the mining sector.

“What I didn’t realise is all these operational teams, they’re so socially connected now,” he said.

“They’ve all got their WhatsApp groups – I was blown away.”

Beament said word had gotten out among those groups of the success Develop was having at Bellevue, which includes record development rates.

“We’re basically hand-picking the best 5% of the talent out of the underground mining sector,” he said.

“We’re just attracting talent from everywhere and we’ve designed it to do that.

“We’ve got the sergeants, the lieutenants, the colonels and the generals and they’re just bringing the battalion and the army – it’s pretty simple.

“Resource is a people game and people work for people. And if you can create the right vision and culture, I think most people are taking a pay cut to come and work for us.

“That’s just telling you that what we’re doing as a company is resonating.”