TRAINING Insights
NEARLY everyone is aware that surging North American pro- duction coupled with a wave of
retirements is causing an unprecedented
shortage of talent across oil and gas com-
panies. Increased production in North
America is expected to create 500,000
to 1 million new energy-related jobs in
the next 10 years. Yet, with an improving economy and rebounding 401k accounts, hourly employees of retirement-age are more confident about retiring
than they were a few years ago. These
employees have been operating and repairing equipment and machinery for
decades, and will take their institutional
knowledge with them when they go.
CEB has analyzed operations and
maintenance jobs in the world’s lead-
ing oil and gas companies and finds
that to replace experienced, success-
ful workers, companies must find can-
didates with a set of fundamental skills
and abilities:
Dependability and reliability
Safety orientation
Teamwork orientation
Learning ability
Troubleshooting and problem
solving
Mechanical aptitude
Online, pre-employment assessments
allow companies to identify candidates
with these characteristics during the
application stage with greater accu-
racy than a resume or interview will
elicit. As oil and gas companies com-
pete for talent, using assessments can
help them broaden their talent pool,
reduce safety concerns and hire the
right people.
Reach into unconventional
areas for talent
Hiring a refinery operator from a competitor or an instrument technician
from a contractor is fairly easy, and
most of these individuals already have
the necessary skills. However, when
bringing in candidates from unconventional sources, companies must determine if they have the fundamental
skills and abilities suited for these roles.
For instance, a hospital lab techni-
cian follows procedures, is dependable
and may have experience with shift
work. Online assessments can test for
the compatible characteristics before
a recruiter reviews a resume or sched-
ules an interview. Once those charac-
teristics are assured, companies need to
design compelling employment offers
for non-traditional talent pools. With-
out that, it will be harder to pull top tal-
ent from other industries.
Emphasize safety
The drive to fill vacancies quickly can
put people’s lives and businesses at risk.
The energy industry has some of the
most extensive safety training in the
world, but the best companies start
focusing on safety at the hiring stage.
Our research shows that a small group
of high-risk employees account for a
large share of accidents and injuries,
Hiring the Next Generation
of Hourly Oil and Gas Talent
By Jean Martin and Mark Strong, CEB
