A report by KPMG forecasts that India's energy needs would grow at 6.4 to 8 per cent to achieve the projected economic growth rate of 8-10 per cent, translating into a five-fold increase in India's energy requirement over the next 25 years.
In India, the Oil & Gas sector plays a very important role in the economic and political scenario of the world. Oil and gas industry size is estimated at US$ 110 billion (about 15 per cent of GDP). The limited number of oil and gas reserves and increasing energy requirements across the globe has led to a mismatch between the demand and supply forces and hence to spiraling prices. The high economic growth in the past few years, increasing industrialization coupled with a rapidly increasing population has created a lot of concern for India's energy scenario. India has 0.5% of the Oil and Gas resources of the world and 15% of the world's population. This makes India heavily dependent on import of crude oil and natural gas. Imports of petroleum oil and lubricants (POL) during April-June 2006 rose by 47.2 per cent (31.0 per cent a year ago).
The HR Scenario
The talent challenge is nothing new for an industry like oil and gas, which is subject to wild market fluctuations. The industry laid off hundreds of thousands of skilled workers, many of whom abandoned the business altogether in search of more stable jobs. Accordingly, recruitment of new employees plummeted, and fewer and fewer university students were entering petroleum engineering programs. Now the industry is paying heavily for its shortsightedness. The average oil company employee is nearly 50 years old; in the next decade, more than half of the industry's employee base will retire, leaving behind a massive void of skilled workers. said. To meet its escalating needs, the industry will have to transform the way it develops its labor force.
The talent challenge is nothing new for an industry like oil and gas, which is subject to wild market fluctuations. The industry laid off hundreds of thousands of skilled workers, many of whom abandoned the business altogether in search of more stable jobs. Accordingly, recruitment of new employees plummeted, and fewer and fewer university students were entering petroleum engineering programs. Now the industry is paying heavily for its shortsightedness. The average oil company employee is nearly 50 years old; in the next decade, more than half of the industry's employee base will retire, leaving behind a massive void of skilled workers. said. To meet its escalating needs, the industry will have to transform the way it develops its labor force.
In India, such manpower challenges are present alongside a general situation of socio-economic stress and chronic resource shortages. In the O&P industry, each time the price of oil drops, the industry has to layoff workers. Moreover, there is competition that is willing to pay exorbitant sums to poach existing talent. Companies are recognizing the need to refine their human resources strategies to focus on the underlying problems. Overhauling human resources practices is not always easy. With a clear internal strategy in place, companies can then focus on replenishing the workforce. Both Shell and Exxon have recently invested in global training centers to provide hands-on experience to thousands of recruits. With the ability to train nearly 10,000 students annually, the two companies hope their training facilities will attract bright young scientists and engineers to the field. BP is following suit, partnering with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to build a career development program for new employees.
The key challenges faced by this industry are:
Massive void of skilled workers
Industry academia divide with fewer university students entering petroleum engineering programs
Lack of streamlined processes for acquiring latest domain specific knowledge and industry certifications.
Training a geographically dispersed workforce
24x7 Learning in partnership with OPITO and Atlas Interactive is well equipped to address the specialized requirements of the Oil and Gas sector. 24x7 Learning is already working with ONGC, India's most coveted PSU and flagship energy company, to transition ONGC's corporate academy to Gyandhara, the ONGC Virtual Academy. Besides the OPITO certification Gyandhara provides the perfect platform for ONGC to launch various domain specific eLearning programs and help their employees chart a successful career path.
24x7 Learning can work with other players in the high growth energy sector and address their training needs with their Talent Lifecycle Management Solutions. Through its end-to-end Learning solutions 24x7 Learning can help reach out domain specific training programs to groom managers, senior managers and the leadership in the Energy sector. 24x7 Learning can cater to the training needs of this sector as management moves into private sector. Workforce training needs on aspects such as people management, viable skills, business insights, analytic skills, succession planning, and resource development can be offered to help them move up the value chain.
24x7 Learning has the capability to build a corporate virtual university to address each of the training needs. Our Talent Lifecycle Management programs can effectively and cost efficiently reach out standardized training to a large number of geographically dispersed employees to help them provide the best in class services across regions.
