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Paper title “Advanced Technical Training in the Energy Industry”
Authors:
Dr. Mustafa Al-Sayed Abstract - Severe shortage of skilled technical manpower is posing a major problem in the Energy industry. Jobs in the energy industry, particularly the Oil & Gas sector, are no longer fancied by new entrants to the job market with the result that fewer and fewer youngsters are opting to study disciplines that feed the skilled technical manpower needs of the industry. To overcome this situation, Power and Utilities companies need to launch an aggressive awareness campaign targeting youngsters, complemented with sponsorships and other incentives to encourage more students to opt for relevant Engineering disciplines. The Energy Sector should also consider other options such as benefiting from the experience of existing matured but skilled personnel, recognition and reward for outstanding performers, exchange of skilled personnel between companies, etc. This situation calls for radical new initiatives with a view to maintain the leadership role of the national power companies in the energy industry. Accordingly, greater focus needs to be placed on our training and development efforts, which will help the companies fill the skill gap and at the same time provide the employees with adequate career growth opportunities. Recruiting and retaining expatriate engineers is also proving a big challenge. Increased demand for energy industry professionals has driven up salaries, and competition from other sectors to recruit the available talent has also gone up. Lucrative compensation package in our target countries also prove to be a major constraint in our ability to attract and retain skilled engineers. The national power companies would also need to take a proactive lead in R&D related to the industry with a view to continuously update and develop new technology to run the business in an efficient and cost-effective manner and to continuously upgrade the skill levels of the workforce. The presentation also highlights the use of two new management theories, namely, Mosif and Creamoc in how to strategically maximize the use of natural and human resources to optimize the successful transformation of organizations into better productivity and prosperity. |