Retirement
The majority of oil and gas employees are of the baby boomer generation and are set to retire within the next five years. Taking with them are years of industry experience, oil and gas knowledge and their capability to drive oil and gas production. This is a real problem. Who will fill their shoes when they’re gone?
Talent Gap
In most of the world’s oil/gas/energy companies, about 50% of the employees are established, experienced people who have been in the business for decades. These are our future retirees. Only 2% are in their 20’s, just beginning their oil and gas careers. There is no in-between, and no avenue set forth for the older employees to share their knowledge with the younger professionals. This is called talent gap, and there needs to be something done about it.
Skills Shortage
Since the oil and gas industry has been experiencing a boom in the last several years, many college students have chosen petroleum engineering as their majors. This seems like great news; we should have plenty of people (new hires) to start filling the shoes of the retiring baby boomers. If only it were that simple. With oil and gas paying so well in these times of abundance, many university professors are leaving academia and going to work for oil and gas instead. This leaves no one to teach the classes, and many universities have to cut back on their petroleum engineering programs. Universities simply can’t compete with oil and gas salaries and are losing professors in droves.
Global Talent
When it comes to oil/gas/energy talent, the competitiveness “hotspots” are concentrated in Europe, North America and a few advanced economies in Asia and the Pacific. The challenge is to predict where the talent might be in the future. Switzerland remains in first place as a result of its continuing strong performance across the board. This further leaves the U.S. trailing behind, trying to keep up.
Employee Retention
Ernst and Young conducted a study and their findings were quite interesting. Compensation and lack of growth opportunities for advancement are prime factors driving Natural Resources workers to leave an organization or change jobs.
In conclusion, you can see why the oil and gas industry is in a panic. Oil and crude production are at an all-time high, yet we are being brought to our knees over basic human resource issues. Oil and gas companies need to figure out how to attract and retain employees; otherwise disaster could be looming right around the corner.