Bosses at Repsol Sinopec Resources UK (RSRUK) are looking to push on with remote working practices after seeing an “improvement in performance” during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Martin Ogden, head of IT and digital at the company, said the change in system had thrown up “new opportunities”, during an Oil and Gas UK webinar on “Rethinking IT and Cyber in a post-lockdown world”.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics at the peak of lockdown in April showed 49.2% of adults in employment were working from home.
Mr Ogden said: “We have seen some examples of where we’ve got new opportunities as a result of remote working. We managed to go live with a permit to work system during lockdown but the question for me, having had the initial euphoria of getting the job done, was why have we not done this before? Why have we not saved the money of mobilising people offshore when we can clearly do it remotely?
“Likewise we also used Microsoft Teams for a company-wide broadcast from our CEO, which was particularly important as he came into seat during lockdown and a lot of people didn’t know who he was.”
He continued: “We managed to set up a live broadcast with between 550 and 600 people in attendance, which was a success in its own right but also gave us the chance to get feedback.
“Historically these things would have been done in our head office in Aberdeen. The onshore personnel would have seen it but it would have been limited for those offshore. The live broadcast ultimately had a much bigger audience and we removed the logistics of trying to find a suitable venue for it. Now we’ve proven this works, we should be using it going forward.”
RSRUK is plannng an eventual phased return to its offices in Holburn Street in Aberdeen at a later date.
Mr Ogden said: “We’re identifying members of the workforce that are capable of coming back in and have no issues, be that childcare or medical. That group will then be split into three so they’ll have a rotation where you’ve got the first group coming in on week one and then working at home for two weeks.
“We’d all be fools to try and guess what the long term holds but what we want to do is to establish what works and what doesn’t.”
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