At a time where oil and gas companies across the globe are being affected by the commodity price downturn, many have developed and implemented contingency plans which have seen the selling off of low-profit subsidiary companies, enforced wage cuts, the loss of experienced personnel, a reduction in marketing budgets, and even the cutting of apprenticeship and graduate programmes.
It’s a bit of an understatement to say that there’s a huge cloud over the whole industry right now as chief executives worry about keeping their businesses afloat but it’s that last example, the loss of the next generation of oil and gas workers that we need to put higher up the industry’s priority list if we are to ensure the sector has a sustainable future.
In order to secure the future of the North Sea oil and gas industry, we need to continue empowering and encouraging a steady pipeline of talent to come through even in challenging times. Past experience has shown us that ignoring this can lead to bigger and more costly issues in the long term.
Modern apprenticeships can bring about significant benefits to businesses in developing a skilled workforce from within an organisation. After all, how else – and to who – are the most skilled and experienced personnel a decade or less away from retirement going to impart all those years of learning their expert trade knowledge to?
Apprenticeships allow employers to make sure that the on-the-job training is relevant and gives the trainee much needed hands-on experience as well a chance to apply their new skillset in a working environment.
It also gives them the opportunity to demonstrate the competence required for a career whether it is onshore or offshore – let’s not forget the many modern apprenticeships available for office based personnel.
Slashing apprenticeship budgets, in many cases, can be a false economy – short term gain but at what cost for the years ahead? In times of cost cutting and a drive for increased efficiency, people are the key to all successful businesses.
If there’s not a steady pipeline coming through, you face the prospect of having to offer inflated wages to attract personnel when a future skills gap emerges.
The firms taking a long-term approach continuing with their apprenticeship programmes, graduate schemes and engagement with local school pupils, helping to develop what will one day become the new backbone of this industry, they are the ones who will not fall short when we recover, regroup and reform from the current situation.
And it’s not just the young person or the industry that can prosper from apprenticeship schemes; on the larger economic playing field and UK energy sector, it can be an important way of improving vocational routes from school to work and a key mechanism in addressing the UK’s youth unemployment problem.
To date, operators and major contractors have invested more than £140million into the Oil and Gas Technical Apprentice Programme (OGTAP), formally the Upstream Oil and Gas Technician Training Scheme, since its formation in 1999. Now backed by 19 companies it is one of the biggest industry-led apprenticeship programmes of its kind in the UK taking on around 100 apprentices each year. It boasts one of the highest achievement rates at 93%.
With scope on the horizon for new opportunities in other disciplines such as decommissioning, the digitalisation of oil fields and higher investment in technology, if we don’t continue to do what we can as an industry to attract, train and develop our young people, we will pay the very high price of losing another generation in years to come.
Cutting investment for the future should be a last resort.
John McDonald is UK managing director of Opito
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