The Hindu Business Line : `Employee training, the key differentiator'

The mention of `oil drilling' makes one go back to the film Armageddon where a bunch of oil drillers led by the character played by Bruce Willis save the world from an asteroid by drilling into it and blowing it up with nuclear devices. Play this film in a packed hall and chances are most people will not be inspired to take up a career with an oil and gas company. So what does it take to inspire talent to enter this industry?

P. Senthil Kumar, Head - Human Resources and Administration, Cairn India, speaks to The New Manager on the talent scenario in the industry and the company's initiatives to attract and retain talent.

Kumar began his career as a production engineer. After obtaining a masters degree from XLRI, Jamshedpur, he moved into human resources management and has 23 years of experience. He has been with Cairn India since 2005.

What is the demand-supply scene as far as talent is concerned in the Indian oil and gas sector?

Competition is high and there is need for more talent. Though we need talent at all levels, the shortage is apparent in the middle and senior management levels. There is demand for drilling engineers and petroleum engineers with seven-eight years work experience. We are always looking for those with geo-technical skill sets such as geo-physicists, geologists and reservoir developers.

On the supply side, despite a shortage of candidates, it is easy to find quality talent from engineering schools. We do not face talent poaching from other industries such as information technology. Cairn has been hiring seven-fifteen freshers a year and we also train similar numbers through our internship programmes. But this is insufficient given the industry's pace of growth. The industry needs to look at hiring four times the current numbers at entry level. To rope in the limited talent available, companies across the board have been hiking fresher salaries by 25-30 per cent every year for the last few years. The oil and gas industry pays much higher than the IT industry.

How are you addressing the talent shortage?

Cairn has been filling middle/senior management positions by bringing back people who migrated to the Gulf region during the oil boom. India today is where the Gulf was then. We are offering a value proposition to these candidates. On an average, 20-25 such people join us every year.

We also have a programme focused on ex-employees. Whenever an employee leaves, we ask him for feedback on the company and what would make him come back in future. Subsequently, all company communication, including internal newsletters and business results, are shared with him. We have got encouraging responses so far.

What is this value proposition you mentioned?

It is a combination of compensation, training and wellness (for the family). We are among the top quartile of the high paying companies in the industry. We spend close to $250,000 each year in various activities covering wellness. But our key differentiator is the training initiatives offered to employees. We spent about $3.7 million last year (about 15 per cent more than the previous year) on technical and managerial training.

Could you elaborate on the managerial training?

Formal MBA education has not been our industry's forte. We need to change that so that employees have parallel growth paths — technical and managerial — in the company. So, we have entered into tie-ups with IIM-Ahmedabad and the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, for short-term industry-specific programmes for senior managers.

What are your initiatives for grooming talent in technical areas?

We have entered into a tie-up with British Gas for sharing technical expertise. Every time either of us gets an expert to talk on a subject like petro-economics, we jointly hold sessions where employees of both organisations participate.

We also sponsor top performers for year-long international programmes focused on geo-technical functions, conducted by Herriot Watt University, UK, University of Manchester and Imperial College, London.

Fresh graduates have a longer training programme that starts when they are in the third year of college.

Have these training initiatives impacted attrition in the company?

About 32 per cent of our employees (about 650) have been with us for the last five years and 13 per cent for the last 10 years.

More Stories on : Interview | Human Resources | Petroleum

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