Development of a Competent Workforce for the Oil and Gas Sector

Abstract

Abstract The need to ensure that every task is being performed by competent workers at the right place at the right time has become one of management's top priorities. This implies the need to ensure that health-safety-environment (HSE) performance, asset integrity systems, organizational processes and staff development programs are standardized and optimized within a framework of a competency-based system. The Competence Assurance Management System (CAMS) in the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) Exploration and Production (E&P) group of companies aims at addressing these issues in a structured approach. In May 2002, a multi-disciplinary Best Practice and Skills Management (BPSM) team of E&P skill pool advisors (SPA's) was assembled to build discipline-specific development frameworks (DFW's) and guidelines (GL's) documents and facilitate the CAMS implementation process. The project team worked very closely with many contributors from the E&P group of companies including skill pool technical experts (SPE's), competence assurance coordinators from human resources (CAC's) and other groups and reached a CAMS pilot implementation milestone in early 2004. The CAMS pilot involved 5 E&P technical disciplines: mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, reservoir geology, well engineering and reservoir engineering. Lessons learned from the pilot implementation were the base for optimizing the DFW's/GL's and implementation plans for 16 additional E&P disciplines to be launched in late 2004 and 2005. CAMS is initially implemented on new UAE National technical graduates to support the Emiratization targets of 50% by 2004 and 75% by 2009. Eventually, CAMS can be implemented on the entire workforce in the E&P group of companies. Additionally, and as part of the full CAMS implementation, a knowledge and learning management information technology (IT) system across the E&P group of companies is being established. CAMS DFW's/GL's include comprehensive development roadmaps, graduate development matrices, competence skill profiles, performance-knowledge-evidence criteria for every skill and detailed formal and on-the-job training programs.