Benchmarking Industry Talent Needs

Talent & Technology Since 2004, Schlumberger Business Consulting (SBC) has produced the SBC Human Resources (HR) Benchmark to assess the global supply and demand for petrotechnical professionals (PTPs; covering geosciences and petroleum engineering disciplines) and highlight best practices in talent management. This annual survey has become the reference point for industry professionals who seek talent strategies that have a measurable impact on business results. The survey has found its place within the SPE Talent Council,* whose members, some of whom participate in the survey, use the results as a basis for discussion to identify potential areas of industry collaboration to improve the quantity and quality of talent available. The SBC copyrighted The Supply Chain of Talent (Fig. 1) is the cornerstone of the SBC HR Benchmark. This framework was established by SBC to provide a holistic and systemic way to understand and address overall HR challenges in the industry. Many SBC clients today adopt The Supply Chain of Talent in their HR planning and management processes to address difficult HR issues that have proven complicated in the past. Addressing all these HR components in an integrated way has resulted in a higher impact than a piecemeal approach. The 2009 Benchmark results were presented during the annual SBC HR Forum in December.  More than 20 global companies comprising national oil companies (NOCs), majors, independents, and 70 universities, which offer geosciences and petroleum engineering programs, participated in the survey. Three major observations were made based on the survey findings: In the recent economic downturn, international oil companies (IOCs) decreased their recruitment targets more than NOCs, putting university oil- and gas-related programs at risk and possibly creating future talent gaps. Oil and gas companies have taken steps to adjust their demographic profiles. Coaching is a valuable tool to reduce the time to autonomy for PTPs. *The SPE Talent Council was formed in 2007 to provide a forum in which industry, academia, and nongovernmental organizations could collaborate on initiatives to increase the quantity and quality of talent available to the industry.