A recent report by accountants Deloitte confirmed what many within the UK oil and gas industry have long believed – that retention of high potential and critical staff within the sector remains a critical concern. The January 2012 report entitled “Talent Edge 2020”, confirmed that staff need to be effectively utilised and valued in order for them to remain with their current employers.

40% of the “Millennial” generation group – those who are aged 31 and under – who responded to the survey confirmed that they were looking to leave their employer in the next year. This lack of loyalty is confirmed when comparing staff on length of service in their current roles, with 60% of people surveyed who have been in a role less than two years looking to move on compared to less than 20% of the people who had been in a role for more than two years. Evidently to retain high performing staff with good potential it is critical to gain their loyalty in the first two years or there is a very real prospect of losing them to a competitor.

Leadership is also valuable. 62% of those surveyed who intend to stay with their current employer reported high levels of trust in their corporate leadership against 27% of those who plan to leave. These results reflect that to retain the best staff it is imperative to identify the best performing assets of an organisation and to provide leadership development programmes, competency and skills identification along with mentoring programmes to ensure that the industry gets the best they can from these people.

Gavin Sutherland, UK Country Manager of KCA Deutag was quoted as saying in the keynote sessions of the Offshore Europe 2013 conference; “UK platform drilling is perceived as a declining industry…experienced personnel are moving to international operations”, a view backed up by Mark Burns, CEO of Ensco who said at the same conference that “competition for experienced personnel remains a challenge….you should know and maintain your employees….focus on training & development programmes…”

Clearly there is a feeling among senior executives within the oil and gas industry that if the UK industry is to meet the challenge of maximising economic recovery of hydrocarbons then it must find ways to sustain the flow of talent into the sector and retain it – and the same themes of ensuring potential is developed to its fullest come to the fore.

There is an employment and skills seminar being held in Aberdeen on April 23 with the full-day programme aimed at people with responsibility for leading people and those in a HR function highlighting these topical issues of recognising, rewarding and retaining staff critical to companies.