Demonstrating the Competence of the Workforce
Authors: Leuro Jorge , Kruger Todd 
Published: May 2016

The oil and gas industry's business landscape has changed. The trend is clear: being able to demonstrate the competence of the workforce is now and will continue to be business critical. The argument is simple: just having development programs in place and believing that they equip personnel with the ability to be successful in their job activities, is not enough! It is only when companies assure that all their employees are in fact competent in what they do, that they will deliver on their promises to shareholders, customers, and the community as a whole.

Companies have naturally evolved their development methodologies to incorporate a competency program into their business framework. However, in this self-regulated industry not all programs are created equal. This paper describes elements that make up a robust competency program to align with industry practices and regulations. It also describes how a company may demonstrate the competence of its workforce to its stakeholders.

The elements that make up a robust program includes: assessing employee's competence on the job as a preferred methodology; using qualified and competent assessors to conduct assessments; emphasizing employees' consistency and exposure in the application of the competency; verifying conformance to established processes; and ascertaining the validity and reliability of the competence information.

The demonstration requires the company to prove that: it has competency processes in place; it has communicated the processes; and it is applying the processes while developing, assessing, and documenting personnel's competence. During this demonstration, competence records are shown but the level of detail varies depending on the instance: pre-work, execution of work, and delivery of services.

This paper introduces a compelling case for action to assure the competence of the workforce and work towards standardizing an industry-wide approach.

Introduction

This paper discusses the topic of demonstrating the competence of the workforce, a topic which has received a lot of attention as recent world events have dictated significant changes to the business landscape of the oil and gas industry. This shift challenges the industry to closely review the effectiveness of competency and employee development programs. While this need is well known, there is no industry standard for demonstrating competence but there are indications that there is building consensus on the process to follow.

The business framework of the oil and gas industry relies on the delivery of assets, products, and services by companies who exist in an interdependent workspace. In some cases this delivery is performed by an individual contributor or team of individuals. Regardless of the case, the expectation is always that the responsible parties will deliver on the promised outcome while satisfying quality, safety, and environmental requirements.

Realizing this desired state, each organization carries out their due diligence with respect to the provider's capability, by requesting a demonstration of the competence of the workforce. This approach appears to be a good one when you consider that it has been proven with hard evidence that there is a strong positive correlation between business results such as safety, quality, financial, and voluntary attrition and documented competence of the workforce (Leuro and Kruger, 2012). In general, the intent behind the request is to build and sustain trust in the company delivering assets, products, or services.

The argument put forward in this paper is that a provider must demonstrate, on multiple occasions, the resilience of workforce competence, by providing evidence throughout the lifecycle of the business partnership. In this way, a provider can instill in a client the confidence that the provider will deliver the requirements of the contract.