Natural Resources Human Capital Labourforce Difficulties

Rising tensions about the condition of the world's natural resources workforces have appeared for a handful of stark reasons. These include the industry's increased appetite for qualified employees, the recurring challenge of convincing enough university students to follow energy-related careers and the sizeable demographic shift that's beginning to move the global post-war generation into retirement.

Russ Buckland, managing partner of TRANSEARCH in Canada and global co-leader of the Resources, Energy and Infrastructure practice for TRANSEARCH International, says he sees several incredible challenges ahead for North American and global firms in the oil, gas and mining market sectors in the months and years ahead. These new demands are increasingly being driven, he says, by the acceleration of major merger and acquisition activity, a so-called commodities market "super-cycle" that continues to drive the price of oil, base metals and gold, and a demographic shift which will put an equally high premium on talent.

"The number one dilemma facing the Natural Resources market is a scarcity of talent in all positions and it is being driven by Baby Boomer retirements and insufficient talent acquisition in the down times of the 1980s and 1990s, around the time when I presented a paper at the CIM asking, 'Where Has All The Talent Gone, '" Buckland says.

Buckland points out there's a major gap in the Natural Resources workforce globally and that the scarcity of talent is notably severe among workers ages 30 to 45. It is because of the business cycle and how it has spurred firms to hire only in fits and starts, because of consolidation and an overall "lack of feeding the talent pipeline previously. "

"The war for talent concerning the companies is intense and compensation is being driven upwards, " Buckland says. "People really don't plan to join losing firms, so firms must have a strong all round position to captivate the best talent, " he contends. "Talent acquisition and retention needs to become a strategic imperative for natural resources firms. If they don't, those firms will not draw in the right people, they will not likely keep people and they will not compete for the best. "

Buckland says that natural resources firms around the world have got to alter the way they do business with potential recruits, current employees and their high performers so that they can take advantage of the performance of their workforces and drive consistently high profitability. "They have got to start thinking about being a lot more inventive and resourceful in how they look at obtaining talent, " he says. They also have to be certain that the talented professionals and managers they recruit into their companies land smoothly in their new roles stay long enough to produce a return on the company's training investment and attain their full potential.

But building a brand new process to sourcing, attracting and building a natural resource company's human capital requires a substantial dosing of change from the current status quo. " Executive search is typically a reactive business. I'm suggesting we need to turn the paradigm totally upside down. Firms and search firms alike have to start thinking more proactively about talent, " Buckland asserts.

By discovering potential professional and management recruits and developing a relationship with them before you may intend to hire them, Buckland says, natural resources firms can drastically reduce time-to-hire and "cycle time for replacement. " They can also acquire important market intelligence that can inform not only recruitment strategy, but corporate strategy as well.

The candidates with the best credentials are increasingly expecting to study and understand far far more about potential employers than previously. Top talent will gravitate to natural resources firms that are proactive with regards to talent acquisition and build a relationship with them to help educate them about their markets, competition and new opportunities.

Put simply, talented people prefer to see possible employers commit time with them, that is so vital since they have an increasing number of employment possibilities to take into account and the winners in the war for top-notch natural resources talent are going to be those that differentiate the recruiting process. "In the past, people needed companies. Today, companies need people, so the nexus of the relationship needs to change, " Buckland says.

Note to Editors: About TRANSEARCH International
Executive search firm TRANSEARCH International has representation in most of the major economic centres of the world with 59 offices in 37 countries. TRANSEARCH International was founded in 1982 and is a leading international executive search firm.