Abstract
In keeping with its mission to provide its members with opportunities to enhance their technical and professional competence, SPE launched a Competency Management Tool (CMT) in partnership with IHRDC in October 2014. In order, to gauge membership interest, this initial release of the CMT included a limited number of key operating company technical jobs. By June 2015, some 1,000 members had used the tool and provided very positive feedback. Encouraged by this response, SPE decided to expand the number of jobs in the tool such that a larger cross-section of its members could benefit from it. This meant expanding CMT's operating company-focus to include drilling contractors, EPC contractors, integrated service companies and the student community. The expanded CMT was launched in late September 2015. It now includes 41 job competency models, 9 disciplines (Production Engineering & Operations, Project and Facilities Engineering, Well Engineering, Health, Safety, and Environment, Subsurface, Business Development - Operating Companies, Business Development - Service Companies and Contractors, Supply Chain, and Entry level Engineers), 308 competency units and over 1,200 training resources. The basic features of the tool have also been enhanced to provide quicker assessment results and easier navigation. Since September 2015, some 1,900 users have accessed the tool, 1,263 of them have started a self-assessment and 210 have completed the self- assessment. It is encouraging to see that the composition of the users adequately represents the broad geographical spread of SPE's membership, and all of the job models are being used, although a higher percentage of users are concentrated in only four or five disciplines. The paper describes how using the CMT will add value for students, young professionals, mid-career or senior professionals, and also for companies that do not have an in-house Competency Management System. The user feedback over the past 18 months has been critically analyzed to develop insights about the use of the tool and whether SPE is meeting its key objectives in introducing the tool. While the overall usage numbers are lower than expected, it is believed that that is a result of lack of awareness about the tool rather than its usefulness. The usage data clearly shows that a higher percentage of users are young professionals and career professionals, the two categories that SPE was specifically targeting for accelerating competency development to address the industry concerns about the "experience gap" stemming from a large-scale exodus of older professionals. As the industry recovers from the oil price shock, the availability of the CMT as a low-cost alternative (free for SPE members) to develop and manage a competent workforce should serve it well to get back quickly on its feet.
