Azerbaijan’s Azneft increases training budget by 50pct
By Trend
Azneft Production Union of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR has increased its training budget by 50 percent, said Parviz Gasimov, Head of Human Resources Department at Azneft.
He made the remarks at the IADC Drilling Caspian 2019 Conference & Exhibition in Baku Feb.20, Trend reports.
He pointed out that the increasing mechanization and automation have reduced the need of manpower.
“Therefore, the workforce of drilling sector has been reduced and various challenges regarding staffing and managing the employees are arising. Despite the great importance of machines, the human factor is still the most crucial factor. The success of drilling depends on the professionals. The advancement of technology and automation requires more of employees’ mental power rather than physical force. That is mastering multi-tasking skills and developing analytical and political thinking have become crucial at work,” said Gasimov.
The rapid technological change demands employees with sophisticated and up-to-date skills than have ever been required by oil and gas professionals, he said, adding that such changes have created new realities for employers.
“Azneft Production Union’s target for 2019 is to enhance training and accelerate the learning and development processes within company. We have increased the training budget by 50 percent and started working on enhancement and reinforcement, strategic alignment of existing training program. Aging factor is high in Azneft Production Union. Last year, +51 aged employees made up 5,000, which is 44 percent of total employee number. We are actively hiring young employees. For example, in 2018 we hired 314 employees under age 35 and 56 among them were fresh graduated,” Gasimov.
He went on to add that the transmission of knowledge from more experienced employees to new comers and younger employees becomes crucial.
“51.9 percent of work-related accidents in oil field service sector involve employees with less than one year service experience. As Azneft Production Union we are implementing knowledge sharing culture and encourage employees with profound experience to mentor young ones with relatively less experience,” noted Gasimov.
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