En­er­gy Cham­ber

Eco­nom­ic com­pet­i­tive­ness, the abil­i­ty to com­pete suc­cess­ful­ly in the busi­ness world, is crit­i­cal to the sur­vival and growth of any com­pa­ny and, by ex­ten­sion, its em­ploy­ees and the coun­try as a whole. It is com­mon­ly said, whether with re­al con­vic­tion or sim­ply clich&ea­cute;, that the hu­man re­source with­in the com­pa­ny/coun­try is the sin­gle most im­por­tant re­source. There is no deny­ing this state­ment, how­ev­er, sim­ply be­cause the oth­er re­sources-mon­ey, ma­te­ri­als, ma­chin­ery and tech­nol­o­gy in and of them­selves-will not be able to act to achieve ob­jec­tives. It is on­ly when the hu­man re­sources in­ter­act to op­ti­mum ef­fect with the oth­er re­sources can ob­jec­tives-busi­ness and oth­er­wise, be achieved. In­ter­act­ing with op­ti­mum ef­fi­cien­cy re­quires. How­ev­er, that the hu­man re­sources be com­pe­tent at what they are re­quired to do as in­com­pe­tence can be very cost­ly and have se­ri­ous ad­verse im­pact on achiev­ing busi­ness ob­jec­tives, and even on the health and well be­ing of the peo­ple them­selves.

Com­bin­ing ed­u­ca­tion with skill

Up un­til re­cent­ly, com­pe­ten­cy was viewed by some as qual­i­fi­ca­tions from a recog­nised ed­u­ca­tion or train­ing in­sti­tu­tion, and by oth­ers as ex­pe­ri­ence.

Those in busi­ness will know, how­ev­er, that nei­ther ed­u­ca­tion, nor train­ing or ex­pe­ri­ence in­di­vid­u­al­ly en­sures a per­son will be able to per­form tasks well in the work­place. It is on­ly when the three are com­bined, that is, ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing is suc­cess­ful­ly ap­plied and prac­ticed in the work­place, that com­pe­ten­cy re­sults. Up un­til re­cent­ly, the work­force in the En­er­gy Sec­tor (and, in­deed, in oth­er sec­tors) com­prised a high per­cent­age of em­ploy­ees who were con­sid­ered ex­pe­ri­enced, but who were not cer­ti­fied as such. Many of these are, in fact, very com­pe­tent in their re­spec­tive oc­cu­pa­tion­al ar­eas, while oth­ers have vary­ing lev­els of com­pe­ten­cy. The lack of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion did not pose any se­ri­ous prob­lems. The emer­gence of for­mal qual­i­ty stan­dards through ISO cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, how­ev­er, and re­cent cat­a­stroph­ic events in the glob­al en­er­gy sec­tor, have now changed this par­a­digm. More and more, com­pa­nies and em­ploy­ees are re­quired to demon­strate they pos­sess the re­quired com­pe­ten­cies to do their jobs through for­mal as­sess­ments against ap­proved oc­cu­pa­tion­al stan­dards, and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by a recog­nised body, in or­der to en­sure a safer and more se­cure work en­vi­ron­ment in ad­di­tion to be­ing more ef­fec­tive and ef­fi­cient in busi­ness op­er­a­tions.

Ev­i­dence of com­pe­ten­cy

Al­ready in T&T, many of the op­er­at­ing com­pa­nies with­in the en­er­gy sec­tor are de­mand­ing that those who wish to pro­vide ser­vices to them or ob­tain con­tracts, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the high risk ar­eas, must show ev­i­dence of hav­ing a com­pe­ten­cy as­sur­ance pro­gramme in place. This is ex­pect­ed to be­come the norm through­out the in­dus­try both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Some have al­ready giv­en strict dead­lines to which their ser­vice providers must ad­here. Cer­ti­fied com­pe­ten­cy for all em­ploy­ees, there­fore, is now not just a con­di­tion to be more com­pet­i­tive, but to be able to get in­to or re­main in the com­pe­ti­tion in the first place. This par­a­digm shift is a very sig­nif­i­cant change in the way busi­ness is con­duct­ed and will no doubt cre­ate a con­sid­er­able amount of ten­sion, trau­ma, and con­cern among ser­vice providers (con­trac­tors) in par­tic­u­lar who must meet the de­mands, many of whom may lack the ca­pa­bil­i­ty or re­sources to es­tab­lish com­pe­ten­cy as­sur­ance sys­tems. A pos­i­tive con­se­quence of this par­a­digm shift, how­ev­er, is that the es­tab­lish­ment of com­pe­ten­cy as­sur­ance sys­tems with­in ser­vice provider com­pa­nies will help to pro­vide a quan­tum leap in their pro­files lead­ing to a bet­ter chance to share in the pie. It will not on­ly al­low en­try in­to the mar­kets, but pro­vide the ca­pa­bil­i­ty and ca­pac­i­ty to com­pete more ef­fec­tive­ly and even cre­ate or take ad­van­tage of op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. It will pro­vide the much-need­ed sup­port, jus­ti­fi­ca­tion and lever­age for stronger lo­cal con­tent.

Ben­e­fits of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion

Ex­pe­ri­enced but un­cer­ti­fied em­ploy­ees may find the need to be for­mal­ly as­sessed and cer­ti­fied an in­tim­i­dat­ing ex­er­cise.

They need to be aware, though, this will be­come less and less a mat­ter of choice, and more and more manda­to­ry to work in the high-risk en­er­gy busi­ness.

This should lead to a fo­cus on the many pos­i­tive con­se­quences of be­com­ing cer­ti­fied, such as:

• Be­ing for­mal­ly recog­nised for the com­pe­tence one pos­sess­es

• Be­com­ing more mar­ketable in the work­place

• Op­por­tu­ni­ties to mar­ket one­self in the glob­al are­na

• Hav­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to close com­pe­ten­cy gaps en­hanc­ing one's ca­reer path

• The high­er es­teem that be­ing cer­ti­fied could bring with col­leagues, com­pa­ny, fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty.

As a coun­try, T&T al­so stands to ben­e­fit from this de­vel­op­ment since greater com­pe­ten­cy lev­els and more com­pet­i­tive­ness among its cit­i­zens and com­pa­nies en­hances its al­ready well es­tab­lished brand in the in­ter­na­tion­al are­na as a prime des­ti­na­tion for com­pe­tent labour for the en­er­gy sec­tor. The ad­van­tages to com­pa­nies, em­ploy­ees and coun­try in the fi­nal analy­sis will far out­weigh the ini­tial chal­lenges and will be ben­e­fi­cial to all. The En­er­gy In­dus­try Com­pe­ten­cy De­vel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive (EIC­DI) was launched by the En­er­gy Cham­ber in 2010 in an­tic­i­pa­tion of this turn of events in the com­pe­ten­cy sce­nario. Through this ini­tia­tive, the cham­ber's main ob­jec­tive was to pre­pare the ser­vice provider seg­ment of its mem­ber­ship, in par­tic­u­lar, to be­come world class and take ad­van­tage of the many op­por­tu­ni­ties that are avail­able. In do­ing so, how­ev­er, the chal­lenges, trau­ma and con­cerns were al­so an­tic­i­pat­ed and the cham­ber has moved to en­sure that ser­vice providers are pro­vid­ed with as much as­sis­tance as pos­si­ble in es­tab­lish­ing their in-house com­pe­ten­cy as­sur­ance sys­tems.

Work­ing in con­junc­tion with the Na­tion­al Train­ing Agency, and with fund­ing as­sis­tance from the Cen­tre for the De­vel­op­ment of En­ter­prise (CDE), ser­vice provider com­pa­nies are be­ing pro­vid­ed with both tech­ni­cal and fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance nec­es­sary for es­tab­lish­ing their sys­tems. Some 25 com­pa­nies have so far tak­en ad­van­tage of the as­sis­tance avail­able to get start­ed on es­tab­lish­ing their com­pe­ten­cy as­sur­ance sys­tems, among them:

Tuck­er, Tosl, Damus, N&M In­sertech, Ken­son, Tof­co, On Site Ser­vices, Weld­fab, Ken­ni­con En­gi­neer­ing, Cole and As­so­ciates, RM­SL, Harsco, Gulf En­gi­neer­ing, SMTL, ANSA Tech, NDT, Trac­mac, Hy­dro­carb, IAL, SUP En­er­gy Serv, Lubritech, Hy­drotech, Passtech, MM­SL.

Oth­ers ex­pect­ed to start short­ly: PML and Score Valves.

Two hun­dred and twen­ty-three em­ploy­ees of the 25 par­tic­i­pat­ing com­pa­nies to date have been trained as as­ses­sors, 75 of whom have at­tained their fi­nal cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and are now qual­i­fied to as­sess the com­pe­ten­cies of the em­ploy­ees with­in their com­pa­nies and seek cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the NTA for those deemed com­pe­tent.

Ap­proved work stan­dards

As­sess­ments are car­ried out against ap­proved oc­cu­pa­tion­al stan­dards. The cham­ber, through its mem­ber­ship, and the NTA have al­so been draft­ing these stan­dards and have now com­plet­ed eight of them as fol­lows: me­chan­i­cal, elec­tri­cal and in­stru­ment and con­trol main­te­nance, weld­ing, fab­ri­ca­tion, scaf­fold­ing, pro­duc­tion op­er­a­tor and in­spec­tion. Drafts are in progress for oc­cu­pa­tion­al ar­eas in the drilling seg­ment to be fol­lowed by the rig­ger and plant fit­ter oc­cu­pa­tion­al ar­eas. With cer­ti­fied as­ses­sors and oc­cu­pa­tion­al stan­dards now in place, com­pa­nies are be­gin­ning the process of as­sess­ing their em­ploy­ees with a view to hav­ing them cer­ti­fied. At least five of the com­pa­nies par­tic­i­pat­ing have reached this point in the process.

The cham­ber once again ap­peals to its mem­ber­ship to take ad­van­tage of all the as­sis­tance avail­able through the EIC­DI to get on board the com­pe­ten­cy band­wag­on and help to en­sure a more se­cure, suc­cess­ful fu­ture.

To find out more about the EIC­DI

pro­gramme and how to get in­volved, please call the of­fice of the En­er­gy Cham­ber: 636-3749 or e-mail: har­ris@en­er­gy.tt to arrange a pre­sen­ta­tion and/or get start­ed.