Educational Partnership Framework

Background

For many years, there has been a gap between what petroleum industry employers need in terms of workers, and what educational institutions are supplying in terms of educated and skilled graduates. This gap stems from a number of factors, including limited communication between industry and educators, industry limitations to accurately forecast employment and skill needs, and the rapid change inherent in our industry.

No matter what the reason for this disconnect, over the years many industry employers have found themselves either without enough skilled workers to fill "in-demand" positions, or having to provide new hires - even those who have just completed their educational programs - with additional training to ensure they are competent, safe and productive in their new roles.

Now the Petroleum HR Council is addressing the long-standing gap between the education system and the industry, by bringing both parties together in an open communication framework.

 

About the Educational Partnership Framework

The Council is currently building an Educational Partnership Framework (EPF), a structure for regular information sharing between the upstream petroleum industry and the education community. The goal of the EPF is to align the future workforce needs of industry more closely with the training provided by educational institutions - to narrow the gaps between supply of and demand for new entrants.

The EPF incorporates two important blocks of information. The first was a series of input-gathering sessions the Council facilitated across Canada in the first half of 2009. These sessions brought together industry and educators to discuss what industry needs, how the EPF might be structured, and what other information-sharing models might be used in the development of the framework. Sessions were held in St. John's, Newfoundland; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Calgary and Fort McMurray, Alberta; and Fort St. John and Dawson Creek, British Columbia.

The second building block for the EPF is the Council's labour market information (LMI). Petroleum LMI provides key insights into short-, medium- and long-term labour supply and labour demand, and most importantly, identifies the crucial gaps between supply and demand opportunities specific to the oil and gas industry. By sharing its petroleum LMI with key stakeholders, the Council can help bridge the graduate-worker gap.

 

Next Steps

The Council is using the input gathered from the sessions to draft a framework and produce a business plan for the EPF. Once this development work is completed, the Council will be looking at next steps.

 

Expected Results

With a stakeholder-validated EPF, and regularly updated petroleum LMI, the oil and gas industry will be able to project their future employment needs and communicate those needs to educators. That communication will help petroleum industry employers access the skilled workforce they will need as the industry and the labour market evolve.

Program planners will be able to align their training and education to industry needs. By participating in a structured partnership with the Council and industry, and accessing the annually updated petroleum LMI, they will know exactly what programs to build, strengthen or replace to meet the need for in-demand occupations in the petroleum industry.

Students will have greater confidence in the security of their career choices, having been reassured by solid data and open communications that their learning will lead them directly to employment when they finish their studies.

By developing and facilitating a structure for ongoing collaboration and communication between the education system and the oil and gas industry - and sharing LMI data pertinent to the discussion - the Council will be able to take much of the guesswork out of program, career and workforce planning.