Natural Resources Human Capital Workforce Challenges

On February 16, 2011, in Natural Resources, by admin
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Natural Resources Human Capital Workforce Challenges

Article by Transearch International

Growing tensions about the state of the world’s natural resources workforces have surfaced for a few stark reasons. These include the industry’s increased appetite for skilled workers, the ongoing challenge of convincing enough university students to pursue energy-related careers and the considerable demographic shift that is 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 Inftrastructure practice for TRANSEARCH International, says he sees some incredible challenges ahead for North American and global employers in the oil, gas and mining sectors in the months and years ahead. These new pressures are 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 that will put an equally high premium on talent.

“The biggest issue facing the Natural Resources market is a shortage of talent in all positions and that’s being driven by Baby Boomer retirements and a lack of 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 explains that there is a huge gap in the Natural Resources workforce globally and that the shortage of talent is especially acute among workers ages 30 to 45. That’s because of the business cycle and how it has pushed companies to hire only in fits and starts, because of consolidation and an overall “lack of feeding the talent pipeline previously.”

“The war for talent between the companies is intense and compensation is being driven upward,” Buckland says. “People don’t want to join losing companies, so companies have to have a strong overall position to attract the best talent,” he contends. “Talent acquisition and retention has to become a strategic imperative for natural resources companies. If they don’t, those companies won’t attract the right people, they won’t keep people and they won’t compete for the best.”

Buckland says that natural resources employers around the world have to change the way they do business with prospective recruits, current employees and their high performers in order to maximize the effectiveness of their workforces and drive consistently high profitability. “They have to start thinking about being more innovative and creative in how they look at acquiring talent,” he says. They also have to ensure that the talented professionals and managers they recruit into their organizations land smoothly in their new roles, stay long enough to deliver a return on the company’s training investment and reach their full potential.

But creating a new approach to sourcing, attracting and building a natural resource company’s human capital will require a significant dosing of change from today’s status quo. “Executive search is generally a reactive business. I’m suggesting we need to turn the paradigm completely upside down. Companies and search firms alike have to start thinking more proactively about talent,” Buckland asserts.

By identifying potential professional and management recruits and building a relationship with them before you may wish to hire them, Buckland says, natural resources companies can dramatically reduce time-to-hire and “cycle time for replacement.” They can also gather 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 learn and know far more about prospective employers than ever before. Top talent will gravitate to natural resources companies that are proactive about talent acquisition and develop a relationship with them to help educate them about their markets, competition and new opportunities.

In other words, talented people want to see prospective employers invest time with them, and that’s so vital because they have an increasing number of employment options to consider and the winners in the war for superior natural resources talent will 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.

This article is an extract of the White Paper entitled ‘Under Pressure: Natural Resources Human Capital – A Prized Resource As Global Consumer Demand Escalates And Natural Resources Companies Confront Significant Talent Gap’. Get your copy of the full White Paper via the Transearch International website at http://www.transearch.com/press_room/display2.asp?nID=204. It may alter your view of the market and competitive forces at work and how to evolve with them.

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Under Pressure: Natural Resources Human Capital

On January 7, 2011, in Natural Resources, by admin
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Under Pressure: Natural Resources Human Capital

Article by Transearch International

The global Natural Resources market is nearing a critical tipping point.

Sustained worldwide demand for natural resources is pushing investment in oil and gas exploration and production, mining and alternative natural resources such as wind and solar while the pace of research in new and renewable energy sciences continues to elevate.

A North American Perspective—————————-

Russ Buckland, managing partner of TRANSEARCH in Canada and global co-leader of the Resources, Energy and Inftrastructure practice for TRANSEARCH International, says he sees some incredible challenges ahead for North American and global employers in the oil, gas and mining sectors in the months and years ahead.

“The biggest issue facing the Natural Resources market is a shortage of talent in all positions and that’s being driven by Baby Boomer retirements and a lack of 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.

Talented people want to see prospective employers invest time with them, and that’s so vital because they have an increasing number of employment options to consider and the winners in the war for superior natural resources talent will be those that differentiate the recruiting process.

The View From South Africa————————–

Ian Blackie, managing partner of TRANSEARCH Africa and global co-leader of the Resources, Energy and Inftrastructure practice for TRANSEARCH International, says a massive and sustained increase in demand for natural resource commodities has led to unprecedented growth in new projects and revealed a human capital deficit across the African continent.

Looking ahead, Blackie expects the regional leaders of the natural resources search practice of TRANSEARCH International to work increasingly across national borders in order to bring world-class leadership candidates to regional executive search assignments and management succession plans.

India Emerges As Global Market Force————————————

“We are slowly beginning to face [many of] the same problems in India.” says Sanjiv Desai, a partner with TRANSEARCH India, who also heads its Industry search practice from offices in New Delhi.

Desai says a significant market shift has been underway as larger shares of what has for most of India’s history since its independence in 1947 been a government-controlled natural resources industry become available to the private sector.

Just looking at the amounts of investments announced by various Indian and multi-national companies in the natural resources sector, he concludes, “I see a very difficult period ahead in the availability of trained and experienced talent in the country.”

A Latin American Perspective—————————-

Looking ahead to the issues that will frame many Natural Resources challenges across the Latin America region, Jorge Velaochaga, managing partner for TRANSEARCH Peru and Regional Director for Latin America, says the business cycle will inevitably bring change.

“The industry will continue growing but companies and top executives should be cautious since we might eventually enter into a new downturn in the economy,” Velaochaga says. “The challenge thus is to harmonize both perspectives avoiding the ‘over expectation’ syndrome that could put compensation packages at levels that are not sustainable.”

Latin America continues to demand and draw from a truly global pool of executive talent in natural resources, he adds, and given the competition for the best leaders, it’s likely that many more companies will need to recognize that many of their vacant leadership positions could indeed be filled by strong, adaptable executives coming from other sectors.

This article is a summary of the White Paper entitled ‘Under Pressure: Natural Resources Human Capital – A Prized Resource As Global Consumer Demand Escalates And Natural Resources Companies Confront Significant Talent Gap’. Get your copy of the full White Paper via the Transearch International website at http://www.transearch.com/press_room/display2.asp?nID=204. It may alter your view of the market and competitive forces at work and how to evolve with them.

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What Are Natural Resources?

On August 20, 2010, in Natural Resources, by admin
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What Are Natural Resources?

Article by John J Marsh

Natural resources are the natural occurring elements of the environment. This is frequently known by the amount of biodiversity that exists in various ecosystems. Once it is derived from the environment for commercial purpose, it is called raw material. Many of such resources are our life line such as water, air and solar radiation. In fact, these are essential elements for the existence of all the flora and fauna. We have almost covered all the natural resources for commercial advantage. Now, we aim to include the resources of other planets in the bounty bestowed on us.

Natural resources may be classified into two segments. Biotic resources are derived from biosphere. Forests, marine organism, animals, birds and their products including mineral fuels come in this category. The other is abiotic which includes water, air, land and elemental ores such as gold, silver, copper, iron etc.

Those resources which have been identified and are being used by us are termed as actual resources. Potential resources are those which are still being explored for gainful utilization. Petroleum exploration in several countries and probing mineral wealth of other planets come under its ambit. Within the gamut of actual resources are those which have been developed, stocked or are in reserve. Potential resources may also be termed as a kind of reserved resources since science and technology are so developed that potential will eventually end up as an actual.

With depletion of non-renewable or exhaustible resources, we have concentrated our efforts to harness renewable or non-exhaustive resources for economic viability. There is immense scope available for their gainful utilization. Primarily, we find infinite capability in renewable resources like air, wind, water and sunlight to provide us alternate source of electrical energy.

There has been wasteful exploitation of natural resources in the past. This has been due to ignorance, carelessness but mostly due to greed. In order to get more profit with little labour or energy input, the waste to useful product ratio had been quite high. With danger of depletion in naturally occurring raw materials, ways and means are adopted to reverse this dangerous road map. Discipline of natural resource management, waste management within the umbrella of universal environment management made compulsory by the International Standard Organization, natural resources are getting the kind of respect it deserves. This was necessary lest global warming, climatic changes, Tsunami and the likes would become more aggressive towards annihilation of mankind. We have to save ourselves from becoming future natural resources.

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