The Australian Pipeline Industry Association is proactively tackling the issue. The establishment of the Young Pipeliners’ Forum last year was a key step in meeting the challenge with the establishment driven by APIA’s Chief Executive Cheryl Cartwright. The Forum draws together younger industry members in an effort to discuss and drive solutions for problems that they are seeing and dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
To further the debate, The Australian Pipeliner set out to quiz three pipeliners, at various stages of their career, working in a range of areas, on what they saw as the challenges and potential solutions.
We approached Jen Connor, a member of the Young Pipeliner’s Forum; Ted Metcalfe, an experienced and respected engineer; and, Shane Becker who is engaged in providing some of the first formalised pipeline training, to give the matter some thought and they spoke to us and provided their views.
Their common ground on many issues, even though we separately surveyed them, highlighted just how seriously many in the industry are treating the response to an area that will have an impact for many years.
According to Ted Metcalfe, greed is a major contributor to the skills shortage in the energy industry as a whole and the pipeline industry specifically. He considers this to affect both recruitment and retention of pipeliners.
“For years organisations have been cutting back on recruitment and training, and have also retrenched experienced personnel, in order to make the bottom line look better. At the same time students have elected career paths in finance, information technology and the like which offered bigger salaries than trades and engineering,” he said.
“Now many organisations which depend on technical skills, especially those in the pipeline industry have too few young employees to be trained and too few older ones to pass on knowledge to the young ones. Sadly, knowledge transfer remains a low priority today, as those who would “˜extract value for shareholders’ and “˜leverage synergies by merger’ are continuing the damaging trends and ignoring the value of the human resources affected.”
Agreeing with the problems involved in generational knowledge transfer, Shane Becker pinpoints the decentralisation of primary engineering, and consequently training, from owner/operator companies to consultant companies. He notes that consultants used only to be used for specialised engineering tasks, while owner/operators did most of the engineering in-house.
“This ensured that their engineers were trained in-house and it usually involved a sophisticated personnel development and training regime. Now, most engineering is being outsourced and the consultant companies tend not to spend as much on training as the immediate cost/benefit doesn’t stack up.”
Alongside this decentralisation of company competencies, Shane notes that long-term employment within a single company is less common as it once was and therefore spending on developing recruits isn’t as substantial as it used to be.
“The fluctuation in work within the pipeline industry increases the risk associated with developing resources and building teams of adequately trained pipeline engineers. This is especially true for consultants who benefit primarily from the more sustainable high volume, low margin work.”
Similar to Ted’s analysis of the competition with other professions, Jen Connor highlights the lack of awareness about the energy and pipeline industries as a primary contributor to the skills shortage at the level of recruitment.
“It is not typically seen as a glamorous industry, partially due to it being far removed from the public. For example, there are no TV programs touching on pipelining! Once a pipeline is buried, it doesn’t form an impressive landmark structure for public to “˜ooh and ahh’ over,” she says.
Consequently, the long term solution to the skills shortage takes three major forms according to our pipeliners. Jen notes that the long term solution to the skills shortage would involve advertising in order to encourage more people to enter into the sector. She cites the example of the advertising campaign for the trades push lately, which is trying to decentre the idea that a university degree is a must for job satisfaction.
Ted agrees with Jen’s view on the level of association with trade skills and also in terms of the need to change mindsets associated with technical skills.
“Shortages are pretty common in all areas in all industries, but I believe that the greatest impact is in trades skills areas. The workforce skills distribution is off-balance. It is important to note that the skills shortages are more severe in technical areas than in administrative and managerial areas.
“Society must also stop telling kids that a white collar career is somehow better than a blue collar career. In the long term we need to recognise technical and manual skills as being just as important in society as administration skills, and reward them accordingly,” he noted.
“Also, the industry will need to have a greater visibility to young people making career choices, both at trades institutions and universities. As an industry we lobby hard to gain the attention of technical and economic regulators, but we will need to do more to promote an image of pipelining with the public generally and students in particular as an attractive and rewarding industry. The Young Pipeliner’s Forum is forging stronger links with universities and that is a good start.”
Thirdly, the relationship between managerial training and technical training is significant for both Shane and Ted.
“We need to reverse the trends and get technical training, apprenticeships and recruitment back into the budget for organisations. Organisations once had both a technical promotion path and a managerial promotion path. Most have dropped the technical promotion path, discouraging development and advancement of technical skills,” said Ted.
Shane notes the link between the two paths needs to be made by collaborative training, across consultants and operator/owner companies within industry.
“In particular there needs to be a focus on bridging the gap between the general project manager or engineering skill set and the expert pipeline engineers (for example, in cathodic protection and pipeline design). What is particularly lacking is the middle ground knowledge and engineering skill set associated with pipelines to bridge the gap,” he said.
Attraction and retention of pipeliners is an issue that all three agree is a significant one and their solutions are targeted at different levels of this process.
Jen notes that increasing pay would work well to attract budding engineers into the oil, gas and pipeline industries.
“Engineering in general is guilty of over-competing and driving down margins. Doctors, lawyers, and other professionals don’t drive down their margins to compete with their peers like engineering firms do. This often results in skilled engineers chasing the jobs that pay more and therefore loyalty is no longer company based,” said Shane.
But Ted highlights a potential pitfall.
“Recruitment has become a serious issue recently, and to my knowledge the resolutions implemented so far have been to offer more money, accept a lower experience base, or accept that experienced personnel may be working for several different projects at the same time. Too often more money does not add value, and the other two solutions result in less-than-optimum application of experience to the job,” he noted.
Jen also believes the best way forward is through promoting and accepting diversity within working arrangements so that pipeliners and other engineers have the opportunity to move laterally within the technical trades and to combine site and design experience opportunities.
“Competing with other industries in regards to benefits and conditions for construction work in remote areas is important as is considering overlapping with other similar industries. We can’t expect pipeline industry personnel not to be tempted to branch out into other industries, so it’s important to encourage this variety.”
Ted thinks the key is training followed by diversification through processes such as secondment and mentoring programs.
“Our industry has already begun implementation of a number of positive initiatives each of which has good objectives and is flexible enough to focus attention on particular skills shortage areas. Once these are established we should seriously consider development of secondment programs and mentoring programs to speed up the learning process for young pipeliners.”
Shane and Ted both agree with Booz Allen Hamilton’s assessment that describes the oil and gas industry as having treated human resources “like a tap that can be turned off and on at will”.
“The assessment is correct, but it is applicable to all industries, not just the oil and gas industry. The concepts of consultants, service companies, outsourcing, “˜staff contracts’, recruitment companies and casual employment are all indicators of the “˜turning the tap’ mentality by management,” said Ted.
However, when looking at the industry more generally, Shane concedes that there is no simple solution to this problem since the industry’s peaks and troughs are transient and there is a need for consistent and sustainable work – something which Australia will always struggle with.
When asked to consider if government has a role in addressing the skills shortage, Jen says that the skills shortage is not just industry specific and so in some ways it is a government issue but it is difficult to ascertain what they can do and will do.
“The industry is perceived to have money, hence the expectation for the industry to take action first,” she said.
Ted however emphatically disagrees with the idea that the government can effectively address the skills shortage.
“Governments abdicated their responsibilities on skills issues in our industry by selling pipeline infrastructure assets complete with the organisations that ran them; and also by allowing employers to treat human resources like a “˜tap that can be turned on and off’. Even worse, governments are unlikely to pay real attention to an issue for which policy cannot bear positive fruit within the term of an elected government,” said Ted.
“It was conscious decision by managers of organisations that created the problem, the same is required to solve it, and that will take longer than the term of any government.”
Turning to industry solutions, Jen asks whether it is possible for the industry to support and train a large group of new people in the context of variant workloads.
“This is where the larger companies are relied upon, especially those that cover a variety of industries,” she says.
On that issue, Ted’s view is that “The industry will have to second-guess how long the current boom will last and what to do with trained employees when the workload drops off. Then training and recruitment planning can be based on maintaining a skilled workforce level which is appropriate to the longer term workload. Our industry has always had highs and lows in activity levels. The current high is likely a long one, but I expect there is a low coming again.”
All three pipeliners share a similar view on the significant role that senior engineers can play in helping younger engineers to better navigate the steep learning curve associated with technical skills. To this end, the Young Pipeliner’s Forum (YPF) has been widely complimented with targeting industry gaps in knowledge and training.
“The best thing about the establishment of the YPF is the communication channel created between older experienced persons and the young enthusiastic pipeliners. We had a few surprises during the feedback session in Canberra in May regarding the needs and motivation of young pipeliners. Until the establishment of YPF we depended on communication channels within individual organisations to reach the younger pipeliners, and now we have a much more direct means of passing information in both directions. Using this communication channel we can better understand what makes young persons choose or not choose the pipeline industry,” said Ted.
Jen notes, “To me, the current role of the YPF is more for encouragement and support of those within the industry, by enabling a good network of people and providing feedback opportunities to the wider industry. YPF can also be beneficial in assisting with the implementation of training courses/programs. Currently, the role is less about recruitment issues due to time and financial limitations, but I expect as YPF develops could potential play a larger role in this area also.”
Finally, turning to whether a formal definition regarding the role of a pipeline engineer would make a difference to recruitment of budding pipeliners, the verdict was mixed.
“I’m not sure it makes much difference,” said Shane.
Jen’s views are otherwise, adding that a definition specifically pertaining to pipeline engineering, could be valuable.
“However, it would be difficult to define, as the skills/roles vary from company to company, whether it is a construction, consulting or operating company. Perhaps people would be more inclined to be involved in the industry if they knew the variety of roles/skills developed.”
Ted disagrees with the idea that choosing to become a pipeliner relates to any formal definition.
“It has been said recently that no one chooses the pipeline industry as a career; they just find themselves working in it and liking it. I had no idea when I started as a mechanical engineer on a pipeline project just how many different fields of expertise are involved in pipeline design, construction and operations.
“In the past I have been a proponent of accreditation for pipeline engineers, and I now believe that it may be a bit ambitious to think that we could properly define and award accreditation for “˜Pipeline Engineer’ as a distinct discipline.
“We should however be still promoting the pipeline industry as one in which there are many opportunities to learn more about your own area of expertise as well as related areas of expertise, and not be limiting the promotion to engineering expertise. Demonstration of the wide range of opportunities will help others understand what is involved,” he said.
The final say on the issue however won’t be from those who shared their views with The Australian Pipeliner – it will be the pipeliners who aren’t even pipeliners yet. A challenge certainly faces the industry; and the industry as a whole should share the responsibility for
tackling it.
Jennifer Connor
Jen is a Pipeline Engineer, who for the past 6 years has been working in the Oil and Gas Industry with GHD, after obtaining her Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Queensland.
Jen has gained both design and onsite construction experience on such pipeline projects as the PNG QLD Onshore Pipeline FEED, Sydney Primary Looping Project and North Queensland Gas Pipeline Project.
Ted Metcalfe
Ted graduated as a Mechanical Engineer, and worked several years in Canada before moving to Australia in 1982.
During the past 24 years in Australia he has worked mainly on pipeline development projects, both on staff and as a contracted consultant.
He has been directly or indirectly involved with many of the major Australian pipeline projects, and is an active member of four APIA Committees.
Shane Becker
Shane is the manager of the training program “Pipeline Industry
Professional Education (PIPEd)” and is a Senior Pipeline Engineer with
OSD Energy Services.
More details on PIPEd can be found at www.PIPEd.com.au