Recruitment And Retention Strategy In The Oil And Gas Company Of Abu Dhabi – Adnoc

Key Research Questions

The purpose of this paper is to propose the brief outline of a research on the recruitment and retention strategy in the oil and gas company of Abu Dhabi (adnoc.ae 2017). Chosen company is Adnoc of Abu Dhabi. This research is relevant in present context as the oil and gas companies in the Middle East are facing staff shortage (Enzer 2014). As human resource is essential for the growth of the business, it is required to address this challenge as soon as possible. As oil exploration requires efficient and skilful personnel, who can take challenge and risks, Adnoc needs a strong recruitment and strategy for the technical staffs (Graves 2015). Adnoc has operation in oil exploration and production, processing and refining. All these jobs require high technical skill. This company operates more than 130 oil and gas wells across Abu Dhabi.

There are numerous research works on the recruitment and selection strategy in a company. However, this paper specifically focuses on the technical job of the oil and gas industry. Exploration of oil and processing are risky job and hence, safety, compensation are great matter of concern for the employees. Several factors affect job satisfaction of employees (Certo 2015). This paper seeks to explore the recruitment and selection policy of Adnoc and find out any policy gap. The significance of the study is the evaluation of the recruitment and retention strategy on the operation and performance of the company.

Research questions direct towards the process of the study. the research generally tries to find the answer of research questions to fulfil the purpose of the study. In the preset study the research questions are

• To study the recruitment and retention strategy required for the technical job in oil and gas company
• To evaluate the recruitment and retention strategy of Adnoc
• To find out challenges faced by Adnoc in employee retention and recruitment and their reasons
• To recommend effective solution for addressing this problem

Research problem is to study the reason for shortage of technically skilled employees in Abu Dhabi oil and gas companies. Another problem is to find the effective strategies to retain technically skilled workers so that organisational performance can improve. It is required to find out the needs and job satisfaction level of the employees in evaluating effectiveness of the HRM policies of Abu Dhabi Adnoc.

Factors Affecting Recruitment

As discussed by Womack (2012), there are internal and external factors that affect recruitment strategy of a company. Internal factors affecting recruitment strategy are size of the company, capacity, job responsibility, reputation of the job as well as the company.  Demand for employees varies with the size of the organisation. Labour demand increases in a company operating at a large scale, as the capacity of absorption of labour is greater in this company s compared to a small-scale organisation.

Breaugh (2017) mentioned that external factors that affect the recruitment policies are labour market condition of the country, rate of unemployment, labour laws and policies of the government, supply of labour in the economy. Image of the company plays an important role in drawing candidates. People generally want to work in a reputed organisation for the growth opportunity. In the view of Gatewood, Feild and Barrick (2015), reputation of a company is enhanced through the good managerial actions like good public relation, remuneration policy, CSR policy of the company and goodwill. Job responsibilities, flexibility in job, career growth opportunities, and all theses influence the recruitment policies. Kavanagh and Johnson (2017) stated that a company requires part time employees along with full time employees based on the business strategy and the resources.

Research Problem

External factors are greater concern for the recruiters as they have control over the external factors such as unemployment, demographic structure, labour policies and supply of labour in the domestic market, presence of competitors. Demographic structures that affect recruitment are education level, age, gender. As cited by Bamberger, Biron and Meshoulam (2014), When demand for labour in the economy is greater than supply for a specific job role, recruiter needs to hike payroll to attract skilled employees. In contrast, when population in the country is very large, supply of labour becomes elastic. When labour supply is large in number compared to demand, people offer their labour at low cost. They agree to work at a low pay scale. Cost of recruitment reduces for the recruiters in the private sector. As pointed out by Cook (2016), government regulation regarding minimum wages and other labour policies, workplace safety law, presence of trade union affects the recruitment strategy.

Recruitment and Selection Process in Technical Jobs

The first criteria for recruiting employee are identification of vacancy and evaluation of needs. Proper planning is required before recruitment if the company wants to hire skilled employees. Demerouti, Bakker and Gevers (2015) suggested that if any attrition occurs between two job role, the existing job role can be replace by another one. Second step is development of the position description. In the words of Greiner (2015), job responsibilities should be articulated to the candidates at the time of interview or advertisement so that right candidates come. Technical jobs possess risks and hence, chances of turnover are high in this job. Ekwoaba, Ikeije and Ufoma (2015) mentioned that the manager assigned with hiring responsibilities should identify the general information, position purpose, minimum requirements, essential functions and preferred qualification at the next step. Review of application and short listing of the eligible candidates are the next duty. Interview is conducted to choose the right candidates.

Retention Strategy for Technical Jobs

Minshew (2015) mentioned in the article about four employee retention strategies for all kinds of jobs in the modern workplace. In this view, companies lose their valuable employees when they fail to fulfil employee needs. One strategy is to make feel employees valuable to the company with different methods such as pay pack, other benefits, insurance  or allowing them in decision making process. The second strategy is increasing access of information and flow of communication between upper management and employees. When any middle management exists there, proper information regarding needs and problems cannot flow to the upper tier and hence, retention rate increases (Wylie and Jolly 2013). Increasing access of the digital method for information flow can mitigate the problem of communication and it is easier to resolve the problem of the upper management (Herr and Anderson 2014).

Third strategy is to allow employees in the participation process. Managers can choose participatory leadership policy, where employees can raise their voice and can questions the authority regarding any problem they face. Four strategies are to bring flexibility in the work process in the form of leave, entertainment to remove the monotony of the job.

Literature Review

Bamberger, Biron and Meshoulam (2014) highlighted that talent gap is observed in the technical jobs in oil and gas sector. The reason is that the supply of young graduate from the field of technology, science and engineering students is less compared to demand due to the risk of the job. There selection criteria become complex in this industry. Demerouti, Bakker and Gevers (2015) mentioned that customers are satisfied with the company and become loyal with the company, which provides better service in terms of lowering market cost, decreasing transaction cost and improving overall financial performance. In order to improve financial performance, firms rely on the skilled employees. Hence, selection strategy needs to be formulated based on the long-term objectives of the firm. As discussed by Ekwoaba, Ikeije and Ufoma (2015), selection is the systematic procedure of filling available vacancy. Hiring correct employee for a technical job role is a challenging task for the company. Wylie and Jolly (2013) mentioned that at the first stage of the selection, details analysis is done by human resource department using different method of evaluation for technical skill. Remuneration for the technical job role becomes a factor that differentiates the company value to the candidate from that of the competitors. A wrong selection increases cost of the company in terms of operation and performance (Minshew 2015).

Research philosophy reflects the approach and thought of the researcher in conducting this present study. Three kinds of research philosophy are used in research based on the research objectives such as positivism, interpretivism and realism. Positive philosophy is followed when quantitative approach is considered along with large sample size (Herr and Anderson 2014). Whereas interpretivism approach is followed if quantitative research approach is undertaken. Realism approach is considered when research is fact based and argumentative. However, for the present research, interpretivism approach is considered. In the view of Rudestam and Newton (2014), interpretivism approach depicts depth analysis of the problem statement using either case study or grounded theory. Analysis of recruitment and selection strategy would be better using this approach.

This research needs to be designed following the interpretivism approach. As cited by Wall and Stokes (2014), in case of interpretivism paradigm, research is designed based on socially constructivism perspective.  This research will be based on comparatively small size of sample. Interview method will be appropriate to collect data from the field. As the survey takes time in the interview method, data collection method will take much time Creswell and Poth (2017). Observation needs to be given priority. Interpretation will be done based on the perspective of the researcher as this approach is subjective in nature (Silverman 2013). Data collection will be followed by data analysis method. Mainly descriptive process will be followed in data analysis. Thematic approach will be followed for details interpretation of the research problem.

Research can be of primary or secondary. Primary research requires primary data collection method, when research collect data directly from the field. In the secondary research method, data are collected different sources other than primary (Greene 2014). Primary data collection methods in business are survey, interview to the target group. Interview can be arranged face to face or through email. Interview questions are either open ended, close ended or both (Richey and Klein 2014). Close ended questions are generally used for the quantitative research and open ended questions are used for the qualitative research. On the other hand, secondary data are collected from online sources such as newspaper, articles, and journals. Books are important source for secondary sources. In the current research mainly primary research will be done. Qualitative primary research would be suitable as the researcher would collect the responses of managers of Adnoc to understand the recruitment and selection criteria in this company.

Factors Affecting Recruitment

Research types can be of three types such as qualitative, quantitative and pragmatic. Quantitative research approach is generally objective and requires large sample. Close ended questionnaire is set to collect data in this method (O’Leary 2017). Close ended questions are recorded in numeric form for the convenience of the analysis. Decision is undertaken based on the numeric results. On the other hand, qualitative analysis is more subjective. Researcher has to use decision making and interpretation skill to resolve given problem. As discussed by Creswell and Poth (2017), research approach can be mixed of above two method. In present research regime, there is no restriction in choosing the research types. Researcher is free to choose any type as per convenience. Therefore, in most of the scientific or social study, pragmatic research approach is considered (Rudestam and Newton 2014). However, qualitative research approach will be suitable for the current research. In the analysis of recruitment and selection strategy for the technical jobs in the oil company, responses of managers are required to take as it will helpful to study the strategies clearly.

Sampling is a process, through which, samples are chosen from the large number of population. Sampling can be probabilistic or non probabilistic. Among the probability sampling, the simplest method is simple random sampling, when samples are selected randomly irrespective of gender, age, religion or any other special characteristics. Other types of probability sampling are stratified sampling, cluster sampling, where samples are grouped and selected based on special characteristics (Herr and Anderson 2014). Non probability sampling is deterministic in nature, where number of samples is certain based on the research objectives. Purposive and quota sampling are non probability sampling (Wall and Stokes 2014). In the present research, purposive sampling will be used. In order to evaluate recruitment and selection strategy for the technical job role in the chosen company, 10 managers from different departments of Adnoc will be chosen. Experienced managers will be interviewed in details.

This current research will be conducted to evaluate the recruitment for the technical job role. Hence, research strategy is to collect data by interviewing managers having experience. Their though, view and policy orientation will be evaluated. As the qualitative research methods will be used, graphical and logical representation of the data will be used. Research will start with the details study of previous literature to gather knowledge on the research methods and data analysis. Completion of every steps require some time. Ethical issues will be considered at the time of data collection. Structured questionnaire will be used to collect response of managers of Adnoc.  Identity and other personal information about respondents will be kept secret for the sake of data collection. A final conclusion will be reached after completion of the data analysis chapter.

Expected outcome of this research depends on the research objectives, techniques and philosophy. Critical analysis approach will be considered. Existing recruitment and selection strategy will be evaluated in the context of Adnoc. Deductive approach will be used in this research. Research outcomes will reflect the problem statement and objectives of the study. In depth analysis, suitable recruitment and selection strategy and their advantages, disadvantages will be discussed. Adnoc has its own selection and recruitment strategy. In the discussion part those strategies will be evaluated comparing recruitments strategies, model studied in the literature review segment.

Total time period of this research is three years. Research will start with the proposal. After approval of the proposal, final research will be started to reach a conclusion for the given problem. The entire timeline has been presented in the Gantt chart. The below table shows the timeline up to the competition of the project.

Timeline

Task	Time (days)
Research proposal	30
Background study	60
Literature review	120
Study of methodology	65
Data collection	160
Data analysis	240
Preparation of report	125
Final submission	1

Gantt Chart

Figure 1: Gantt Chart

References

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