GE Oil & Gas: Industry Must Take Lessons from Uber to Attract New Talent

The oil and gas industry will need to take lessons from companies like Uber if it wants to attract a new generation of talent, according to GE executives at the 17th GE Oil & Gas Annual Meeting in Florence, Italy.
Rigzone, which is attending the conference, heard GE Oil & Gas Chief Information Officer Anup Sharma warn that graduates will come to demand the interconnected user experience provided by brands such as Uber in their workplace, and if the industry wasn't willing to provide them with such an experience, it would be bad news for oil and gas companies.
"Our industry has a very special challenge of attracting the next generation and if they do not have Uber-like experiences for getting work done or sharing information…I think we’re going to have continued challenge," Sharma said in a round-table discussion at the conference.
Addressing journalists at the event, Bill Ruh, CEO at GE Digital, noted the popularity of Uber, stating that the company's talent lies in making the lives of its targeted audience easier:
"The reason people like Uber is not because they have the best taxis: they don't own any taxis. It's because they have the best user experience….I think people in [the] industrial world have not put the effort into making sure to provide something that people like. The reality is not that they like it, they like it because it makes their job easier."
The urge towards a shift in user experience comes amid an impending "Great Crew Change" in the oil and gas sector, which will see around 50 percent of the industry's workforce retire.
"Everybody's stopped talking about crew change. It's a reality, and whether we're in a down-cycle or not, 50 percent of the crew will retire,” Sharma said.
Kishore Sundararajan, GE Oil & Gas's chief technology leader, echoed the words of his colleagues, suggesting that the energy sector simply had no choice but to respond to the expectations of the new generation of potential oil and gas recruits.
"I think that user experience is going to be key because it's going to be demanded by the new generation. It's an expectation. And if you look at oil and gas industry demographics, and look at the retirement [levels] in the next five years, you’re going to get in a fresh crop of people who are coming in with an expectation of working with an iPad and iPhones. You have to just deal with it," Sundararajan said.
GE is not the only company which has warned the industry to start tailoring its technology to recent graduates, if it wants to attract new talent. Late last year, Rigzone spoke to Bruce Calder, Honeywell Process Solutions' chief technology officer, who suggested that the sector needs to leverage the technology that millennials helped create.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.
- Who Produced the Most Oil and Gas in 2021?
- Equinor Transfers Operatorship Of North Platte To Shell
- Gas Supplies to Europe Holding Firm
- BP and Shell to Pay Employee Travel Costs After Abortion Ruling
- Aker BP – Lundin Merger Becomes Formal
- Offshore Wind Expansion Not Fast Enough For Net-Zero Targets
- Petrofac, Hitachi Energy Enter Offshore Wind Collaboration
- Trinity E&P Kicks Off Six-Well Onshore Drilling Campaign
- Lukoil VP Leaves
- Will Biden's Gasoline Tax Holiday Gain Congress Support?
- Top Headlines: USA Navy and Iran Corps Clash in Strait of Hormuz and More
- USA Condemns Mortar Attacks on IKR Oil Infrastructure
- Libya Says It May Suspend Oil Exports from Key Terminals
- Sonatrach Makes Massive Gas Find In Sahara Desert
- G7 Weighs Russia Oil Price Cap
- Oil Prices Buck Recession Trend
- Exxon, Shell, CNOOC To Develop CCS Project In China
- First-Ever 8th Gen Drilling Juggernaut Delivered To Transocean
- Who Produced the Most Oil and Gas in 2021?
- More Oil Workers Being Trained to Operate in Permian
- USA Navy and Iran Corps Clash in Strait of Hormuz
- Oil Industry Responds to Biden Letter
- Top Headlines: USA Navy and Iran Corps Clash in Strait of Hormuz and More
- Oil Nosedives on Fed Inflation Actions
- Top Headlines: Oil Industry Responds to Biden Letter and More
- Too Early To Speculate on ExxonMobil Refinery Fire Cause
- Fitch Solutions Reveals Latest Oil Price Forecast
- ExxonMobil Made More Money Than God This Year
- Russian Oil Disappears as Tankers Go Dark
- OPEC+ Set to Remove All Production Curbs in August