KOC strives to attract Kuwaiti youth and enrich the culture of professional work
Dr. Mohammad Abdul-Hameed Al-Kadhimi
Senior Engineer Equipment Support & Reliability (S&EK)
Commitment without limitation
As a result of its strong belief in the pioneering role Kuwaiti youth play in advancing development in the Oil Sector, and with a view to create national professional cadres, KPC passed several resolutions to support Kuwaiti labor in the private sector. To this effect, KPC issued several resolutions that reflect the interests of Kuwaiti component in the Oil Sector, such as resolution NO 23/2002 concerning Kuwaitization of contractors’ labor, which stipulates that at least 25% of skilled and semi-skilled labor should be Kuwaiti. For the first time, KPC issued an operative regulation that consists of 48 articles, through which the fundamentals and guarantees of implementing resolution No. 2002/23 have been developed. Nevertheless, the move aimed at supporting endeavors to achieve job security of Kuwaitis in the contracts of the Oil Sector.
KPC also put forward job benefits to attract and induce Kuwaitis to accept the challenge of working in the private sector through contracts of the Oil Sector.
Of course, KOC was supporting the strategy of KPC concerning Kuwaiti labor in the private sector. Therefore, it has endorsed that unique move and encouraged Kuwaitization of 25% of professional jobs in its contracts with private sector companies. In addition to that move, which was in line with KPC’s resolutions, KOC envisioned a step in which it can boost its pioneering role, as part of its corporate social responsibility, through investing in human component to achieve national sustainable development.
Non-typical precedent
To find out what had been achieved concerning KOC’s experience in training Kuwaiti labor in contractors' contracts, the "Kuwaiti" had an interview with Dr. Mohammad Abdul-Hamid Al-Kadhimi, who is a Senior Engineer at Equipment Support & Reliability Maintenance Support Team (S&EK), who has spoken extensively about this pioneering experience at the Oil Sector level.
Al-Kadhimi says that KOC, represented by South & East Kuwait Directorate, had endeavored to invest in Kuwait youth to equip them with the necessary scientific and operational experiences and skills, and qualify them to be an effective component in boosting the private oil sector and a strategic partner in facing future challenges in that sector. He adds that DCEO (S&EK), Abdullah Al-Sumaiti announced, in an unusual precedent in KOC’s history, that a new unusual challenge will be added to the Directorate’s strategy, where developing 100 employees in maintenance contracts services of S&EK facilities will be part and parcel of his priorities. The challenge was aimed at achieving several targets, including but not limited to, attracting aspiring Kuwaiti youth in get involved in private oil sector, and enriching culture of high-quality professional work, which had diminished as a result of young Kuwaitis disaffection from it, and heading instead to governmental jobs. Most importantly, it aims at contributing to stimulate economic growth in Kuwait through investing in the national components.
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Developing Youth Talents
Accordingly, Maintenance Support & Reliability Team (S&EK), which constitutes an essential part of Operation Support Group and supervisor of maintenance services contracts of S&EK facilities, had committed itself to face this new challenge. The team tried hard to provide essential resources and take the responsibility of developing and reinforcing Kuwaiti youth talents in the private oil sector. Al-Kadhimi confirms that his team had done his utmost, in cooperation with contractors in S&EK, to prepare young Kuwaiti labor to provide the private oil sector with the skills needed in oil industry to face future challenges. Team members worked side by side with their colleagues in Maintenance, Water Handling and Operational Laboratories Teams, to achieve that goal. Al-Kadhimi says that the challenge began in September 2016, when members of Maintenance & Reliability Services Team agreed, then headed by Mr. Nasser Al-Attar and who is credited with qualifying Kuwaiti Specialized Teams 13 & 14, to accomplish tasks related to regular maintenance of oil facilities. This being said, a process of brainstorming began to put forward a three-month timetable to train and develop 100 Kuwaiti labor in maintenance services contracts of S&EK facilities. “Maintenance Services & Reliability Team started a series of meetings with colleagues from other teams, who had thankfully participated in achieving this goal, to agree on essentials and criteria, including but not limited to academic achievement, annual assessment and percentage of absenteeism to contribute to the selection of the contractor's employees in accordance with Kuwaitization,” Al-Kadhimi says. The task was not an easy one. The team was faced with some kind of prudery from some people who have been accustomed to complacency and inactivity. Those people were not aware of their potentials that await an opportunity to be released to defy challenges and achieve the intended objectives. Members of the team were well aware of that, and they knew that Kuwaiti youth employed by the contractor are still imprisoned in their comfort zone that is overwhelmed by behaviors they used to practice within a routine and empty framework that limits their capacity for progress and creativity.
Taking Up the Challenge
On the Other hand, several Kuwaiti employees were determined to join the technical team that was established in 2016, to be an effective addition with their colleagues in S&EK Directorate. They were given the chance to perform more than one task under the supervision of their colleagues. Several specialized theoretical and practical training programs in oilfields were allocated to them in cooperation with the contractor. Dr. Al-Kadhimi said that these young people, together with their experienced foreign colleagues, would go to the fields to closely examine how to perform the tasks and to acquire the skills that would help them perform the work. They were then assigned tasks of varying degrees of difficulty until they were able to take charge of themselves, compete with their counterparts of other nationalities and accomplish the required tasks. At the same time, maintenance teams in East Kuwait took a different training curve that eventually led to the success of the initiative. As a result, all Kuwaiti youth enrolled in maintenance contracts in East Kuwait were trained, each according to their specialty for eight weeks before being sorted out to start their jobs in oil installations.
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An Achievement that Exceeds Expectations
As for the training of Kuwaitis working for the contractor, Dr. Al-Kadhimi said that the roles were distributed between KOC employees and the concerned contractors. For example, there has been coordination with the teams in the S&EK Operations Groups to take the initiative and train the Kuwaitis on the basics of their respective tasks (mechanical, electrical, electronic), and the difficulty of the tasks as the training period progresses. The contractors played a similar role by training Kuwaiti youth and giving them the opportunity to engage in tasks that have been difficult to improve according to the trainee's level of improvement. “We managed to reach and even exceed the stated goal at the beginning of the initiative and to develop a technical team of 114 young Kuwaitis who deserve praise, in cooperation with Maintenance Team (SK, EK-1 and EK-2) Water Handling Team and Operational Laboratories Team. Since they fall under the terms of Kuwaitization in our contracts, they are secure under the umbrella of the KPC and KOC, which contributed to the preservation of the rights of Kuwaitis working for the contractor and the implementation of executive regulations for Kuwiatizing labor in the contracts, he said.
According to the terms of the contracts, some contractors have provided specialized trainers to train Kuwaitis working in their contracts. The trainees received certificates to pass the training course and were honored to motivate them to work and promote the spirit of competition between their peers to improve the performance and quality of the tasks, Al-Kadhimi says. The training phase was not difficult, as there were workshops for the maintenance teams in the S&EK. Since service contracts are allocated for several teams, the Maintenance Support and Reliability Team and the Operations Lab team have been used for equipment suited to the nature of their work and daily tasks.
KOC and Corporate Social Responsibility
Dr. Al-Kadhimi said that all the initiatives implemented are part of KOC's social responsibility, which aims at reviving the culture of vocational skills that prevailed in the past and instilling it in the hearts of these talented youth. "At the same time, we do not deny the role of the Oil Sector in achieving the aspirations of the newly graduated Kuwaiti youth and their contribution to the provision of jobs for them. It can be said that KOC has taken responsibility for training and developing Kuwait’s private oil sector employees. The development of these professionals will contribute to the social integration and civic participation of the national economy, and the fact that they will be achieved by making them a workforce that is armed with the necessary skills for the oil industry because of their highly competitive capacity that makes them difficult to support KPC and KOC strategies.”