Gary Nichols, Managing Director of Nautilus, speaks to Findcourses.co.uk about meeting the training and skill development needs of companies and individuals in the oil & gas industry.
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Nautilus has been delivering training courses for oil and gas professionals since 1999. Over this period, how have training needs in the oil and gas industry changed and how have training companies, including Nautilus, responded to this demand? |
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The basic training needs of geoscientists and engineers working in the Exploration and Production divisions of the industry have not fundamentally changed. Training providers have generally worked closely with companies to meet their requirements and each provider has identified subject areas where they are best placed to deliver training. For some training companies this has been a focus on software-based courses, or in others a greater emphasis on engineering: Nautilus’s strengths are in the geosciences, with a broad portfolio of courses in this area taking topics to specialist levels and most importantly an unrivalled programme of field-based training courses worldwide. For all training providers the key to success has been establishing close contacts with technical staff in the industry in order to adapt courses to meet their changing needs. |
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Before joining Nautilus in 2013, you taught at Royal Holloway University and the University Centre on Svalbard. How would you say that the academic programmes offered by such institutions compare to the short professional courses delivered by training providers such as Nautilus? Is either type of training more important?
It was during my time as an academic that I realised that there was a great deal of common purpose and approach between postgraduate degree programmes and professional development training carried out in industry. The MSc in Petroleum Geoscience at Royal Holloway was largely delivered in a series of one week blocks each concentrating on a topic, and at the University Centre on Svalbard MSc and PhD students from across Europe came for just a few weeks at a time to learn about Arctic geology. Training within the context of a role in the oil and gas industry is not so different, especially when the individual courses form part of a structured training programme. The main difference is that the professional courses can take individuals to a higher level of technical expertise than is possible in an academic environment. It really is time that the synergies between academic and professional training were more widely recognised, and that there are more opportunities for people to receive academic recognition for their CPD achievements. At Nautilus we are keen to work with university partners in this regard.
Many organisations appear to be placing an increasing focus on soft skills such as leadership and communication. In a highly technical industry like oil and gas, how important are these kinds of skills compared to technical expertise?
One of my roles at Royal Holloway was as Dean of the Graduate School, and one of the developments I oversaw was the creation of a 'Generic Skills' curriculum for all doctoral students across the university. Since I have been at Nautilus a set of 'Professional Skills Development' courses have been developed, designed specifically to meet the needs of technical professionals working in the 'upstream' parts of the business – those involved with finding and extracting oil and gas. It is not always easy to persuade people of the need to receive training in communications, project management, presentation skills and people management, but by integrating our 'soft skills' training with the technical courses we are now receiving interest in these courses from most of our clients. The key to our approach is to use tutors in these subject areas who are experienced industry professionals as they are best placed to convey the importance of soft skills to people effectively carrying out their roles in their companies.
We often receive questions from users regarding how to start a career in oil and gas. What advice would you give them, particularly in terms of training? Are there any specific courses or qualifications that you would recommend?
There is no single route to a career in the oil and gas industry, but for geoscience and engineering professionals there is no doubt that specialist Masters programmes provide an educational background that is favoured by most companies. The UK is at the forefront of postgraduate training in this area, with more relevant vocational MSc courses than anywhere else in the world, and a new Centre for Doctoral Training for Petroleum Geosciences set up by a consortium of universities (and supported by companies) providing the highest levels of education as preparation for a career in the industry.
Tell us a little bit more about your approach to training. How does Nautilus ensure that companies and individuals get a real return on their training investment?
We have created our course portfolio by working with companies to identify their training needs and then seeking the best possible instructors to deliver courses. In most cases our tutors deliver their own materials on subjects in which they are recognised experts and lead field courses to places where they have worked extensively. We have found that a mixture of experienced industry professionals and specialists from the academic world provides us with the range and quality of courses we are looking for – especially when they work together. A process of continuous feedback, ensures that standards are maintained and deficiencies dealt with. We encourage feedback both from the individuals who take part in courses and company representatives who can give us their views on our training at client group meetings held several times a year in different parts of the world. A key question about any training is whether it directly impacts on the ability of a participant to do their job for their company, and we are always looking for new ways to ensure that this is the case.
How are current fluctuations in oil and gas prices affecting the type and volume of training purchased by petroleum companies? Are you seeing a reluctance to invest in skill development?
Over the last few months we have had discussions with over a hundred oil and gas companies about their training plans for 2015: their responses reveal a lot about the management culture of the company. At one extreme there are those that have increased their training budgets on the basis that their smaller workforce needs to be better trained. At the other end there are those who have cancelled all except legally-required compliance training. Whilst we wish there were more of the former, there are fortunately very few who are as short-sighted as the latter and overall we have seen a relatively modest reduction in commitment to training overall. Most companies still see the value of training and are willing to continue to invest in it, albeit at a slightly lower level.
How is your course portfolio evolving and where do you see it heading in the future?
We believe our portfolio provides a good breadth and depth of courses, especially in our core area of petroleum geosciences, and we will continue to update and refresh the programme with new courses every year. However, the most important developments on the horizon lie in different ways of delivering our training. Nautilus is part of the RPS Group, and synergies with other parts of RPS Energy provide many opportunities for innovation in both content and delivery. Over the coming year we will be introducing additional modes of delivery and increased access to our training materials – I don’t want to give too much away now, but do ask me again in a year’s time how I think our new approaches to training in the oil and gas industry are working out!
Nautilus has been providing training courses for the petroleum industry since 1999. The company was acquired by the RPS Group in 2011 and is now part of the RPS Energy division.
Gary has been with Nautilus since 2013, managing their training portfolio and business activities. Prior to that he taught at Royal Holloway University of London and the University Centre on Svalbard covering undergraduate courses in Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Petroleum Geology and Sedimentary Basins.