“The graying of our workforce"
                               “Labor shortage threatens UK oil industry”
“Oil sands boom reveals labor shortage”
                               “Oil labor shortage leads to intensified training”
“Skilled labor shortage in China threatens growth”

Above, one can find recent headlines from various publications underscoring growing concern in the upstream oil, gas, and energy sector about the shortage of skilled labor. In fact, resource constraints are now often cited as one of the primary risk factors when project execution strategies are being evaluated. Given current market economics, particularly with respect to the high price of oil and the resultant effect on capital spending, service companies are in an all-out race to attract and retain qualified human resources to man their projects and meet their contractual obligations.

At the same time, The Moody Group is riding a wave of success with respect to its personnel staffing related services which creates more demand for labor and highlights the need for creative recruitment solutions.

Fortunately, Moody International, as part of its global growth strategy, identified this problem years ago. Recognizing that recruitment was undergoing a process of change, a plan was developed to aggressively invest in human resources. In today’s competitive environment, recruiting is less constrained by geographic borders and successful companies are utilizing progressive strategies to identify and source qualified labor for their projects. Moody’s plan called for the development of a number of strategically-located, centrally funded Regional Recruitment Centers (RRC’s). Over the past 18 months, significant progress has been achieved with the RRC’s. Now, seven such centers are operational and an additional 2-3 are in the planning stages. The seven current RRC’s are identified in the following graphic. Additional RRC’s are planned for Canada, Eastern Europe, and Asia.

To coordinate its recruitment efforts on multiple continents, the Group invested and implemented a powerful web-based system (Alchemus). With this tool, Moody is able to quickly and efficiently post its recruitment requests (or requisitions) to not only its own jobs portal (at www.moodyint.com) but also to external job boards like monster, careerbuilder, oilandgasjobsearch.com, etc. Likewise, recruitment can literally take place 24 hours a day as tasks can be assigned amongst the recruiters to make full use of working hours. This wholly-integrated approach allows Moody to access a truly world class pool of labor to the benefit of its clients.

Recently, a comprehensive training program was conducted in Houston, TX where Moody’s global recruitment strategy was refined and protocols were established. Led by Ernest Garcia and the rest of the North American RRC, the training focused on the role of Alchemus, the interfaces between the various RRCS, and standard recruitment procedures.

Pictured Left to Right: Pat McQuillan, Wilma Vicedomine, Ronnie Mabry, Sue Chapman, Gary Broome, Michelle Mallory, Troy Ritcy, Manoj Panta, Ernest Garcia, Abdelnaby Ali, and Alessia LaFonta