It has been observed that the firm applies training policies that are closely linked with the recruitment strategy it pursued. Outsourced workers receive very limited training from OilCo since they are recruited as trained workers. For OilCo’s industrial workers, the Saudis receive much more training than the migrants since they are mainly hired as fresh graduates. The Saudis are enrolled into training programmes that involve taking in-house academic courses and continuous on-the-job training. In contrast, there is no induction training for clerks, but many migrants are asked to mentor Saudi clerks.
For the past five years, the overall annual spending on training has been around 12 million USD; however, OilCo is compensated by the Human Resource Development Funds (HRDF) for a third of what it has spent on training the Saudis. This state subsidy on training is annually claimed when the OilCo representative submits to the HRDF the costs incurred by outsourcing training of Saudi staff to external organisations.
6.5.1 Fresh Graduates and ‘Certified Workers’
OilCo has two training programmes for fresh graduates that are restricted to Saudis only; one for the preparation of engineers and the other for field operators. The recruited engineers enrol into the ‘Development Programme’ that lasts for three years for bachelor’s degree holders and two years for master’s degree holders. This training programme relies on job rotation supported by a number of short courses on safety regulations. In contrast, high school fresh graduates, who are not as academically qualified, are prepared to be field operators, which is the lowest rank for industrial workers. They are assigned to a two years training programme that starts with 18 months of academic study in a public technical school working towards obtaining a diploma degree followed by six months of practical training in OilCo’s plants.
As soon as workers (both Saudis and migrants) become OilCo’s employees they enrol onto the ‘Job Certification Process’. This is a continuous training programme that is considered the minimum requirement for workers to perform their duties safely. Although it is not part of the performance appraisal, it is a requirement for workers to be promoted. When a worker completes the requirements of the job certification for his position, he will be referred to as a ‘certified worker’. One of the main reasons for certifying workers, as stated by an industrial manager, is to obtain health and life insurance for them. This includes insurance against technical incidents since the insurance companies refuse to compensate for any damages that are caused by uncertified workers.
The job certification process is composed of two requirements: industrial certification and academic competency. Firstly, the industrial certification process is repeated every six months with the aim of preparing workers through on-the-job training to master the specific duties of their assigned grade codes and positions. Before moving from one production process to another, trainees (both engineers and field operators) are examined every six months by experienced engineers called ‘evaluators’, who are predominantly observed to be migrants. The main responsibility for those evaluators is to attend to the refinery, based on a request made by the supervisor/mentor, to examine a worker, thereby measuring his knowledge against the specific tasks he was trained to perform during the last six months. Once a worker succeeds in performing the tasks he was trained for, he moves onto another manufacturing process and follows the same evaluation procedure. Secondly, the academic competency requirement consists of English language proficiency and safety courses. Once workers score 4.5 or above in the IELTS exam, they pass the English requirement. All workers attend more than twenty safety courses that are provided in-house by a number of Saudi and international organisations. There are several classes inside OilCo, that are equipped for all the training courses to take place. In addition, these classes are mainly used by all industrial workers, but mostly engineers who are required to attend conferences and workshops that are provided in and out of Saudi Arabia.
The interviews with the HR managers and several office workers revealed that OilCo dedicates most of the training to the industrial workers since there is no official training programme, neither for Saudi nor migrant clerks. In addition, office workers do not have to undergo induction upon their hiring, but they are trained by their direct managers on the specific tasks assigned to their grade code. However, there are a limited number of in-house
training courses that focus on basic administrative skills. For example, when a British employee was asked about the training he had, he stated:
In real terms, no training. There is no such system here. In my 4 years, I had two courses, one day each. It was about management skills and it was very general.
6.5.2 Upskilling and Costs of Training
It seems that OilCo’s recruitment and training policies are designed to keep certain qualities of skills segmented and preserved. While it outsources trained semi-skilled technicians and unskilled workers, it trains its direct employees to be either skilled field operators or engineers, which is a dilemma for the former group. The industrial training programme that a fresh graduate starts with, determines his entire career in the firm. Those who were trained as field operators cannot be promoted to be engineers or receive the engineers’ training. One of the interviewees is an ambitious Saudi field operator with a diploma degree who stated:
When I first came to work in this firm they promised to send me abroad to get a bachelor’s degree in petrochemical engineering because I was the top of my class. My overall GPA is 4.98 out of 5. Recently, I went to the VP asking about the firm's promise to me. He said, ‘convince me why would I send you abroad when we are already recruiting many of the Saudi engineers who obtained their bachelor degrees from the USA?’
A Saudi HR manager also confirmed the response of the VP stated by the interviewed worker. It seems that the firm finds training a field operator to become an engineer an ‘unnecessary’ cost, especially, when it can save this cost by recruiting fresh graduate engineers from the labour market. Therefore, the cost element in preserving the segmentation of certain qualities of skills cannot be ignored.
The cost of training is also considered when OilCo decides to send its most experienced workers overseas every time a new method or production line is being introduced. In this case, nationality does not play a major role since the firm’s aim is to gain knowledge and experience on the latest technology that might save the firm costs on its operations. OilCo saves on its training costs by ensuring that workers who are sent abroad transfer the knowledge they learn to other OilCo workers. On this point, a HR manager stated:
I send a migrant worker abroad to attend an expensive training course, but I know when he comes back, he will transfer this knowledge to the Saudi workers. So, we actually save money by doing this. The 100,000 riyals we spend on training the migrant will not be lost since he will train our Saudis here. However, if I send a Saudi on this training course and his experience is not up to the level to take the course, he cannot apply the skills on his job and train the others.
Nevertheless, an interview with a Saudi HR specialist revealed that OilCo seems to have become very cautious and only sends a very limited number of the highly-experienced migrants overseas. For example, in 2005 the majority of the industrial workers were migrants; as soon as the firm finished training them, most migrants found better offers in the neighbouring Arab Gulf countries. A Saudi training specialist stated:
I discriminate against the foreigners in terms of training projects. I think there are lots of Saudis who deserve this more because Saudis are going to stay here, but the Indians will go home eventually.
OilCo also saves on training costs by hiring experienced migrants. It only prepares migrants through on-the-job training when there is a need to perform a new task that the migrant has not been trained to perform. A Saudi HR manager stated:
No, we do not train them. They already have the experience. At least the migrant he is 80% ready to take the job, you cannot find someone who is 100% ready. So, what I do is that I give him training just to cover the other 20% he needs, then I make him train several Saudi workers.