OREANDA-NEWS. July 15, 2011. Exploration and production major ONGC is preparing for a total recast in its top management over the next few years, as almost all its directors and executive directors will retire by 2013.

Besides these, close to 7,000 experienced hands will also retire in the next five years, adding to the state-run exploration giant's challenges in attracting and retaining talent at a time when private sector activity in the oil and gas sector is poised to expand significantly.

ONGC is struggling to maintain crude production from onshore operations and intensifying its efforts offshore. To deal with the situation, it is planning to undertake a massive recruitment drive and promote its group general managers and general managers to higher ranks.

"About 7,000 experienced hands will retire in the next five years, besides changes in top management," says ONGC's newly-appointed HR director, KS Jamestin. "Also, we have a highly skewed executive-to-general staff ratio. We will recruit 800-900 candidates in the officer grade every year, while asset-level recruitment will take care of fortifying general staff strength by recruiting in the same numbers."

He added that his priority is to bring in new talent and enhance human resources' bonding with the organisation. Human resources accounts for 10% of the company's total costs of exploration and production. It may be mentioned here that ONGC had two general staff members against each executive five years ago.

Now, the ratio has reversed after large-scale promotions in the last few years. ONGC wants to strike an equal balance between executives and its general staff. "As a more than 50-year-old company, with a history of limited turnover, the average age of employees is high, at 58 years. Therefore, a quick change at the top is quite normal and adequately is taken care of through sound succession planning," says Jamestin.

ONGC prepares its workforce intake plan on a year-to-year basis, considering the work plan of the company, attrition and the superannuation scenario over the next five years. Currently, ONGC has close to 33,000 employees - 10,000 less than in 2000. The company will lose over 4,000 employees by 2014 because of retirement.

"It is a challenging task to continue to attract and retain talent. However, we are a mature organisation and capable of managing the situation. There are a large number of engineering and management institutions today, and some of our work areas do not require a large manpower like before, due to technological advance. Thankfully, we have also been able to keep attrition rates low, at only 0.30%," adds Jamestin.

He says increasing onshore and offshore installations and demands from the group company like ONGC Videsh, will continue to require manpower. Since 2008, ONGC has also started assigning mentors to young recruits. They facilitate the assimilation of the freshers into the organisation, and help them make the transition from college to corporate. The roles and responsibility of mentors are defined and communicated to them, while the company makes optimum use of these.

Also, for under-qualified employees, ONGC has tied up with academia to design customised degree and diploma courses to upgrade their qualifications. This involves taking employees from the ITI certificate level, to an engineering diploma level and subsequently to an engineering degree level.

So far, 320 ONGC executives have upgraded their qualifications through this process. "We at ONGC believe that every employer brand initiative is an investment that should demonstrate a return comparable to other forms of business investment," says Jamestin.