D E PA R TM E NT S • H S E&T CO RN ER
Great Crew Change 2.0: Better
job-site engagement, competency
assurance programs help to keep
short-service employees safe
Companies also relying on behavior-based
tools, automation to enhance rig-site safety
BY JESSICA WHITESIDE, CONTRIBUTOR
Drilling companies are facing a shortage of
experienced personnel as the ongoing
post-pandemic recovery continues, which
means many are bringing on less-experi-
enced short-service employees (SSEs). To
ensure these SSEs can operate both safely
and efficiently, companies are looking to
automated and error-tolerant systems,
competency assurance programs (CAPs)
and mentorship engagement to keep per-
sonnel safe while meeting productivity
expectations. “You cannot achieve operational excel-
lence without safety. We have to make
sure our people are highly trained, high-
ly skilled and highly competent,” said
Donovan Randolph, Nabors Industries’
Senior QHSE Manager for North America.

He spoke during the Great Crew Change
2.0 panel at the 2023 IADC HSE & Training
Conference in Houston on 19 April.

Workforce pressures
compounded by upturn
The long-simmering “great crew
change” was always going to be tricky for
the industry, due to the hiring slump in
the mid-1980s and ’90s that left a whole
generational gap in the workforce. A brain
drain of STEM professionals leaving for
the tech sector over the past couple of
decades hasn’t help either.

More recently, the personnel shortage
has been exacerbated even further by pan-
demic-related layoffs and resignations, as
well as stiff competition from other skilled
and unskilled labor markets, including the
growing renewables sector.

And then there’s the impact of the post-
40 pandemic demand for rigs. Dirk Kolnsberg,
VP HSE at Patterson-UTI Drilling Company,
pointed to a Baker Hughes statistic show-
ing that the April 2023 US rig count was up
by over 200% from the low in 2020.

“Not only do we have this crew change
issue, but now also we have this massive
upswing in the numbers of rigs, so we
also have additional pressures that weren’t
there back in 2013 or 2014,” he said.

With broader factors than retirement
now at play in the skills shortage, the tran-
sition focus has shifted from knowledge
transfer to retention and skill develop-
ment. For example, Patterson-UTI has imple-
mented a formal process to verify that
new-to-industry employees have the criti-
cal information and competencies they
need to be successful, Mr Kolnsberg said.

“We’ve seen a significant improvement in
our retention because of that.”
Engineering variability out
through automation
Setting people up for success also
includes looking for opportunities from a
technology standpoint to engineer some of
the hazards out, Mr Randolph said.

“When something happens, it’s not
always about going back and reviewing
and revising the policy,” he said. “We need
to look at it from a deeper perspective, at
how we can actually eliminate something
or create a better error-tolerant system for
our teammates so when things do happen,
no one gets killed.”
Mr Kolnsberg said Patterson-UTI is
automating a lot of its downhole solutions
to take some of the variability out of its
operations and to shift some of the rou-
tine tasks within a drilling process away
from personnel. “We’re looking for ways to
automate that so we’re not relying on the
drillers who might only have four or five
years of experience in the oilfield.”
Enabling mentors
Mentorship is another essential com-
ponent to help newhires feel engaged and
gain the competencies they need to stay
safe – but what if their supervisor doesn’t
have the time or skills to get that coaching
component right?
Patterson-UTI reviewed its operational
and HSE expectations in 2022 to see how
processes and responsibilities for its job-
site managers had changed since 2014
to keep pace with internal and external
requirements. The analysis found that the
documented responsibilities for the role
had ballooned from 359 to more than 1,200.

The requirements broke down roughly by
thirds into administration, engagement
(such as coaching and verifying the work
of others), and action (when the manager
would personally go out and perform jobs),
Mr Kolnsberg said.

“One of the questions that we asked is,
where should they be spending their time?
Are we asking them to do the right things?
Are we providing them opportunities to
spend more time on engagement? How
can we minimize the amount of adminis-
tration they have to do?”
Part of the answer is to take a risk-
based, time-management approach to
optimizing processes and to employ digi-
talization strategies to eliminate a lot of
the administrative tasks so supervisors
have more time to supervise and foster job-
site engagement. “Improved engagement
will lead to better retention, better perfor-
mance, better safety,” Mr Kolnsberg said.

Mr Randolph noted it is also important
to ensure that leaders receive training
and resources to be effective mentors.

Someone may be deemed a mentor simply
by virtue of their time in service or high
performance. But is someone a good rig
manager simply because he or she is a
good driller? If you expect mentors to oper-
ate at a high level, you have to give them
tools to help them learn how to manage
and communicate, he said. “We expect
J U LY/AU G U ST 2023 • D R I L L I N G C O N T R AC T O R




H S E&T CO RN ER • D E PA R TM E NT S
Donovan Randolph (from left), Nabors; Dirk Kolnsberg, Patterson-UTI Drilling Company; and Jorge Leuro, Workforce Impact, all
spoke on “The Great Crew Change 2.0” panel at the IADC HSE&T Conference in Houston on 19 April.

him to execute everything, but have we
actually invested into him?”
Among the behavior-based safety tools
Nabors uses to help improve HSE in a
market with a high percentage of SSEs
is the Safety Observation Conversation
(SOC) system, which digitally tracks safety
observations submitted by crew members.

When an incident happens, one of the
first things Mr Randolph said he checks is
the level of SOC participation on that rig.

If participation among the rig’s manag-
ers are low, he said, that “tells a lot about
leaders.” Audit of CAP best practices
Leadership skills should be included in
a company’s CAP , said Jorge Leuro, Talent
Management Executive at Workforce
Impact. That was one of several CAP
best practices that emerged from a study
undertaken by Mr Leuro and David Demski
of Competent & Engaged in 2021 and 2022.

The two companies audited the CAPs of
17 drilling companies to identify industry
best practices and trends. Some of the gen-
eral best practices included using CAPs to
test knowledge, not just verify that knowl-
edge has been delivered as part of train-
ing; ensuring that competencies address
incidents; and involving management in
an annual review of the CAP.

CAPs were also found to have a strong
connection with SSE programs, Mr Leuro
said, although a number of the companies
audited also apply their CAPs to other
employee populations. The audits found
that CAPs were frequently used to ensure
an employee’s competence for promotion
decisions, and that companies tended
to take a risk-based approach to reas-
sessing an employee with long service in
their position to ensure continued compe-
tence. A risk-based approach is also a best
practice for verifications to ensure that
employees have been assessed correctly
for competencies with the greatest impact
on human errors, Mr Leuro said.

The research found that many compa-
nies are using existing corporate process-
es to manage CAPs, such as management
of change, internal audit, verification and
data management processes. Looking at
the technology that companies rely on to
handle employee competencies, the study
found that 41% use a manual system, 35%
use a learning management system and
24% use a competency management sys-
tem. On average, the companies studied
dedicate one assessor per six employees
and one verifier per 16 assessors.

CAP participation varied depending on
company size, with large companies (more
than 1,000 employees) averaging 68% of
their workforce participating in compe-
tency programs. The figure dropped to 47%
for medium companies (less than 1,000
employees) and 37% for small companies
(less than 300 employees).

For companies that do not already have
a CAP, Mr Leuro noted that IADC provides
guidelines on how to build one and offers
a Competence Assurance Accreditation
program. He further recommended as a
best practice that companies make use of
IADC’s role-specific competencies (KSAs) .

“We need to have a very well-designed,
implemented and sustained competen-
cy assurance program to really have an
impact on the safety culture of the orga-
nization and on the performance of the
employees,” he said. DC
D R I L L I N G C O N T R AC T O R • J U LY/AU G U ST 2023
Scan me for IADC’s
guidelines for
building a competence
assurance program.

bit.ly/3qBmTzQ Scan me to access
IADC’s Knowledge,
Skill and Ability (KSA)
database. bit.ly/3N2B7Bs
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