Maersk Drilling Aims to Scale Up Personnel Diversity

Maersk Drilling notes that as of July 2014 it is present in 14 countries and its employees represent 65 nationalities. A diverse workplace yes – but the company says its aim is to scale up diversity even further as Maersk Drilling accelerates growth towards 2018.

Maersk Drilling’s growth strategy is currently centred on West Africa, the US Gulf of Mexico and Norway. This will inevitably affect the nationality distribution of our employees with especially more Africans and Americans joining the company. “With a more diverse workplace, we increase our opportunity to get our share of global talent, both onshore and offshore”, explains Global Talent Manager Pernille Gram Bentsen.

Increasing ‘Diversity of thought’, as Bentsen phrases it, is an important factor, as Maersk Drilling plans to double its workforce from 3,000 to 6,000 between 2013 and 2018. According to Bentsen, “a balanced nationality and gender distribution globally secures different ways of thinking, which leads to better business results”.

A mix of talent in Angola
Currently, a total of 20 different nationalities are working together on Mærsk Deliverer in Angola. “We always make sure to create teams that contain a broad mix of nationalities to make sure that all fragments are diverse”, explains Lovette Fernandez with the HR team in Angola and continues; “diversity benefits our business with strengths from people with different backgrounds”.

In the beginning of 2014, the Mærsk Deliverer Rig Team in Angola developed a localisation plan focusing on training, educating and employing local talent. With the three year plan, the ambition is to raise the percentage of local employees from 49% in 2013 to 70% in 2017.

The localisation plan includes seven local acceleration programmes, which requires close collaboration between diverse groups of employees. The experienced employees on Mærsk Deliverer plays a key role in the success of the programmes as their ability to lead and transfer their knowledge to new local employees is vital to help develop local talent to take on higher positions.

People
The quest for talent in the oil and gas industry is fierce, explaisn Maersk Drilling. Offshore jobs bring many challenges that call for professional employees who never compromise on health and safety, and who thrive on challenges and responsibilities. To provide our employees with a good workplace, we support internationally recognised labour standards and human rights, as well as offer continuous training and development.