Developing our people

As a service business, it is our people, their attitude and skills which set us apart from our competitors.

We are committed to developing all of our people, identifying and nurturing future leaders, and enabling everyone within the business to perform to their true potential.

Performance and priorities

Petrofac's people strategy

Six major people initiatives have been at the forefront of our people strategy in recent years 

1. Petrofac workforce forum
   As one of a number of ways to engage with and hold conversations with our workforce, we introduced a Workforce Forum in 2019, to represent constituencies across our Group. We encouraged all employees to stand for election and this was met with an overwhelming response

2. PetroVoices
   We have been conducting an employee engagement survey (branded as PetroVoices) irregularly for many years, and in 2019 we decided to hold it annually. Administered by Willis Towers Watson, the anonymous survey is conducted online in several languages, with the results shared with all employees. Even though our latest engagement survey generated some very positive results and improvements compared to previous years - we are not complacent and we realise there are still a number of areas we can, and will strive to, improve upon.  

3. Graduate recruitment
   Petrofac has been recruiting graduates since 2004. Indeed, 50% of that first intake are still with us, many now on the brink of senior management positions. We are therefore proud of our track record of developing young talent, and it was no surprise that, when we re-entered the graduate market, we received more than 11,000 applications. 
   We hired 161 graduate engineers and four IT graduates. They represent 14 different nationalities, and 46% of them are women. Find out more about our graduate programme here.
   
4. Diversity
   Petrofac has a strong record of diversity in terms of ethnicity and nationality. We employ people from 80 different nationalities. It is clear that, in terms of gender, we have a long way to go. Of course, we have a number of challenges being an engineering and construction business, in the oil and gas sector, with the majority of our employees based in the Middle East. Even so, our progress on gender diversity has not been good enough. This has been recognised by the Board and by the Leadership Team and we have taken concrete actions such as hiring our first-ever Manager of Diversity and Inclusion, developing a comprehensive Diversity Strategy, flexible working policy, and other initiatives. We keep on being active and are looking to implement further initiatives.
5. Leadership Excellence Programmes and Leadership Conference 2020
   Through our Petrofac Academy, we have long run an extensive range of leadership training programmes. In 2019, working with our long- standing partner, London Business School, we completely revamped our Leadership Excellence Programme. We put 50 of our most senior managers worldwide through a four-day programme. The programme will be rolled out to a further 75 managers in 2020. The Company held a Leadership Conference in Abu Dhabi in December to address the strategic challenges over the next few years. A key theme from the conference was the need to accelerate transformation of our People agenda.
6. Petrofac Academy Online
   As we digitalise our business, we are also conscious that our employees are also changing in how they learn. Many of our employees live and work in harsh environments, maybe offshore or in remote areas. They can be on rotations that keep them away from their home office for months at a time. We want to provide them with high-class training and development opportunities. We launched Petrofac Academy Online in April 2019. By the end of the year, the site had received more than 45,000 visits with 21,000 eBooks and 4,400 audio books downloaded.
   
   

46% of our 2019 graduates are female

Gender Pay Gap reporting

In line with new reporting laws, UK employers of 250 or more people must publish calculations every year showing the pay gap between male and female employees.  Within the scope of this legislation is Petrofac Facilities Management Limited (PFML), which incorporates employees of our North Sea Operations and Maintenance business.

Read the 2017 report on PFML’s gender pay gap

Read the 2018 report on PFML’s gender pay gap

Read the 2019 report on PFML’s gender pay gap