Under Pressure: Natural Resources Human Capital
Sustained worldwide demand for natural resources is pushing investment in oil and gas exploration and production, mining and alternative natural resources such as wind and solar while the pace of research in new and renewable energy sciences continues to elevate.
A North American Perspective
Russ Buckland, managing partner of executive search firm TRANSEARCH in Canada and global co-leader of the Resources, Energy and Infrastructure practice for TRANSEARCH International, says he sees some incredible challenges ahead for North American and global employers in the oil, gas and mining sectors in the months and years ahead.
“The biggest issue facing the Natural Resources market is a shortage of talent in all positions and that’s being driven by Baby Boomer retirements and a lack of talent acquisition in the down times of the 1980s and 1990s, around the time when I presented a paper at the CIM asking, ‘Where Has All The Talent Gone,’” Buckland says.
Talented people want to see prospective employers invest time with them, and that’s so vital because they have an increasing number of employment options to consider and the winners in the war for superior natural resources talent will be those that differentiate the recruiting process.
The View From South Africa
Ian Blackie, managing partner of TRANSEARCH Africa and global co-leader of the Resources, Energy and Inftrastructure practice for TRANSEARCH International, says a massive and sustained increase in demand for natural resource commodities has led to unprecedented growth in new projects and revealed a human capital deficit across the African continent.
Looking ahead, Blackie expects the regional leaders of the natural resources search practice of TRANSEARCH International to work increasingly across national borders in order to bring world-class leadership candidates to regional executive search assignments and management succession plans.
India Emerges As Global Market Force
“We are slowly beginning to face [many of] the same problems in India.” says Sanjiv Desai, a partner with TRANSEARCH India, who also heads its Industry search practice from offices in New Delhi.
Desai says a significant market shift has been underway as larger shares of what has for most of India’s history since its independence in 1947 been a government-controlled natural resources industry become available to the private sector.
Just looking at the amounts of investments announced by various Indian and multi-national companies in the natural resources sector, he concludes, “I see a very difficult period ahead in the availability of trained and experienced talent in the country.”
A Latin American Perspective
Looking ahead to the issues that will frame many Natural Resources challenges across the Latin America region, Jorge Velaochaga, managing partner for TRANSEARCH Peru and Regional Director for Latin America, says the business cycle will inevitably bring change.
“The industry will continue growing but companies and top executives should be cautious since we might eventually enter into a new downturn in the economy,” Velaochaga says. “The challenge thus is to harmonize both perspectives avoiding the ‘over expectation’ syndrome that could put compensation packages at levels that are not sustainable.”
Latin America continues to demand and draw from a truly global pool of executive talent in natural resources, he adds, and given the competition for the best leaders, it’s likely that many more companies will need to recognize that many of their vacant leadership positions could indeed be filled by strong, adaptable executives coming from other sectors.
Note to Editors: About TRANSEARCH International
Executive search firm TRANSEARCH International has representation in most of the major economic centres of the world with 59 offices in 37 countries. TRANSEARCH International was founded in 1982 and is a leading global executive search firm.
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