Oil and Gas HR Management and Workforce Relations Training Course

Course overview

Oil and gas organisations must maintain safe, productive workforces across rigs, terminals, refineries, projects, corporate offices and contractor-operated sites. HR decisions are complicated by rotational rosters, remote locations, scarce technical skills, union agreements, contractor interfaces, project mobilisation cycles and changing workforce costs. HR professionals and line managers need to translate workforce strategy into defensible staffing, employee-relations and talent decisions while maintaining consistent standards across employees, contingent workers and service providers.

This course develops practical HR management and workforce-relations capability for the oil and gas sector. Participants learn to build workforce plans linked to production and project demand, analyse headcount and labour-cost scenarios, establish job architecture for technical roles, manage contractor workforce risks, and prepare employee-relations approaches for unionised and non-union environments. The programme also covers roster-related fatigue and wellbeing considerations, performance management for operational teams, succession planning for critical roles, grievance handling, investigation planning and HR metrics for management reporting.

Instruction combines sector-based briefings with calculations, document reviews and facilitated case work. Participants work through an offshore asset and pipeline-project scenario, using workforce-planning templates, employee-relations case files, contractor governance controls and dashboard measures. They leave with a tailored Oil and Gas Workforce Relations Action Plan containing a workforce-risk register, stakeholder map, critical-role succession priorities, employee-relations escalation process and 90-day implementation plan that can be adapted for their own operation.

The course is designed for HR practitioners, workforce planners and operational leaders who already work with people-management issues and need stronger sector-specific methods for managing workforce supply, labour relations and operational workforce risk.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Build a demand-and-supply workforce plan for an asset, turnaround or capital project using headcount, competency and labour-cost assumptions
• Segment employees, contingent labour and contractor personnel using a workforce-risk matrix
• Design job architecture and competency profiles for critical technical and operational roles
• Prepare a workforce-relations strategy covering union engagement, consultation, grievance escalation and management communication
• Apply a structured investigation plan to workplace conduct, disciplinary and grievance cases
• Evaluate contractor workforce-management controls against client responsibilities, site rules and performance measures
• Create succession and retention actions for scarce roles using criticality and readiness assessments
• Present an HR dashboard with turnover, vacancy, absenteeism, overtime, diversity and labour-cost indicators

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• HR Managers — who must align people policies and workforce decisions with operational and project requirements
• Employee Relations Managers — who manage union engagement, grievances, discipline and consultation processes
• HR Business Partners — who advise asset, refinery, drilling and project leaders on workforce risks
• Workforce Planning Specialists — who forecast labour demand, skills gaps and mobilisation requirements
• Operations Managers — who supervise rostered teams and need defensible people-management practices
• Contractor Management and Project HR Professionals — who oversee workforce interfaces across client and supplier organisations

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in an HR, employee-relations, workforce-planning, operations or project-support role, preferably in oil and gas, energy, industrial services or another asset-intensive sector. The course assumes familiarity with core HR terms such as headcount, turnover, job description, performance review, disciplinary process and contractor. Participants should be comfortable reading spreadsheets and basic workforce reports; no advanced Excel modelling is required. Knowledge of local employment law or collective bargaining agreements is helpful but not essential, as the course focuses on transferable management methods rather than jurisdiction-specific legal advice. No prior SAP SuccessFactors or Workday HCM experience is required.

Training methodology

The instructor leads short, sector-specific teaching sessions supported by oil and gas workforce cases involving an offshore operation, a refinery turnaround and an EPC project. Participants use templates to model workforce demand, classify contractor risks, prepare a grievance response and interpret HR dashboard data. Small groups test management decisions against operational constraints, union relationships and workforce-cost pressures, then defend their recommendations in facilitated review sessions. Each participant closes the programme by converting the course tools into a 90-day workforce-relations action plan for their own asset, project or business unit.

Course outline

Day 1: Oil and Gas Workforce Operating Context

• Oil and gas workforce models across upstream, midstream, downstream and projects
• Employee, contingent labour and contractor workforce classifications
• Rotational rosters, remote-site employment and workforce wellbeing considerations
• Workforce risks during mobilisation, shutdowns, turnarounds and demobilisation
• HR accountability at operator, joint-venture and contractor interfaces
• Critical-role identification for operations, maintenance and technical assurance
• Workforce stakeholder mapping for leaders, unions, contractors and communities

Workshop: Participants map the workforce ecosystem for a simulated offshore asset and produce a stakeholder map with priority workforce risks.

Day 2: Workforce Planning, Job Architecture and Labour Cost

• Demand forecasting from production plans, maintenance schedules and project milestones
• Workforce supply analysis using headcount, vacancy, turnover and capability data
• Scenario planning for base, growth, turnaround and project-delay conditions
• Labour-cost modelling for payroll, overtime, allowances, travel and contractor spend
• Job architecture for technical, supervisory and operational role families
• Competency profiles and skill matrices for safety-critical positions
• Succession and retention planning for scarce technical talent

Workshop: Participants build a workforce demand-and-supply scenario for a refinery turnaround and produce a critical-role staffing plan.

Day 3: Employee Relations and Workplace Case Management

• Employee-relations strategy in unionised and non-union oil and gas operations
• Collective agreement interpretation and management consultation planning
• Grievance intake, triage, documentation and escalation pathways
• Workplace investigation planning, evidence handling and interview sequencing
• Disciplinary decision frameworks and procedural fairness controls
• Manager communication during workforce change and organisational restructuring
• Dispute-prevention methods for roster, overtime and contractor-interface issues

Workshop: Participants assess a grievance involving overtime allocation and produce an investigation plan, stakeholder communication brief and escalation recommendation.

Day 4: Performance, Contractors and Workforce Data

• Performance management for field-based, shift and geographically distributed teams
• Manager coaching for operational performance and conduct conversations
• Contractor workforce governance roles, controls and reporting requirements
• Contractor onboarding, competency verification and site-access workforce controls
• Workforce diversity, inclusion and local-content workforce considerations
• HR dashboard design using turnover, absence, vacancy, overtime and labour-cost measures
• HRIS data quality checks in SAP SuccessFactors and Workday HCM

Workshop: Participants review a contractor workforce dashboard and produce a corrective-action register with accountable owners and reporting measures.

Day 5: Workforce Relations Integration and Action Planning

• Workforce-risk register development and risk-rating criteria
• Linking workforce actions to operational assurance and business continuity
• Change-management planning for restructures, site closures and redeployment
• Workforce communications for leaders, supervisors and employee representatives
• Applying ISO 30414 human-capital reporting concepts to internal HR reporting
• Executive workforce-review packs and decision-focused HR recommendations
• Ninety-day implementation planning and progress-governance routines

Workshop: Participants present an Oil and Gas Workforce Relations Action Plan containing their workforce-risk register, priority interventions, measures and 90-day milestones.

Tools & standards covered

SAP SuccessFactors, Workday HCM, ISO 30414, ILO Convention No. 98

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions