From the 'What Can I Do for You' to the 'What Can You Do for Me' Generation: The Disconnect Between the Establishment and the Youth Culture in the Oil Industry

摘要

At no point in the history of the oil and gas industry has the disparity in age between management and entry-level engineers been greater than at the present time. With the rush to hire and educate young engineers occurring at a recordsetting pace, salaries are shooting through the roof and attrition is taking place at such enormous rates that companies cannot keep up. With oil and gas prices sitting near all-time highs, the ability of young professionals in the industry to dictate how they wish to move forward and with whom just increases the problems seen by companies. These young engineers often see themselves as their own enterprise within the larger corporate infrastructure and tend to ask, “What can my company do for me?” This is in contrast to what the established management structure witnessed when they entered the industry. The majority of current managers entered the oil and gas industry during the late 1970s and early 1980s, just as the price of oil was coming to rest at its lowest point. The attitude of most of these upper-level employees is indicative of this, in that they are more prone to ask the question, “What can I do for my company?” With company loyalty quickly becoming a thing of the past, the need to understand what motivates young engineers is vital. With a thorough understanding, adjustments can be made industry-wide to make employee retention easier and more cost efficient. Several young professionals and managers in multiple companies have been interviewed to better understand the conflicting styles of the two demographics and to develop some conclusions concerning how to best move the industry forward in this new era.