Employee Selection in the Oil and Gas Industry

Finding the right people to staff oil rigs is a challenge in Alberta’s resource industry. While the jobs pay very well, work is completed in extreme conditions in remote areas.

Often workers must live in camps and are required to be away from their homes and families for weeks at a time. Drilling rigs must be operated by people who take safety seriously and alcohol is not tolerated at the well site or in the camp environment. Operating a contract rig costs $15,000 – $20,000 a day – down time is expensive so employees must be reliable and get the job done as efficiently as possible.

Lakota Drilling provides drilling services in Western Canada and they wanted to increase their success selecting new employees. Dr. Susan MacDonald from the University of Calgary assisted the company with a recent round of hiring. She used a number of assessments including the Employee Reliability Inventory (ERI).

Dr. Macdonald continued to work with Lakota’s Human Resources department to track the new employees’ job performance. By reviewing the candidates’ results from the ERI, the recruiting team was able to accurately predict the candidates’ future job behaviours more than 80% of the time. The Employee Reliability Inventory provided valuable information about the candidates that had previously been unavailable. A telling example came up during this project when a worker, who had been hired without using the ERI, was terminated for drinking after only 18 days on the job.

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