While oil companies are expanding their bandwidth budgets to accommodate its new, tech-savvy generation of employees, IT and recruitment managers are also expanding their efforts to find the right balance of reliability, cost and security between their operational and personal-use networks.
   OilComm’s Thursday-morning Energy Sector Roundtable panel session focused on the importance of crew welfare and entertainment as a means of employee recruitment and retention and the infrastructure that must be designed to make employees and managers happy.
   This year’s roundtable was the first to feature a recruitment manager from a major energy firm. BP Recruitment Manager Dave Phillips has been the first point of contact with potential BP employees for years. He admits that the company his recruits will join is much different than the company he joined more than 30 years ago.
   “The new employees that are entering our industry have a natural, almost instinctual sense of how new technology works,” Phillips told attendees. “Even though employment in the oil industry is rather healthy, we still have to focus on identifying a quality workforce. The difference is that the level of technical skill coming into the workforce makes it a very competitive environment.”
   It might come as a surprise to some industry watchers that Phillips rarely gets asked questions from potential hires about what their connectivity options will be in remote environments. He believes that offering a robust connectivity platform for employee use is more a matter of retention than recruitment. “Having the ability to maintain the same connected ‘at home’ experience on the rig is going to cultivate a happy workforce,” said Phillips. “Being able to Skype and engage in social media, online banking and video conferencing is important to the younger workforce. There’s a correlation between the way connectivity is viewed for these employees and the way it is viewed for the military to maintain morale for troops on the field. A connection to home makes a huge difference for a soldier. I remember the days during the Gulf War where the most instant communication we had with home was a fax machine.”
   But with the increased technical skill of the new workforce also comes new challenges. Shell Information Technology International Field Telecoms Advisor Don Happel noted that the modern video and data consumer is so used to having streaming video for entertainment that they don’t think about how much bandwidth their normal routines consume.
   “Obviously, there has to be rules for employees with respect to bandwidth,” said Happel. “We have experienced problems with employees downloading movies and other video content illegally. They don’t think it’s illegal because they’ve gotten away with it at home. But, we’ve received those nasty piracy calls from television networks. So, we have to make sure we have the right firewalls up and the right network protections involved.”
   One policy that adds to that challenge is the Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) rule that determines which personal devices employees can bring with them on the rig. Happel notes that, at the moment, the consumer-grade devices are often much more powerful than those available to the enterprise market. “In a perfect world, the employee could easily work and play from the same iPhone,” he said. “We’re constantly working to keep up with the iPhones and iPads of the world so that we can avoid problems and not be so restrictive.”
   ExxonMobil Information Technology Telecommunications Project Coordinator Ken Githens said his company does not have a BYOD policy, but has created a bandwidth allocation structure that gives his employees the accessibility they want while maintaining the security of the company’s networks.
   “We essentially create two networks and separate the bandwidth,” said Githens. “Personal use sees its peak at night, so we can prioritize bandwidth for business operations during the day. Also, we’ve significantly upgraded the speed of the connectivity we offer for both uses. Myself and my fellow panelists all work for companies that could always use more bandwidth, whether it comes from satellite, cellular or terrestrial suppliers.”
   Phillips added that the balancing factor in finding bandwidth is always cost. “We take the employee’s personal and work connectivity needs very seriously,” he said. “Robust connectivity creates a productive and safe environment for employees to work in and it makes them happy. They have to be happy when working around our equipment. After all, would you want an unhappy airline employee flying you across the country? I know I wouldn’t.”