According to Subsea UK’s 2013 Subsea Business Activity Review, some 800 UK companies are active in the UK subsea sector, generating in excess of 66,000 jobs.
And with a high concentration of this expertise located in the north-east of Scotland, many organisations are seeking to harness and nurture the abundance of expertise which exists in the region by offering a growing number of training and career development opportunities to encourage people to grow their careers within the sector.
One example is DOF Subsea which took the decision to nurture talent from within and invest in people with the creation of DOF Academy. With almost 22,000 hours dedicated to training since it was founded in 2013, and over 130 courses arranged in 2014 alone, DOF Academy is a framework of strong, effective, customised learning and development programmes designed to support professional development with options matched to the individual’s discipline and career stage.
DOF Academy partners closely with the business as a whole to identify training needs and maintain close relationships with department heads to develop targeted training solutions to meet the needs of current business and future requirements, using feedback to fuel a process of continuous improvement. Collaboration is also seen as a key element and both internal and external learning specialists, subject matter experts and industry bodies such as OPITO and IMCA are involved to deliver a variety of e-learning, facilitated learning, classroom based, theory and practical, on-the-job shadowing, coaching and mentoring to deliver cost-effective and meaningful training and competence solutions.
Originally from Normandy, France subsea construction project engineer Charline Lecellier joined DOF Subsea in January 2014 encouraged by the specialist training which can be accessed and has recently attended courses on welding and bolting which were immediately put into practice on projects. She is also welcoming the opportunity to learn about the wider industry, and how her role fits in to it.
She said: “I have used the DOF Academy on several occasions to help steer my own development with high value courses, but it has also helped raise my awareness of certain aspects of the industry which I had not had the opportunity to experience before and to network with colleagues who I may not typically have dealings with on a day-to-day basis.”
Project controls manager Andrea Sassi from Ravenna, Italy is also a DOF Academy “student” and the opportunity for career development was an important factor in him joining the team in Aberdeen in December 2013.
He added: “I had not seen anything quite like DOF Academy before in terms of its scale and to have this in place in an accessible and available way as a global framework is a big plus.”
DOF Subsea managing director Giovanni Corbetta added: “The Academy’s overall aim is to maintain a competent workforce and to ensure that employees are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need. We hope that DOF Academy demonstrates the value we place on our people, as well as the importance of learning new skills for personal and professional development.
“In our experience, this has been shown to promote productivity, and increase business performance, staff morale and high levels of employee engagement – and that gives us confidence for the future.”