[Analytics] Time for oil and gas to back Malaysia’s employment

Women can bring in much concern for good human values, such as concern for environmental sustainability, poverty eradication, housing, good workplace and ethics. NSTP/MUNIRA ABDUL GHANI. Sketched by the Pan Pacific Agency.

When the International Monetary Fund’s Christine Lagarde spoke at the University of Malaya recently, she highlighted the need to improve career opportunities for Malaysian women and their levels of participation in the workforce. Rebecca Ponton specially for the MalayMail.

According to the IMF, Malaysia’s labour force participation rate for women, when compared to some of the regional economies and the OECD average, is just above 54 per cent — low, both in absolute and relative terms. As a comparison, the participation rate for men is about 80 per cent.

Lagarde rightly lauded the Malaysian government efforts to be more inclusive, noting the number of women appointed in key ministerial roles, including Yeo Bee Yin, the Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment, and Climate Change, and new laws to protect against gender discrimination.

Nevertheless, the IMF chief’s wider economic point cannot be ignored. More must be done to improve opportunities for women in the Malaysian economy. “The government,” Lagarde said, “is listening.” Now businesses must rise to the challenge.

Malaysia’s oil and gas sector, which accounts for roughly 20 per cent of GDP, can and should lead the way. Across the globe, female participation in oil and gas workforces is poor, with estimates suggesting as few as 1 in 5 workers is a woman, one of the lowest levels of any major industry.

As the oil and gas industry enters a new technologically advanced era, new opportunities to address women’s institutional lack of representation are arising. In Malaysia and around the world, the industry must grasp them.

Between 2018 and 2022, the share of work performed by humans communicating and interacting with others or performing physical and manual work is predicted to decline. During the same time frame, complex and technical work is expected to increase by 8 per cent.

A more automated and tech-focused industrial landscape will heighten demand for scientists, engineers of all disciplines, as well as a variety of specialists in organizational development, information technology, and digital transformation.

With the oil and gas industry in search of qualified personnel, it is only logical — and prudent — to turn to women. Female university graduates are increasingly outnumbering their male counterparts (and not just in the West).

This means there is no shortage of educated and talented young women, including at the University of Malaysia, to fill these emerging roles, bringing with them fresh ideas and perspectives to an industry stymied by a lack of diversity.

But to attract the best female talent, the industry must confront its image problem among young women by demonstrating its commitment to diversity and inclusion on all fronts. Breaking the “gas ceiling” in Malaysia and throughout the industry will, therefore, require innovative thinking and a commitment to creative initiatives by oil and gas companies.

Retention is key. The industry cannot afford to lose employees with a background in and fundamental understanding of the industry. The skills of industrial psychologists and HR managers need to be utilised to determine where existing female employees can be re-trained to meet these changing roles.

Companies must offer more generous maternity leave policies, as well as implement shared parental leave schemes, and provide on-site childcare as incentives to female employees.

Flexible working and job sharing are other viable options that recognise and accommodate the realities of life for working parents, particularly mothers.

Similarly, returnship or re-entry programs, which are being initiated by forward-thinking companies to reintegrate employees who have left the industry — perhaps to have children and raise a family — and would like to re-join the workforce, provide an excellent way to attract more female talent to the industry.

Many of the most ingrained challenges are cultural. Oil and gas companies must find ways to reform workplaces to empower non-dominant employees to become more visible and more vocal. This means encouraging employees to differentiate themselves and emboldening female and other minority employees to be their own advocates while building support networks.

Internal networking programs specifically for female employees to have a built-in support system are an essential starting point. Companies must seek out candidates who break the mold of the dominant culture and provide them with the resources to develop their unique attributes.

Although much needs to be done, there are promising signs that the industry is waking up to its gender representation problem. Adipec, the world’s largest oil and gas conference, which takes place each year in Abu Dhabi, has been instrumental in introducing the need for greater diversity into the heart of conversations about the industry’s future.

At last year’s conference, Sultan Al-Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), announced Oil & Gas 4.0, an agenda for embracing this new era of digital and technological transformation, which identified diverse and inclusive workforces as a key component of the industry’s capacity to meet the challenges of the future. This year’s conference will dedicate panels and speakers exclusively to addressing this issue.

Given the sector’s importance to Malaysia, the country will no doubt be well represented in Abu Dhabi. I sincerely hope that Malaysian oil and gas leaders and decision-makers in attendance look around the room and ask themselves why more female graduates — like those Lagarde addressed in Kuala Lumpur — aren’t represented and what practical measures they can take to bring about change for the good of the industry.

There should be no doubt that an industry capable of extracting hydrocarbons from beneath the earth’s surface has the ability to attract and retain a diverse and inclusive workforce. As we enter the Oil & Gas 4.0 era, the industry must live up to the promises of that vision – and, in Malaysia, take a lead in the country’s workforce breakthrough strategy.

Rebecca Ponton is a writer, journalist and qualified petroleum landman. She is the author of ‘Breaking the Gas Ceiling: Women in Offshore Oil and Gas,’ a book highlighting women’s contributions to the offshore oil and gas industry. This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.

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