Spare a few bob?

When an 11- year-old boy in the Aberdeen area asked an AMEC financial director to support a recent fund-raising event at his school, he might have expected a pat on the head and a tidy sum of money for his effort and initiative.

Instead, the industry boss demanded full details of the event including costings for the catering, musicians and room hire as well as many other aspects of the fundraiser. Rather than scaring him off, the requested information was presented on a spreadsheet by the boy and a couple of his mates a few weeks later.

The story from William Serle, director of human resources at AMEC Natural Resources, was not to highlight frugality at the global engineering firm but, rather, its efforts to engage meaningfully with young people and schools at local level.

Giving young people a better understanding of how the oil & gas industry works is a business goal for AMEC, Serle said in a presentation at this week’s Future Talent 2008 conference in London. Even in Aberdeen, he noted, there is a surprising lack of awareness of what goes on in the oil & gas industry.

The situation reflected the low “visibility” of engineering as a profession among young people, especially when compared to their knowledge of what everyone from police and teachers to pop stars and chefs such as Gordon Ramsey, actually do, said Serle.

The AMEC executive went on to highlight the value of AMEC’s work on programmes such as the Determined to Succeed schools initiative in Scotland and challenged industry to establish better links with young people and their teachers: “This is our problem, not theirs. As an employer there is no point just sitting back and moaning about [skills shortages] if you are not prepared to do something about it.”

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Patrick Raleigh, Editor