Exploring skills migration in the South African oil industry : a case study of Engen Petroleum

Abstract

Orientation: The shortage of technical skills in South Africa is causing grave concern for the country and businesses alike, impeding economic growth and competition. In particular, South Africa is experiencing an increasing number of technical professionals in the oil industry who emigrate. Compounding this situation, South African universities are not producing enough technical graduates to effectively counter the impact of skilled emigration. Research purpose: Accordingly, the reseacher sought to explore country and organisational factors that influence emigration of technical professionals in the oil industry. Furthemore, the research intended to identify and appraise reward elements that are being expended to curb emigration of technical professionals in this industry. Motivation for the study: There is a need to understand the contributing factors to technical professionals' emigration decisions in the oil industry. Research design, approach and method: The researcher conducted a case based qualitative study which was exploratory in approach. The sample included technical professionals drawn from different engineering disciplines at Engen refinery. The researcher initially used purposive sampling, followed by snowball sampling. Accordingly, 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews were held. AtlasTi and excel were used to analyse the results obtained from this research. Main findings: The main findings of the research revealed that the most important country factors influencing technical professionals' decisions to emigrate were remuneration, crime and security. While at an organisational level, leadership and remuneration were the most important drivers. Technical professionals consider Engen's reward model stale and in need of innovation. The reward elements are not aligned with the drivers of skilled emigration and therefore will not limit the rate at which technical professionals emigrate. Value add and managerial implications: The value and implication of this research is that it gives insight into the drivers of emigration decisions of technical professionals in the oil industry, and provides information to managers of oil companies that can help in designing attractive employee value propositions, taking into account external factors.