Value Engineering Centre’s Develop, Deploy Programme bested the competition in the Training Initiative of the Year Category at the Oil & Gas Middle East Awards 2015.
“It’s amazing, and I didn’t even expect to make the shortlist, due to value of the companies we are participating against. To be here is an honour in the first place so to actually win is hard to describe, it’s an incredible feeling and achievement for us,” said Mohammed Ali Al Said, managing director of Value Engineering Centre.
Speaking about the initiative, Al Said said: “Creating valuable employment is a national goal and a challenge. It didn’t make sense to have any unemployment in Oman, so we took a hypothesis that people only wanted to employ people who were already in a job.
“So we challenged that, and properly trained and equipped people that did not have a job, both in terms of technical skills, as well as attitude and presentational skills.
“The soft training is as important as the technical, and as a result we managed to create employment for over 100 people. This formula could be recreated anywhere, and it’s about the industry working towards the national goal of full employment.”
The winning entry was lauded by the judges, one of which said it was a “well defined programme with very positive outcomes.”
One of the panel had the following to say: “The nomination appears to have had the strongest impact of them all. It also has the additional aspect of supporting Oman’s in-country value effort, which makes it a winner.”
Highly Commended was awarded to Training & Career Development Department – Kuwait National Petroleum Company.
One of the judges said the department was “Building the leaders of tomorrow.” Another said it showed strong development and execution. It was also marked out for showing a combination of assessment, training and coaching.
