Nurturing Technical Professional (TP) Competency Through Structured Development Program

Technical Professional (TP) has been identified as one of the critical positions in PETRONAS that plays an important role in providing technical assurance in business deliveries. The intent of this paper is to describe the methodology and processes that been implemented in PETRONAS Upstream business to develop TP specifically in Operation and Engineering area. An inhouse program known as "Technical Specialist Program (TSP)" has been established as a solid capability development framework for internal talents in Upstream as a structure guidance for the talents to become TP undergoing the progression throughout the 3 levels of TP i.e. Staff, Principal and Custodian level. The program was design focusing on acquiring and strengthening the competencies on technical-know-how, including commercial and leadership elements. The growth of internal talent vs. experience hire talent in TP positions have shown significant improvement post 3 years of TSP implementation which reflected in growth from 35% to 71.8% of TP positions been filled by the internal pool of talent. Subsequently, successor ratio of TP position vs internal talent is progressing gradually from 1:1 to 1:3 as per the company's aspiration. The outcome of this paper will be beneficial and valuable to the industry practitioners for oil & gas industry specifically, as well as any related and relevant industry in developing technical talent for critical positions that requiring niche area of specialization. This paper summarizes the approach, best practices and lesson learnt based on the journey and experiences in developing TP through TSP.