As young people campaign for a future powered by renewable energy, oil and gas companies face a complex recruitment challenge. Who will want to work for them in the future?
In August 2018, then-15-year-old Greta Thunberg sat in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks, protesting the lack of action on the climate crisis. The #FridaysForFuture hashtag went viral, feeding into a global, youth-led movement of Gen Zers calling for climate sustainability.
Contrast that with octogenarian US Senator Jim Inhofe, who in 2015 brought an actual snowball onto the Senate floor to support his argument that climate change was a hoax. His stunt, derided at the time, seems more outrageous with every passing hottest year on record.
Today’s generation gap is especially wide on the issue of the environment, and sectors of the energy industry are rapidly finding themselves on the side of the debate which, if not wrong, is deeply unfashionable.
This presents a huge challenge for leaders and recruiters across the industry. Generation Z (roughly defined as those born between 1996 and 2010) just aren’t like the older generations, and as they enter the workforce they’re studiously avoiding sectors such as oil and gas, which they see as contributing to the climate crisis.
It’s a complex challenge, and there are no easy answers. However, simply knowing that an industry sector is falling out of fashion with young people should be reason enough to ensure that the existing workforce is still engaged and feels heard.
“Engaged employees make a significant difference to a company’s bottom line,” writes René Richter, Managing Director at reward management platform Remchannel, in HR Quarterly. “They are also less likely to be absent or leave their organisation. While it may feel like a cliché, research continues to confirm it.”
“Our parents’ fuels”
“[Younger] generations question the longevity of the industry, as they view natural gas and oil as their parents’ fuels,” an EY report found. “Further, they primarily see the [oil and gas sector’s] careers as unstable, blue-collar, difficult, dangerous and harmful to society. These perceptions create a powerful disincentive for younger generations to 1) pursue education that could lead to a job in oil and gas, and 2) consider the industry for career opportunities, especially in staff functions, where employees can choose from a wide range of industries.”
In that same EY survey, two out of three teens said they believed the oil and gas sector in particular causes problems rather than solves them, while a corresponding 62% of Generation Z respondents rated a career in oil and gas as “unappealing”. It gets worse: 39% ranked it as “very unappealing”. And that was in 2017, before Greta Thunberg started her sit-ins.
More recent research has given a clearer picture of where today’s young people – who are, after all, the next wave of potential employees – stand on the issue. A 2020 Morning Consult survey asked Gen Zers aged 13 to 23 to select the energy jobs they were interested and not interested in. While there was interest in energy industry jobs in general, renewables trumped fossil fuels by a significant margin.
Only 15% of survey respondents expressed an interest in a career in coal, with 65% not interested. For natural gas, the responses were 29% interested and 52% not interested. That stood in stark contrast to solar energy (50% interested, 34% not interested), wind energy (43% interested, 40% not interested) and hydropower (41% interested, 39% not interested). “When Gen Zers do look to the future, it seems that participating in sectors whose emissions contribute to climate change holds little appeal,” the report authors noted.
The Importance of engagement
Even if one sets aside youthful idealism, these trends present a serious headache for oil and gas companies who are not investing in a transition to renewables, and for their HR departments. As EY’s report put it: “While some of these perceptions, especially among teens or college students, may evolve with more real-world experience, they still point to a significant challenge for oil and gas companies competing for high-value talent to lead them into the future.”
In the case of petrochemicals organisations, knowing how the workforce feels about the employer’s role in social issues such as sustainability, climate change and the environment is an increasingly urgent area of engagement.
Richter adds that over the past decade, employee engagement has become ingrained as an approach to help organisations create a positive work experience for their people. “High-performing organisations and those that conduct regular engagement surveys reveal significantly higher performance on a number of measures than their competitors,” she says. “But if and only if they act on them.”
For more on how energy companies can identify and improve their unique employee value proposition (EVP), read our report here.
The opinions and views expressed by the industry experts are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Old Mutual.