Old Hands Queue up to Rejoin ONGC

By M H Ahssan

With more people preferring job security in the wake of the economic meltdown, the attrition rate in public sector behemoth Oil and Natural Gas Commission ( ONGC) has come down by 18 per cent and as many as 400 former employees, who had left the company in recent years actually wanted to come back in 2008.

Sources disclose that the attrition rate in ONGC had been growing steadily in recent years as experienced officers shifted to the private sector oil exploration companies in search of attractive pay packages that were way above the public sector grades.

Figures available with ONGC reveal that while 59 officers left the company in 2004 for more lucrative jobs outside, the number went up marginally to 66 in 2005. However, there was a sharp increase in attrition during 2006 as the number of ONGC executives that crossed over to private oil companies shot up to 184 as more opportunities became available.

This rising trend showed even a sharper increase in 2007 when crude prices had started rising and the oil companies stepped up the search for oil and gas for which they required more talented experts. As a result, the number of ONGC officials that were lured away from their parent company more than doubled to 370 during the year.

However, although crude prices rose even higher in 2008 and the oil companies continued with the frenetic search for oil, the total number of officers leaving ONGC for new jobs elsewhere actually came down by 18 per cent to 303, in a sudden reversal of the rising trend of the previous four years.

ONGC had thrown open its doors to its former employees as it did not want to lose talent purely for the reason that these officers had chosen to leave the parent company earlier.

Sources disclose that as many as 64 of these old hands were shortlisted for the interview out of which 32 have been finally selected. These employees will join the same posts that they were handling earlier in ONGC as the company does not want to create any heartburn amongst the existing employees who have remained steadfast in their loyalty to the organisation.

ONGC is the biggest upstream oil company in the country and has been the main poaching ground for private sector companies such as Reliance Industries and Essar who are relatively late entrants and have been on the lookout for talent that can be nurtured only through experience on the job. Some ONGC employees have also shifted to multinational companies such Saudi Aramco and have been involved with drilling operations in the Gulf.

“ What appears to be drawing these former employees back to the ONGC fold is the company’s work environment.

There is job security and officials are treated with dignity and given a lot of freedom to exercise their ideas which many of them are finding out counts for more than purely monetary gains,” a senior company official said.

“ It is not that everything is hunky dory in ONGC as the officers’ association is on the warpath for higher pay- scales which they feel is being denied to them and have threatened to go on strike from January 7.

But then there is a sense of pride in working for a national company of ONGC’s stature,” another official remarked.