Employee Engagement Issues at Schlumberger

Running head: EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT ISSUES OF SCHLUMBERGER
Employee engagement issues of Schlumberger
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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT ISSUES AT SCHLUMBERGER
Executive summary
This report aims to focus on the current employee engagement issues in one of the world’s
famous oilfield service, Schlumberger. The employee engagement issue have been a problem
for the company for a long time. With the rise in job cuts, the employee engagement issues
have increased a lot. The employees were not feeling secured with the rise in job cuts by the
chief executing officer of Schlumberger. The report on the first part described about the
world’s largest oilfield services. The next part of the report states about the problem. In the
analysis part, the report states how the issues of the employee engagement affects the
operation management. It also states how the issues of the employee engagement can affect
the financial aspect and marketing strategy of Schlumberger. It also states that how the
supply chain can get affected when the employee engagement issues exist in the industry. In
the literature review, the report states the models which can be used for explaining the
employee engagement issues. The previous works related to employee engagement models
have also been discussed in this part. In the conclusion it have been stated the employee
engagement issue is a matter of problem in cost of the industries which can be reduced by
properly monitoring the employees and by helping them whenever they need. Hiring
appropriate managers for handling the employees is also necessary. In the part of
recommendation it is stated how the issues of the employee engagement can be handled
properly. Some recommendations have been provided which states that how the issues of the
employee engagement can be handled.

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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT ISSUES AT SCHLUMBERGER
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Analysis......................................................................................................................................6
Job cuts in Schlumberger.......................................................................................................6
Factors affecting employee engagement................................................................................7
Affecting the people...............................................................................................................9
Affecting the marketing.......................................................................................................10
Strategy................................................................................................................................10
Impact on supply chain........................................................................................................13
Facing employee engagement challenges............................................................................14
Importance of employee engagement..................................................................................15
Literature review......................................................................................................................16
What is employee engagement?...........................................................................................16
Organizational commitment along with the citizen behaviour of the organization.............17
Relating employee engagement to job satisfaction..............................................................17
Job demand resource model.................................................................................................19
Factors behind employee engagement.................................................................................20
Role of human resource in employee engagement..............................................................21
Employee engagement model..............................................................................................22
Importance of employee engagement in an organization....................................................23
Relationship with the co-workers which will be influencing the employee engagement....23
Company culture affecting employee engagement..............................................................24

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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT ISSUES AT SCHLUMBERGER
Conclusion................................................................................................................................26
Recommendation......................................................................................................................27
Reflection.................................................................................................................................29
Reference list and bibliography...............................................................................................36

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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT ISSUES AT SCHLUMBERGER
Introduction
Schlumberger is one of the world’s leading provider of technology for drilling,
production, reservoir characterization, drilling and processing to the oil and the gas industry.
Schlumberger is known to supply comprehensive range of products and services around the
world in approximately eighty five countries. It also has four executive offices present in
Paris, Houston, Hague and in London. It had been found by 1926 by the brothers Conrad and
Marcel Schlumberger. Schlumberger also have known to expand its acquisitions and
operations. This company is presented in worldwide in around 84 countries (Al Mehrzi and
Singh 2016). The aim of this report is to show the issues related to the employee engagement
which Schlumberger is currently facing. After the massive job cuts which was made by the
chief executing officer of Schlumberger, the employees were facing several issues while
working in this particular organization. Some of the employees also complained of the work
pressure and shift changes which they were not comfortable to work in. according to a report
the organization have known to cut 70,000 jobs in less than three years. The major reason
behind this was the revenues went down to almost fifty percent during a prolonged oil bust in
the worldwide. According to CEO, there is an effort to install optimism back through out the
organization. In the year 2016, Schlumberger have known to cut around 16,000 jobs. The
engineers working in the fields also known to have working in an isolated and hostile
locations where they also have to work in night shifts leading to poor social life. As a result
of massive job cuts in the last there years, the employee turnover rate have also increased at a
huge scale. Absence of job security in this particular organization have resulted in high rate
of employee attrition. The petroleum company operates in a segmented fashion where the
parent companies obtain the rights from the governments for exploring and developing oil
fields. The wireless divisions of Schlumberger is also the largest division (Chienwittayakun
and Mankin 2015). The employee turnover rate increased and the motivational level

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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT ISSUES AT SCHLUMBERGER
decreases when the organization warned about the increase in the price of the oil which will
be leading to more layoffs among the employees and hasten a retreat from the oil patch.
Some of the employees also could not handle the work pressure and the deadlines which
made the work tiresome enough.
Therefore the report focuses on the problems which are related to the employee
engagement issues and the report also comprises of recommendations on how the problem
can be solved. The report mainly takes about the world’s largest oilfield company. The
company is also known to have featured in the Fortune Best 500 companies to work for. The
reason is behind this is mainly for the human resource practices and employee engagement.
Some the human resource practices of the firm is about the gender diversity along with equal
opportunity given to the employees(Carasco-Saul, Kim and Kim 2015). The first part of the
report focuses on the employee engagement issues which Schlumberger is facing. The next
part focus on the analysis which shows how an employee engagement issues can affect the
productivity of the organization. The employee engagement issues can also impact on the
team and performance of the organization. It generally affects the performance and creativity
of Schlumberger. It will also affect the financial aspect and the operation management of the
company. The report also comprises of PESTLE analysis which Schlumberger should
follow. The issues regarding employee engagement will also affect the marketing dimension
of the organization. The newspaper articles and case studies also shows that there are several
issues related to the human resource of the organization (Dagher, Chapa and Junaid 2015.).
The aim of the paper is to discuss the possible issues that could takes place in case of
employee engagement and how to resolve them. It also consists of sets of recommendations
which would help the mangers to take in o account the objectives that needs to follow when
there arises problems regarding the employee engagement.

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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT ISSUES AT SCHLUMBERGER
Schlumberger Limited is one of the largest oilfield corporation in the world operating
in approximately 80 countries. There are four principal executives offices of Schlumberger
located in London, Paris and Houston. It was founded in 1926 in France. Schlumberger is
also the leading provider of technology for reservoir characterization for the oil and gas
industry Schlumberger also employed 100,000people representing 140 nationalities. It was
founded by Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger from the Alsace region in France. Poor
employee engagement in the workplace can be a serious challenge for various kind of
organizations in today’s world.
Analysis
Job cuts in Schlumberger
According to a newspaper source it has found out that the Chief executing officer of
Schlumberger Paal Kibsgaard have cut almost seventy thousand jobs in a span of less of
three years. The reason behind this is that the world’s largest oilfield services have been
experiencing a plunge in revenues which was more than fifty percent during the recent oil
bust. The headcount of the employee ad fallen from mid 2014 from 126.000 to about
1000,000 people in the recent date. One of the significant reason behind the job cut is that
Schlumberger have started relying more on the use of software and automation.
Schlumberger have also experienced employee separation in the recent date. Employee
separation is a term which is used for the loss of an employee for any voluntary and
involuntary turnover rates. Either the employee or the employer can decide for termination of
the employee. In case of Schlumberger which the world’s multinational oil field service
company stated that employees are the biggest investment of the company. Schlumberger in
an interview also tried of find out the reasons behind the high rate of turnover in the
company. They also tried to find out the reasons behind the dissatisfaction of the employees
in Schlumberger. One of the world’s largest oilfield company Schlumberger have reported to

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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT ISSUES AT SCHLUMBERGER
face an unexpected job loss. It had also cut 70, 000 jobs as cheap crude oil have been
recovered in the oilfield sources. It have also experienced an unexpected loss in the second
quarter. in the first half Schlumberger had known to cut off 16, 00 workers.
Another issue at Schlumberger was that the employees are also not happy with the
workplace culture in Schlumberger. Therefore, it also has a high attrition rate in the company.
The company have also known to be facing issues with the employment opportunities.
Some of the challenges which the employees face in Schlumberger are that the field
engineers have to stay in oil field which is usually isolated and they are also sent to the
hostile locations for a long period of time. The field engineers needed to work in night shifts
followed by leading a poor social life. Some other difficulties which they face generally are
adverse terrain, seasickness in case of offshore locations. They also faces problem with bad
food and the risky nature of job. Similarly the some of the employees specially the service
managers are made responsible for the planned scheduled work. The pressure of the deadlines
from the clients makes the job quite tiresome. Some of the employees also complained that
they’re made to work twenty four hours a day(Carasco-Saul, Kim and Kim 2015).
Factors affecting employee engagement
The internal and external factors which affects the employee engagement is the level in
which employees feel motivated and involved to their workplace. The job responsibilities,
work relations along with new opportunities of growth are the internal factors which affects
engagement. The external factors which affects employee engagement are the career
opportunities and social obligations.
 Responsibilities of job and work relationships – the task that is performed and the
customers with whom the people interact on the daily basis will have a tremendous