Leadership Development and HRD Interventions at British Petroleum

This report examines the Human Resource Development (HRD) interventions implemented by British Petroleum (BP) to enhance leadership within the organization. It highlights the importance of HRD in fostering employee development and organizational effectiveness, particularly in a global oil and gas company like BP. The report focuses on BP's leadership development programs, notably the Future Leaders Programme (FLP), which aims to cultivate talented individuals through rotational assignments and mentorship. It discusses the key areas of HRD intervention, including learning needs assessment, training methods, and program evaluation, emphasizing the application of andragogy principles in adult learning. The report also analyzes the benefits of effective leadership, such as improved employee motivation and organizational performance, and the importance of addressing leadership gaps to ensure BP's continued success in the competitive global market.

HRD INTERVENTIONS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
BODY..............................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Human resource development is a crucial function for any organisation as it provides a
framework for helping employees in developing their personal, skills, abilities, organisational
skills, knowledge, etc. HRD includes various opportunities like employee training, employee
career development, performance management, key employee identification, tuition assistance,
organisation development, etc. It is important for company to develop an effective human
resource development to maximise effectiveness of organisation staff. British petroleum is one of
the leading oil and Gas Company (Sheehan, Garavan and Carbery, 2014). It was established in
1908 as Anglo- Persian Oil Company. It is vertically integrated company operating in almost all
areas of oil and gas industry like exploration and production, refining, distribution and
marketing, petrochemicals, power generation, etc. It has been operating in more then 70
countries all round the world. This assignment will mainly focus on leadership development of
company as well as discussion of areas of HRD interventions.
BODY
Organisation selected for this essay is British Petroleum and its headquartered in London,
England. It is one of the world's largest oil and gas company and is sixth largest in terms of
market capitalization. As above mentioned, it has been operating in many countries worldwide
and in almost all areas of oil and gas industry (MacKenzie, Garavan and Carbery, 2012). It is
necessary for company to have efficient leaders which can manage and guide employees and
every activities going on in the organisation. For this, leaders should have specific qualities
which can help company to maximise its profits and revenues and also they formulate best plans
to help company to retain its position in global market.
Reason for choosing this organisation is that, now days, British Petroleum is facing
problems with leaders as they lack good and qualified leaders which can help them at every step
and look after every process and operations of company. As BP is employing huge workforce
and they require good guidance and monitoring by efficient leaders which can support company
as well as employees to maximise production and to retain market position. Leaders are
important personnel of company which posses unique quality of sets which make them proficient
leaders like, they are confident in what they do, compassionate, appreciative, they take risks for
company, are fair with company and employees, flexible enough and are very honest, they

respond to need of employees as well as other staff members of company (Ardichvili, 2011).
British Petroleum is lacking such leaders due to which they are not able to make good decision
for company and are not able to satisfy needs of company as well as employees.
To improve the conditions of company, management of BP have decided various
leadership development programs which can improve skills and knowledge of leaders and can
also recruit qualified leaders which can handle the responsibility of company. To achieve
business success in efficient manners, company has to let go all the patterns from past and
inculcate new type of leadership within working environment (Shuck and et al, 2011). This
should be done by involving each member working in company and create robust solutions that
can improve the condition. One of the leadership program organised by British Petroleum is
Future Leaders Programme. Initially the interventions in the human resources were considered
negative as there was much need of providing training to the employees of this department which
is important to establish link with the business development. It was a difficult task as to establish
link much investment of resources are required. Also it was considered that human resource
managers may not be perceived as business partners. On real grounds they are treated as a
second class citizens whose prime role is to ensure supply of personnel at work place.
Leaders operating in such a reputed and global company have to be highly proficient and
qualified to handle and manage company in effective manner. British Petroleum operates at
every stage of energy life cycle and it is essential to have good leadership to stay ahead in
competitive and constantly changing global market. BP have started 4 year rotation programme
which is known as Future Leaders Program (FLP). In this, company hire enthusiastic, talented
people from different ranges of professional’s backgrounds and give them the skills and
opportunities to drives our Downstream business forward. Whosoever joins this program become
permanent employee? This program consists of mainly 2 – 24 months rotation within one of the
distinctive capability areas of company and second rotation depending upon on development
requirements and BP's business need. It provides desired potential, skills, talent and experience
to employees which help them to lead British Petroleum in future. Mentor will guide and support
their mentee at every step of the program. In addition, they will give them real responsibility and
exposure to business and global energy industry. Its main approach is to develop talented men
and women with a global mindset who can become leaders in future. In this talented people are
hired at their early stage of career and given appropriate training so that they can perform their

work in better manner (Tomozumi, Nakamuraand and Yorks, 2011). There are some
requirements which have to be fulfilled by employees joining thus program and they are- post
graduate degrees, 5 year experience in BP's downstream distinctive capability areas like
commercial, sales, marketing, retail and technology, flexible approach to work, location and
placement, ability to speak more than one language, lived or worked abroad. BP is efficient
enough to provide such training programs in order to develop stretch, skills and prepare them for
future. They are looking for those leaders who can give valuable feedbacks and have courage to
speak up when something is wrong and provide different ways to correct those.
Main aim of developing leadership development programs is to prevent possible threats
and maximising efficiency of company (Sadler-Smith, 2014). Leaders should be highly qualified
and talented as they will work for most refined and global company that is British Petroleum. As
leaders are responsible for making efficient strategies for company and managing all crucial stuff
of company in order to ensure great success and maximum profits to BP. Benefits of good
leaders can be many as some of them are described above and some are, they motivate their
employees and other staff members to perform their work in proper manner and ensures good
work done by them, good leaders build confidence within employees and they work hard in their
activities (Hanand and Boulay, 2013). They analyse overall situation of organisation and lists
down all weak areas and make effective strategies to improve them. Leadership is the most
influential and crucial element for every business and only leaders has the abilities and skills to
inspire and motivate their teams. Sometime, company lacks proficient leader which can result in
huge losses and reduction of motivation and more in employees. This is not bearable in
multinational companies like British Petroleum. It is essential to understand the importance of
vision, mission, objectives, action plans and goals of company. British Petroleum develops
various HRD interventions in order design solutions to improve leadership and increase the skills
and talent of candidate to grow as a leader. They have developed various programs as mentioned
above to increase the efficiency of candidates and helped to improve their knowledge with
respect to company as well as other crucial areas of organisation.
Key areas of intervention include learning need assessment, method, design, delivery,
evaluation. Method is the different leadership program which is given to candidates and leaders
who learn to enhance their skills and knowledge in some areas and can help company at every
steps. Company can provide leadership training methods to eligible individual (Luthans, 2012).

Top level management should critically analyse every methods provided to them and should
scrutinise best suitable methods for giving training.
In leaning need assessment, superiors can identify critical areas to assess learning needs
and provide best methods according to need. They can provide training through e – learning,
audio visual aids, video conferencing with professional, practical exposure to roles and
responsibilities, provide on the job and off the job training to individuals, etc. it is very important
for managers to analyse we ask areas at some time interval so that smooth flow work is not
hindered (Doloriert, Sambrook and Stewart, 2012). This helps company to maintain their pace
and can maximise their efficiency time to time. They can also provide training to new candidate
switch have joined company recently so to ensure better work performance for their side.
Delivery of programs should be prepared in such a manner which includes the entire
specific requirement which can aid employee to lean different things and talents after going
through the programs. They may deliver specification like; appropriate training methods, proper
skill training, encouraging individual to learn something new, increase in the performance of
employee after taking training, elimination of main problem, etc.
Initial positive critiques of the program organised by British Petroleum are:
 Great opportunity for joining a reputed company at an entry level leadership position.
 Candidates get to know deep and broad understanding and knowledge about company in
a short time.
 Great exposure and visibility senior leadership level enabled by wide and diverse source
of community which spanned worldwide across the downstream business.
 Company provide work life balance for each employee.
 Great opportunity to handle such a reputed and leading company.
 Great learning experience under leadership programs.
 Increase in efficiency of individual.
 Superiors use effective methods while delivering development programs in order to make
employees understand about role and responsibility of leaders.
 It is necessary for company to organise such activities in order to increase knowledge and
skills of leaders as well as individuals who wants to become an efficient leaders.
 Superior analyse outcome and result of development program and ensures that every
individual gets the point of training.

Andragogy is used as a synonym for adult education. It was given by Malcolm Shepherd
Knowles. Andragogy is equivalent to term pedagogy. In Greek, Andragogy means man
leading in comparison to pedagogy, which in Greek is known as child learning (Baek and
Kim, 2014). Knowler’s have developed four assumptions of Adult Learning and they are
different form assumptions about child learners. Afterwards, knowler’s add one more
assumption.
First one is self concept- When a person matures, his or her concept start moving towards
being a self – directed human being from a dependant personality.
Second one is adult learner experience- When he or she grows, they collect a lot of
information and experience in their life time that become increasing source for learning.
Their one is readiness to learn – When he or she grows up they want to learn more and
become oriented towards self development and increase their knowledge and skills.
Fourth one is orientation to learning- As a person mature, his or her time perspective
changes from one of the postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of applications.
As a result their orientation shifts towards one of the problem centeredness from one of the
subject centeredness.
And the last one is motivate to learn- As a person matures him or her become more
motivated to learn new things.
There are some important principle related to adult’s learning and they are mentioned
below:
 In every planning and evaluation of instructions, adults should be involved.
 Whatever experience adults are getting including mistakes, they are important as they
are the basis for learning activities.
 Adults are more interested in learning subjects who give them immediate outputs as
well as good impact on their job and personal life.
 Adult learning is basically problem centred rather than content oriented.
It is necessary to provide leadership training to eligible candidates in order to avoid any
kind of biasness and inefficient working (Shortland, 2011). British Petroleum should take
care of all needs requirements which are required by their leaders and try to fulfil it as
soon as possible. If they lack efficient leaders within organisation, they can carry out

recruitment process in order to hire talented and qualified leaders which can help
company to achieve its desired success and retain its market position for longer time.
CONCLUSION
From above assignment, it can concluded that, human resource development is an
essential part of an organisation which help employees to develop their skills, talents,
knowledge in every field possible which can help them to implement best of their ideas in
strategies which will ultimately lead to accomplishment of ultimate vision of British
Petroleum. BP is facing lack of leader and effective leadership which can inspire and
motivate employees as well as company. They are one of the most reputed Oil and Gas
Company and they cannot compromise with their strategies, production, employees,
reputation and market position. To handle these, they require highly qualified leaders
which can help them with their assistance? BP sometimes organise various leadership
program which help new as well existing employees to get training related to leadership
and their practical roles. This helps them to become proficient leaders in future.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Sheehan, M., Garavan, T. N. and Carbery, R., 2014. Innovation and human resource
development (HRD). European Journal of Training and Development. 38(1/2). pp. 2-
14.
MacKenzie, C. A., Garavan, T. N. and Carbery, R., 2012. Through the looking glass: challenges
for human resource development (HRD) post the global financial crisis–business as
usual?. Human Resource Development International. 15(3). pp. 353-364.
Ardichvili, A., 2011. Sustainability of nations, communities, organizations and individuals: the
role of HRD.
Shuck, B and et al, 2011. Employee engagement: An examination of antecedent and outcome
variables. Human resource development international. 14(4). pp. 427-445.
Tomozumi Nakamura, Y. and Yorks, L., 2011. The role of reflective practices in building social
capital in organizations from an HRD perspective. Human Resource Development
Review. 10(3). pp. 222-245.
Sadler-Smith, E., 2014. HRD research and design science: recasting interventions as
artefacts. Human Resource Development International. 17(2). pp. 129-144.
Han, H. and Boulay, D., 2013. Reflections and future prospects for evaluation in human resource
development. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource
Development. 25(2). pp. 6-18.
Luthans, F., 2012. Psychological capital: Implications for HRD, retrospective analysis, and
future directions. Human resource development quarterly. 23(1). pp. 1-8.
Doloriert, C., Sambrook, S. and Stewart, J., 2012. Power and emotion in doctoral supervision:
implications for HRD. European Journal of Training and Development. 36(7). pp. 732-
750.
Baek, P. and Kim, N., 2014. Exploring a theoretical foundation for HRD in society: Toward a
model of stakeholder-based HRD. Human Resource Development International. 17(5).
pp. 499-513.
Shortland, S., 2011. Networking: a valuable career intervention for women expatriates?. Career
Development International. 16(3). pp. 271-292.