Pillar IV: Empowering Our Teams

Supporting and Engaging Our People

Our people are critical to our success. We seek to hire the best people and expect them to be innovators, team players, and good neighbours. We understand the importance of investing in our people and recruiting and retaining high performing employees.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw our employees navigate unforeseen challenges and come together to support each other and our company. Crescent Petroleum’s ability to continue to provide uninterrupted gas supplies in KRI even during the COVID-19 challenges to the host government is a testament to their dedication.

Workforce Composition

At the end of 2021, we had 755 full-time employees, representing a 15% increase in our workforce compared to 2020. Of our full-time employees, 67 are female employees, while 42 of the total were senior managers at the end of 2021. We also had 31 contractors and/or consultants and 39 different nationalities represented in our workforce.

New Hires & Retention

In 2021, we hired 136 new employees, including 15 women. 45 of the new employees were under the age of 30, while 71 were between the ages of 30 and 50. About 20 of the new hires were over the age of 50. Meanwhile, 45 employees and contractors left the company in 2021, reflecting an attrition rate of 5.29% for the year.

Attracting and retaining talent is a core business consideration. Our attrition rate declined from 19.11% in 2020 to 5.29% in 2021 due in part to a significant drawdown in staff in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our Human Resources Department strives to ensure our employees’ emotional and physical well-being by encouraging work-life balance, teambuilding activities, awareness events, and healthy lifestyles. A range of benefits are available to our full-time employees, including provisions for schooling, laptops and tablets, mobile phones, medical and life insurance, accident insurance, parking privileges, annual leave airplane tickets, maternity leave, and compassionate leave. We offer our employees competitive compensation packages too, where the median male and female compensation was $1,858 and $2,044 in 2021, respectively. We also provide frequent opportunities for development and skills training.

Diversity and Human Rights

We value the strength and competitive advantage that comes from a diverse workforce. Our individual differences make us a stronger team with greater depth and greater ability to deal with challenges. The remarkable performance of our teams during the pandemic underscored why we embrace and encourage this diversity in backgrounds and perspectives to creatively navigate challenges and achieve better outcomes.

We have a strict zero-tolerance policy on discrimination in the workplace and are committed to providing equal opportunity and merit-based advancement opportunities for all staff regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, age, and physical abilities, or any other status whether legally protected or not. Crescent Petroleum actively cultivates an inclusive atmosphere that fosters a strong sense of belonging and a healthy, respectful, and productive workplace.

While the COVID-19 pandemic slowed plans to enhance and expand efforts to recruit more diverse staff, including women and youth, we are once again expanding these efforts with an eye to building more inclusive and diverse teams.

We have strict anti-harassment and anti-discrimination mechanisms that are accessible to all staff, as well as a process for escalating unresolved grievances. We believe in transparency and aim to proactively address problems before more serious negative impacts develop that have larger-scale consequences on business outcomes. We have an open-door policy and encourage a “speak up” culture that supports employees to raise concerns of misconduct without fear of retaliation. During the past three years, grievances reported by employees have been minimal.

We take steps to ensure basic human rights of our employees, including preventing child labour in our workforce. We maintain a very strict policy of non-employment of minors by the company or any contractor at a company site.

Our due diligence process ensures that every employee undergoes an extensive security check, including verification of national identification cards that indicate the age of the employee to ensure they meet minimum age requirements.

Internal Engagement

We ensure meaningful engagement that supports our people, as they are at the centre of our success. By proactively engaging with our employees and fostering a positive work culture, we retain our talented workforce and leverage their skills honed on the job to create long-term value for our company.

In the KRI, we have local employee engagement officers on site in Khor Mor, who serve as a single point of contact to address employee issues and concerns. The local employee relations officers also work closely with the Human Resources Department to inform company strategy on fostering employee relations based on knowledge of the local workforce, as well as implement policies and procedures for the full employment cycle.

In 2021, we also formed an employee welfare committee at our Khor Mor operation, which enhanced communication and identified opportunities to improve employee well-being that were carried forward and implemented at the site during the year. By strengthening the individual to be more resilient, we are building more resilient teams and a company culture that values well-being.

The employee welfare committee was formed in January of 2021 in response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employee morale and resilience, as personnel were unable to commute home and undertook extended stays at Khor Mor. The committee is composed of 26 employees—representing all 13 departments—who are responsible for gathering suggestions from colleagues and communicating these during monthly meetings.

During the year, the employee welfare committee members raised 42 action points for consideration, ranging from mealtime adjustments to enhanced leisure and entertainment options. Acting on points approved by the committee, the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Centre, later renamed Hasanawa in Kurdish, was created to ensure employees had enhanced options for rest and relaxation that improved resilience during the pandemic and into the future.

Training and Capacity Building

We are committed to fostering an environment that encourages professional growth and development of all employees to meet new challenges, regardless of their position. By enhancing skills and knowledge, our employees maximize job performance and contribute to our company’s success in both the short and long-term. In 2021, despite continued challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and in-person trainings being cancelled, our employees completed more than 14,200 training hours and we maintained an average of two training days per employee during the year.

Crescent Petroleum strives to support our employees to reinforce their skills and advance in their careers. We have adopted best practices in learning and development by offering blended learning that includes experiential, on the-job-training practiced in a safe space. All trainings are mapped against specific competencies and requirements and include a skills assessment component. We also recently began offering training courses through the international learning platform Udemy.

Through our Learning and Development Training Centre, we offer a full range of courses, programs, services, and systems specifically adapted to meet the needs and requirements of all aspects of Crescent Petroleum’s operations. Our suite of courses includes Health, Safety, Security, and Environment (HSSE) programmes; technical training on plant, processes, and equipment; IT training; and English language training. We have a company-wide electronic tracking and monitoring system that allows us to collect training data and monitor progress against training requirements to facilitate accurate record-keeping and accountability. During 2021, employees completed nearly 3,200 training hours specific to HSSE, a 110 percent increase compared to 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the drawdown of training activities worldwide and across industries. Crescent Petroleum experienced many of the same challenges as training for the local national workforce was paused and the learning and development team demobilized at Khor Mor. However, during 2021, we undertook concentrated recruitment efforts and doubled the size of our training team to 14 full-time trainers by the end of the year. We also doubled the size of our training space, which now has the capacity to accommodate 80 participants. We are looking ahead to enhancing training opportunities for our staff on site to support their growth and development with our newly increased capacity at the site and demonstrating our long-term commitment to the local workforce and surrounding communities.