Rolls Wood Group

AN acute skills shortage in the engineering industry persuaded Rolls Wood Group to look overseas for highly trained international talent

The Aberdeen-based company, a joint venture between Rolls-Royce and Scottish oil services giant Wood Group, employs 370 staff in Scotland and a further 120 at service facilities in Houston and San Leandro, California, repairing and servicing gas turbine jet engines used in the oil and gas and power generation industries.

"With the boom in the oil and gas industry at the moment there's a severe skills shortage in Aberdeen and recruiting international talent has enabled us to fill that skills gap in all areas," said George Nutt, Group Human Resources Manager.

The workforce in Scotland includes four skilled engineers from Poland and two graduates of Scottish universities who have remained with Rolls Wood Group under the Fresh Talent: Working in Scotland Scheme - a Sri Lankan graduate engineer who studied at Kingston University and Hamilton College and a Human Resources graduate from India who has just completed a Masters degree in HR at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

"The work ethic of the Polish guys is second to none, they just get their heads down and work," Nutt said. "The skills level, particularly of the machinists, is also very high, probably higher than you would get in the UK at the moment. That's not to decry the UK, the point is that some of the Eastern European companies are less advanced technologically, so the workers are still able to do things the old manual way. The work ethic of our graduates is also very good, and they don't take advancement for granted."
 
Rolls Wood Group is putting its Polish recruits through the company's ongoing development programme and training its Sri Lankan engineering graduate to the level of chartered engineer.

Contact

Group Human Resources Manager
Rolls Wood Group (R & O) Ltd
Unit 6
Wellheads Industrial Centre
Dyce
Aberdeen AB21 7GA
Web: www.rwgroup.com/online
Tel: 01224 797000