How Can We Do Good and Do Well? Just Ask!

There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that goes something like, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”

The message is clear: Education has a longer-lasting benefit than charitable donations alone. For AMEC – the international engineering and project management company – this sustainable approach is both a good way of helping the communities in which it works and a good way of growing the business in new regions, especially those where there are not enough skilled engineers already available to support new, expanding industries. It also helps improve labor standards in these regions.

A shining example of how this works in practice can be found at the company’s growing business in Kazakhstan, which provides high-value services to the country’s oil and gas industry. Since March 2008, the company’s ASK (AMEC Students in Kazakhstan) program has been guiding and supporting a group of students – 60 at its peak – studying for degrees in a diverse range of subjects during the four university years at Uralsk, Astana, Almaty, and Moscow universities. Not only have they received some financial support and mentoring during their courses but they have also undertaken work experience with AMEC during vacations and been involved in worthwhile activities in the local community. Training organized by the AMEC team teaches leadership, teamwork, and decision making. Project managers, experienced engineers, and departmental heads act as mentors and offer advice on technical aspects of the job.

“Building strong relationships with the people, businesses, and educational organizations in the countries where we operate is not new for us,” says Ronnie Anderson, AMEC’s manager for Kazakhstan. “We’ve worked in the oil and gas sector in nearby Azerbaijan since 1998 and decided from the outset not to import vast numbers of expatriate employees to take up all the local jobs. Instead, we struck a balance between our own global engineering skills and employing and training local people. It has had the double benefit of making us welcome and creating a long-term, self-sustaining operation that helps us serve our clients better.

“Our entry into Kazakhstan, which also has a buoyant oil industry, has been similar to that. But what is new for us here is the structured, large-scale approach to the relationship with the universities and the series of training events we’ve organized. We have already had our first ‘graduation’ and intake into the company and we are delighted with the enthusiasm, quality, and professionalism of these young people. We hope they go on to do good work wherever their careers take them.

“What I think is good about ASK is that we can take the idea with us when we set up in a new territory, thereby helping us to develop the talent, industry, and our business for the long term.”

ASK graduate Sergey Fyodorov, who now works in AMEC’s Information Technology team in Uralsk, explains how he has benefited: “AMEC is global, which has helped me to advance my expertise more fully than I could have through university alone or by working for a local company. Their high standards and clear aims meant my work had to reach the very highest level. My desire to maintain this level is the best stimulus for my personal and professional development.”

Such is the success of ASK that it won the coveted International Platinum Award at the Energy Institute (EI) Awards 2009. The EI is well-placed to judge how worthwhile an initiative is because it has a membership of over 14,000 individuals and 300 companies across 100 countries and is the leading chartered professional membership body for those working and studying in energy.