Oil States International is a manufacturer of products for deepwater production facilities and drilling equipment as well as a provider of completion services and land-drilling services to the oil and gas industry.
Challenges
Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Oil States International has approximately 3,000 employees, with more than 20% working internationally, including in Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Brazil, Thailand, Singapore, Argentina, and Mexico. Having an international labor force working in locations with a wide range of work rules poses unique challenges — as does trying to gain a global view of workforce activities without a single, comprehensive solution.
Solutions
Oil States has been using a UKG Pro® solution for some time and now uses the solution as its primary system of record for its global workforce.
"Because Pro can provide a comprehensive system for our employees worldwide, we have visibility into our entire employee population," said Melissa Aldridge, HRIS Supervisor for Oil States. "Instant access to business intelligence on employees in our international locations gives us better speed, accuracy, and support in our decision making. We can run reports and deliver guidance to upper management regarding headcount, and salaries with currency conversions, so they can see in real time our total labor costs."
Prior to information on all employees being housed in one system, management could gain global reports only by first having an administrator in each country extract local data and then send it to headquarters for compiling into reports. Pro's immediate reporting capability has helped Oil States make strategic adjustments during the industry's severe economic downturn.
"We can access information about our global operations anywhere, anytime for one or multiple countries," said Aldridge. "Given our geographic distribution and multiple divisions — rental equipment, rigs, replacement parts, offshore — Pro's reporting functions have been an essential planning tool for the HR team and upper management. Reports organized by salary, seniority, or experience helped us pinpoint opportunities for workforce efficiencies."
"Because Pro can provide a comprehensive system for our employees worldwide, we have visibility into our entire employee population."
Melissa Aldridge
HRIS Supervisor
Results
While Pro is able to provide a comprehensive view of employee and organizational performance, Oil States is also able to leverage Pro's platform configurability to create unique fields that support country-specific data.
"We have different cultures in our organization and each country has particular needs," said Aldridge. "Pro gives us the flexibility to create a field for Asia, but conceal it from the rest of our organization, or set up a field that is essential for our Energy Services group, but unrelated to our other industries. With Pro, we can add an extra field and track previously inaccessible data."
