February

Global Talent Management attempts to ensure that employees have enough support to achieve their best work, accomplishing both personal and company goals. In order to help employees with reaching their maximum potential, Talisman has both a Learning & Development team as well as a Leadership Development team. While the Learning & Development team is responsible for enhancing individual employee abilities and skills to support their career goals through skill based courses (experience, exposure, education), the Leadership Development team attempts to further develop both emerging leaders and existing leaders to ensure that strategic leadership talent is aligned with succession management and diversity within the company (promotions + moves).

Working with the Leadership Development team I am responsible for supporting the development of our emerging leaders and existing leaders through different programs. During my second month, I was assigned with the task of manually updating data spreadsheets of individuals that are in the emerging leadership program and the leadership program, as well as compiling monthly updates of the department. It is very interesting to note that despite such a large company, Talisman’s information structure is largely fragmented due to the global nature of the organization as it lacks consistency in the way that data is managed. While in the midst of going through structural reconstruction, a lot of effort is required when attempting to compile accurate and consistent data.

Aside from administrative tasks, I have also had the opportunity to do work that is quite important and visible to Talisman’s top executives. The first big project that I was asked to work on consisted of analyzing a survey that attempted to better understand the retention risks of some of our emerging leaders. After compiling all the statistics and summarizing the story behind all the data, recommendations for mitigating risks were generated and communicated to respective leaders for follow-up. A lot of attention to detail, analytical skills, as well as thought was put into the project in order to ensure that the data was compiled accurately and is presented in a way that made most sense to our audience. When presenting information to higher management, it is important that the content you wish to sell is clear, concise and able to capture the attention of your audience.

This month, I also had the opportunity to take part in a lot of interesting and fun workshops/training that were run by both the students and the company. This includes a tour of Canada’s only Real Time Operations Centre at Talisman where top of the line technology is utilized to create visualizations and real time support for planning and drilling wells at maximum efficiency. Other workshops included a discussion of the upcoming Transcanada Pipelines hearing, an informational session of Talisman in PNG and the challenges the company faces, a documentary about the development oil sands, as well as a presentation about water sanitation and hygiene in the world by CWST, Talisman’s first International NGO Partner. The development opportunity at Talisman is fantastic; I am thrilled with both the ability to develop my skills through my work and the opportunity to venture out and explore the world of oil gas.