Anyone else still believes Chevron’s promises that it’s possible to advance in your career here if you work hard and that the company really cares about employee development?
Now that I’m leaving, if I could give advise to the younger people here, it’s that you shouldn’t believe Chevron’s promises very much. I worked as best as I could and, without false modesty, I was a good employee but I never got the promotion I was hoping for.
26 replies (most recent on top)
I heard Chevron Columbia automated their offshore platforms years ago. Fired all the ops staff except for a couple maintenance guys who visit every few months.
@5set- now those are ridiculous promises. Typical R&D geeks making stuff up. Sounds like the introduction of a research paper in academia. "[this technology]... If successful... has the potential to [do something amazing]".
Equinor and Transocean have NOT automated drilling. Those are ridiculous claims. The industry is not that big. We all have friends who work in all of those companies. Let me know when you can name a rig that has automated drilling and actually finished constructing the well as described. It should be public info. Go ahead. Try to find it.
2020 -
"After trialling fully-automatic D&C in 2017 in a partnership with Swiss offshore drilling contractor Transocean, Equinor claims that automated drilling can deliver clear benefits to its offshore operations, so much so that the operator has signed an agreement with the vendor to license and install ADC systems on five rigs in the North Sea.
According to Equinor, the benefits of this digitised approach include increased penetration in drilling, enhanced monitoring of drilling fluid levels, highly-stable bottom-ho-e pressures and early detection of kick or loss events.
In an article on the company’s website that discusses the benefits of automated drilling, Tore Weltzin, drilling and well expert at Equinor, talked about the potential for a “plug-and-play system” to be used across various different offshore locations – software that, if successful, has the potential to drastically alter how Equinor’s drilling operations are conducted."
2019 - "Operations on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) are changing as oil and gas companies embrace technological advancements in an effort to take full advantage of deposits of all sizes. Recently this drive for innovation hit a new high when the Oseberg Vestflanken H platform began production. It is the first fully automated oil and gas platform, entirely unmanned and requiring only one or two maintenance visits a year."
Clearly you have never worked in a refinery or offshore or on a rig.
Refining and offshore jobs should have been automated like ten years ago.
@4zqb - Pretty sure no one is expecting refinery roles to be wfh. It’s just understood when discussing the topic that wfh would be “office” jobs.
Lots of jobs are not wfh right now and those are also the ones most likely to get you a promotion. Check out any of the refineries, any of the GOM offshore projects, or any of the US upstream BUs that are outside of Houston.
Or not, and instead just sit around your living room every day complaining about not being promoted.
@3zdn, Relocating from the study to the kitchen to the bathroom to the living room to the bedroom, and back to the kitchen. All this relocating is becoming too tedious at task. Please get us back to the main office building.
(@3hyh - the bland, hollow (in 2021) HR response, straight out of the 2012 playbook. How can you 'relocate' if you're WFH?)
So much complaining! Yes, getting promoted is hard but it’s not impossible. The best way to make it happen is this:
1) Tell your supervisor you want to be promoted and ask what it will take
2) Be open to changing groups and especially be open to relocating
Want to know why so many higher ups seem to move around so often? Because they are willing to! Go for the best job you can and be open to relocation and the promotions will follow.
The #1 thing to get promoted at Chevron is the Dividend after that executive compensation and nothing else after that matters to executive management.
What is advancement anyways? Chevron like other companies are structured like a pyramid. Less and less positions the higher you go. What’s the push to move up? IMO you lose more than you gain
It took me a while to understand this, but here's how you identify 'advancement potential' in Chevron. Look for individuals / managers who are (1) technically inexperienced and unqualified for the job (i.e., have a fancy degree but spend no time honing their technical skills); (2) jump on the trendy wagon (D&I, AI, Agile, digital workplace, MARC, Triple Crown, MIT micro-degrees, etc.), complete with regurgitating all the buzzwords ad naseum; (3) have little to no interest in the day-to-day operation; (4) always present upwards; (5) sit in the front row of all Town Halls; (6) never spend more than two years in any assignment; (7) GMs put them on cushy, observe-but-do-not-participate projects. The last few years, add in (8) belong to the "preferred" demographic. 4 and 6, coupled with 3, are dead giveaways, and 8 is practically a requirement now. In the old days (before 2015), these were also the people snagging all the foreign assignments. The unannointed can try to imitate all of these, but if you haven't been granted membership in "the club" by year 10 of your career, your best career goal is to move on to another company, or be happy being a working stiff subject to layoffs every 3-5 years.
Something like 75% of employees have General Manager as their CDP aiming point. 100% of HiPots have this aiming point. 15% of all employees are HiPots. But GMs typically manage 500-1000 employees, so the chance of being one is well under 1%. Even HiPots only have a 10% chance of making it to GM. Dream on! And a job like EVP Upstream - heck we have only had a couple in the last few decades!! Can anyone name more than 3?
Not everyone can advance in most companies, including Chevron. First understand that there’s fewer and fewer positions available as you climb the corporate pyramid. Logical, right? Consider also that to have constant upward mobility, the company would have to be in constant hiring mode, filling base positions while folks retire from top positions. Factor in the fact that the company is in no obligation to move you along in position and pay. That’s something you determine to do, and it’s never an easy process as there’s many elements involved, including knowledge, training, time sacrifice, waiting, timing, politics, brown nosing and a whole host of other things. It’s easy to complain why you’re not able to advance slowly or at all. Frankly, the company is not in any position to guarantee you anything except your current job, until they no longer need you or you decide to leave.
Chevron is fat as he-l, even today, in most locations so cost cutting is easy as pie. Many, many managers have made a career of landing a new job, slashing people and costs, beating their breasts to management on the new higher cash flow, then moving on to new locations before the other shoe dropped. They leave behind a path of destruction - tattered businesses, broken vendor relationships, and demotivated employees. JG loved this approach. So did AW. There are more still around today so watch out if they come your way.
Significant promotion within your current role and/or group is very difficult in Chevron. You have to move between groups/roles within your BU, or go to another role in a separate BU.
This framework is very noticeable with non-exempt employees trying to promote to exempt.
Lets say you start as a Lab Technician in DT&S. You’ll likely start as a psg 15 if u land a research role, and if you stay in that role, a decent employee that gets sporadic 1’s on their pmp will move to a 16 on an average of 6-7 years. The ceiling in that role is a promotion to a “Technologist” which is an exempt that tops out at 20-21 if i remember correctly. And thats it, thats where theyll stay unless they promote out side of the team or group to a new role.
The biggest strategic move you should make is finding unofficial mentors that are in positions you can see yourself doing once they leave. You also need to show “signs of a leader” to move up past a certain point. If you arent making others more productive, fixing group problems, and taking the lead when it is needed (and making sure your local leadership sees it or knows about it one way or the other) you wont be looked at for significant promotion.
Quiet, reclusive, or introverted employees are a dime a dozen. Valuable for sure, but you can only take them so far.
With all that said, Chevron will not be able to compete with big Tech when it comes to compensation and upward mobility. So if you expect that level pf mobility, you should look elsewhere. But as far as the oil giants go, Chevron is better than most.
You captured the process beautifully. Rarely do leaders stay in role longer than 2 years. No accountability for what was effed up in their short time in role. Anyone left or new to that role is left to make “process improvements” or be know for “hey, I had to figure this out all out on my own”. There is no ownership. No, yep I screwed up. Let’s work this out together bc chevron doesn’t actually recognize or value productive change. That would lose the whole point of the swirl so much craved and adorned my management. It’s completely bizarre how much people just talking to talk and never actually getting anywhere is valued. I put up with it to get paid.
@igf+1cFfiAWo You nailed it.
OP
“To err is human, to lay the blame on others shows true management potential!”
— Anonymous (I didn’t come up with the gem)
I spent 25+ years in Chevron, most as technical SME.
Key skill for CVX managers is to 1) latch onto successful looking projects at any point in time; 2) if they work, claim as much credit as you can even with minimal participation; 3) if they fail, place all blame on others without delay.
Key corollary is to be promoted / transfer to new position as fast as possible; outrunning your mistakes. Example: cutting budget for short-term gains, then transferring to new assignment within 1-2 years, leaving your successor to deal with inevitable problems.
It’s The Chevron Way!
Under his myopic leadership and focus on the dividend, MW has made it evidently clear that he has no interest in developing people, only short term performance. Identical to the McDonalds business model. Unless you’re a high p-t (or relative of management), you will never advance.
No
Yes
Nope. Became plain as day real quick that all the ways they said an employee could be promoted was actually all the ways that management could prevent an employee from being promoted.
You are in the majority