MUSCAT: Under the auspices of Mohsen bin Hamad al Hadhrami, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Minerals and Energy, Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) celebrated yesterday, January 18, the achievements of 782 Omani staff from the Company’s Shababuna Programme at an official ceremony held in Muscat, and attended by PDO’s senior management and colleagues.

PDO has also launched the new identity of its programme ‘Shababuna’ which was previously known as the Graduate Development Programme (GDP). The aim of the new identity is to reconfirm PDO’s commitment to empower young people and create a coherent framework that focuses on preparing a promising generation capable of building a prosperous future for the Sultanate.

PDO Managing Director Steve Phimister said: “We are extremely proud of the achievements of our Omani staff who have successfully completed the Shababuna Programme.”

“This programme is designed to provide our young employees with the skills and knowledge they need to excel in the oil and gas industry, and we are confident that they will make a significant contribution to PDO in the years to come.”

The programme, was introduced in 2013 to provide structured, on-the-job training, monitoring and assessment for Omani staff who join the Company after graduating from universities and colleges with Bachelor’s degrees or above.

The programme’s main objective is to support graduates during the early stages of their careers and quickly integrate them into the workplace through a combination of on-the-job and off-the-job training enhanced with e-Learning, focused coaching and mentoring.

Furthermore, this programme has been rolled out to different technical and non-technical functions, covering more than 20 disciplines with dedicated policies, processes and resources. It is based on the learning philosophy of 70:20:10 model -70% on-the-job learning, 20% coaching and 10% training.