A client recently came to us with a concern that will sound familiar to many operational leaders: “We think our workforce has grown too large.”
Labour costs had increased, productivity appeared to be under pressure, and the immediate assumption was that staffing levels were the root cause. But benchmarking told a different story.
When we compared performance against relevant industry peers, workforce size was largely in line with comparable operations.
The real issue? A combination of:
- Higher-than-average contractor utilisation
- Increasing overtime requirements
- Inefficiencies in planning and scheduling
In other words, the challenge wasn’t the number of people. It was how resources were being deployed. This is a common pattern we see across the oil and gas sector.
When costs rise, it’s natural to focus on headcount. But in many cases, the biggest opportunities lie elsewhere, such as workforce allocation, contractor management, work planning, or operational processes. Without objective benchmarking, organisations risk solving the wrong problem. The most effective improvement programmes start by understanding why performance differs from peers, not just where it differs.
