TBK tells - The Oil & Gas Academy, Bahrain

When I worked for Bapco I was banned from writing about the Oil & Gas Academy but now I have left Bahrain I can write what I like. The Academy was set up in 2018 in Awali, a short distance from my home. I was one of the first to move in to ensure I got the biggest Training room ( 103). Eventually I had to give that up for BMP and was moved to Building B, the old Awali hall. Here I was eventually given room 205, next to my office in 206, and even closer to my home. You can see from the map its just a 4-minute walk (the problem is its 43- 50 degrees in the summer!)

We had a great set of purpose-built facilities with large screen TV’s, movable tables and chairs, and a Computer Lab, Learning resource centre and workshops. In our big open plan office, we had an incredibly diverse set of talented designers, computer programmers and trainers. We had Americans, Indians, Bahrainis, Canadians, and even a couple of Brits. In the main building there were the rest of the Bahrainis, a few Phillipino's, some more Brits, and our Bosses (English. South African and Bahrainis). A couple more Brit’s made up the team of 46 when I left in February 2021. As well as those working at the Academy Joe and Barrie taught English at the Refinery.

The main building was in a U shape around a central courtyard which was planted with Palm trees and grass and was the home to many birds .It was a very relaxing place to sit and chat on the many benches. Outside Building B we looked out on the old church (known as Building C!) and a beautiful garden of Pampas grass, trees and fake grass. Sadly after a year in Building B they decided to return it to its original use as Awali hall and the rest of the team was moved to Building P on the other side of Awali. That's when I left having promised my ex boss Maureen that my next move would be out of Bahrain on an Airplane! I think 11 office / classroom moves in 11 years is quite enough and a terrible waste of money converting buildings from Halls to classrooms and back again!

Before Cov 19 the 13 classrooms and workshops were full of students from 17-year-old Diploma apprentices up to Superintendents with 30 years’ service. They came from Bapco, Banagas and Tatweer and attended a variety of programmes like ILM 2 and 3 which I ran, to Specialist Technical, IT and Health and Safety programmes ( e.g. NEBOSH) as well as Assessment and Development centres, English classes , COBRA tests, Defensive Driver e Learning programmes, Team building workshops and Customer care programmes.

Then with COV 19 our buildings fell silent ( apart from Joe screaming at his Trainees – “ Turn your camera on” and Evan giving us a running commentary on John's Negotiation skills Webinars “ Good morning all, Mr. Power is in make up and will be with you shortly”).

Needless to say, we had a lot of fun as the Academy team, celebrating birthdays, staff coming and going, The Bahrain National days, Births and other events. The students were great as well. I loved the Diploma students who were with us for 3 years from 17 to 20 years old. We also had many Bapco employees who first came on Graduate scholar workshops, then IDP workshops, ILM 2 and finally ILM 3 as they moved up the Bapco career ladder. I saw them al grow old and wise as they got older and often a delegate would say “You trained my Boss, Uncle, Cousin or Brother, and they send you their best wishes”. Then after 11 years, I decided enough was enough, and it was time to retire. When someone says, “You trained my dad!” then you know it’s time to retire!

One of my ILM 2 groups in the garden at the Academy

It is unusual for Trainers to get trained, but that was not the case at the Academy and every year we had some amazing trainers come to Bahrain to run specialist programmes for our team. This included Simon Jayne from SHL to train us on the SHL OPQ and Ability testing in 2010 and later Wave. In 2011 we were coached by the lovely Jane Harders who ran ILM 5 Coaching and Mentoring in Management and again in 2015. In 2016 Barrie from Belbin trained us on the Belbin reports and Interplace system. In 2018 it was the turn of Seena and the amazing ATD Train the Trainer programme. After I attended an MTa Masterclass with Jamie at the Diplomat Hotel I eventually persuaded Maureen to bring him back to Bapco to train the rest of the team in 2019.

On the IT front we had a workshop on how to use Blackboard and Evan ran two workshops on how to train online when COV 19 forced us all to convert our programmes for online usage. In 2019 Maureen, Zainab, Ali and I attended a CIPD conference and exhibition in the UK to see what the latest products in Learning and Development were. Finally, Aysha and I attended a Leaders in Action Conference in Bahrain.

There is one more little guy I nearly forgot to mention and that’s 24 year old Rakesh, our wonderful Janitor, who as well as serving refreshments , washing up, cleaning etc., helped us put folders together, set up the Training rooms, moved books from one place to another and when we went on line made up envelopes of materials to send to the delegates with my Kuya from the Bapco Club, Reggie , who came to take our temperatures each day during COV 19.

People always asked how can you run the same programmes over and over ( I ran 30 x ILM 2 x 14 day programmes for example) and the answer is always that the delegates are all different. Many have become friends and I hope will be reading this! They will always be welcome to come and visit if they are in the Philippines.

We had great fun completing so many great exercises from Mike Lynch and the team at Northgate, including two world premiers of “Escape Room” and “ Rob that Bank”.

The MTa exercise “ Over the bridge” has been completed by over 700 delegates on a variety of programmes and gave us so many examples of good and bad teamwork and leadership that we could refer back to over and over.

Paul Wright and the team at Wright solutions and our friends at Video Arts and Fish! Kept us up to date with the latest on line training materials and the team at Jashanmal, beautifully coordinated by Zainab Al-Khaja kept us supplied with books for the delegates.

Over the 11 years the wonderful team of suppliers and contractors we used like Saeed, Jim, Jamie, Jane, Nick, Mike, Paul, Barrie and Yusuf from the Ken Blanchard companies became very good friends and were always available to answer our questions like “ How do we produce this report”, “ What is Standardisation?” or “ Have you got a team building exercise suitable for 60 x 17 year old’s?”

Now as I wait for my visa to retire to the Philippines looking back on my life in Bahrain I realise what a wonderful time I had, how many amazing people I worked with and how fortunate I was to be paid very well to do a job I loved.