Over the last few years many innovative technologies and performance improvement processes have evolved to support individuals and organisational learning.

In 1998, Saudi Aramco Training & Career Development (T&CD) decided to adopt several of these new technologies after thorough research of their viability.

The goal was to achieve faster and more cost-effective training programmes, which would be a catalyst to add value to Saudi Aramco business goals by improving employee performance using alliances and learning technology.

T&CD maintains a Technology Plan covering the company's five year Business Plan period. This plan identifies a series of specific, interrelated activities to leverage IT to provide learning opportunities for Saudi Aramco's workforce.

Developed in close coordination with Saudi Aramco's IT organisation, the plan covers issues such as connectivity, learning centres, training centre labs, online learning, videoconferencing, document management and workstations.

T&CD has established 10 multimedia learning resource centres throughout Saudi Arabia, serving the growing needs within Saudi Aramco for professional training. Centrally-located, these Corporate Learning Centres are accessible to a large proportion of the company's workforce.

The centres were originally established to meet the demand for training thousands of employees to handle basic computer functions. Today, these learning centres offer an efficient training option because the same number of employees can study the same basic courses which are taught in the classroom at less cost and in less time, thereby providing more value.

At Saudi Aramco, all employees, no matter how skilled, periodically upgrade their skills in specialised training courses, either in-Kingdom or overseas.

Saudi Aramco has had a training programme in place since the earliest days when the Kingdom signed its first concession agreement in the 1930s.

In the beginning, training was conducted at the worksite to accomplish a particular task but, following the discovery of oil in 1938, a previously inexperienced workforce ballooned to meet the needs of the company.

The company opened its first schools in 1940 and 1941 to teach English, arithmetic and the rules of industrial safety. Primitive, these schools marked the start of a training programme which has expanded into the world's largest as of today.

Saudi Aramco's first training organisation - the Education Division - was formed in 1943. The Aramco Production Training Program, started in 1949, was the first programme to qualify large numbers of Saudis for jobs held by expatriates, marking the beginning of the Saudisation process. In five years, the programme raised 12,000 Saudi employees from unskilled to skilled and semi-skilled job levels.

In the 1950s, Saudi Aramco built Industrial Training Centres in Abqaiq, Dhahran and Ras Tanura.

The Career Development Department was formed in 1980, with a mission to ensure that all Saudis below management level had the opportunity to develop to their highest potential.

Significant numbers of Saudis entered the ranks of upper management in the 1980s for the first time. Current Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al Naimi became the first Saudi president of the company in 1984.

T&CD is today playing a leading role in promoting self development throughout Saudi Aramco by establishing the necessary technological and learning infrastructures, coordinating policies to support self development, integrating corporate learning systems, and communicating the purpose of self development throughout the company.

And on a wider scale, Saudi Aramco is reaping the rewards of its investments in training, having groomed a group of employees with superior abilities to monitor and seize business opportunities when they arise.