If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, where do all these young engineers come from and what language do they speak?

OK, maybe the communication gap isn’t as bad as all that, but based on feedback from the recent SPE Gulf Coast Section Membership Survey and the SPE Executive Breakfast held in January, we’ve heard that our members are concerned about how to more effectively hire, communicate with, train, and motivate young engineers in their organizations. 

Therefore, we’ve assembled a panel of people best suited to address these issues: a group of young professionals from the SPE’s Emerging Leader Program and managers from within their organizations who are involved with hiring, managing, mentoring, motivating and/or training.  Our goal:  To talk about perceptions and realities, myths and facts, in a candid forum where we can all learn how to bridge the generation gap by utilizing new technologies or leveraging existing ones more effectively.

Just a few of the topics our panel will discuss include:

v      What communication methods and approaches work best with young engineers?

v      Do young engineers actually learn and absorb information differently than their more experienced counterparts?

v      What best practices are out there that we can learn from?  What real-life success stories do we have in our own back yard?

v      What motivates this generation?  What turns them off?

v      What can the SPE do as an organization to get young engineers more engaged and involved? 

Whether you’re a young engineer or you come to the table with years of experience, you should plan to attend this energetic, participatory meeting.  Engineers and managers from all disciplines in our industry can learn from one another and play a role in shaping how the SPE and companies in our industry respond to and thrive in this challenging environment.