The way to 1000

When Omega secured the right job opportunity for Marcus Renås on 19 September this year, we also achieved another milestone in our 25th anniversary year: Omega passed 1000 employees worldwide for the first time.

Our 1000th employee was no stranger to Omega when he started working offshore for Aibel recently. Marcus Renås was already part of our team back in 2006. Five years on, he chose to take a break from assignments in Norway in order to be closer to his family in Gothenburg. Exactly one year later he returned to Omega and in many ways, this Commissioning Engineer’s career runs parallel to Omega's journey of rapid growth.

"I was hired as employee number 340 in Omega in May 2006. Six years later, I came back to a company of 1000. I have always been a fan of the kind of business concept Omega was built on; the last few years are a testament to the fact that that concept works”.

Omega's expanding presence

Marcus joined our team as growth accelerated. In 2005, we welcomed 100 new employees, Marcus was joined by another 120 colleagues in 2006; demand continued to rise and more client agreements were awarded.

In June 2006, Omega was awarded another frame agreement with Statoil, including the provision of personnel in a wide range of disciplines. The previous year, Omega had opened its second office abroad, this time in Lithuania, and could now offer its services from offices in Klaipeda, Stavanger, Houston and Ølensvåg.

As Omega opened the doors of its fifth office, this time in Calgary, Canada, Marcus and a team of Omega colleagues were working on Melkøya in Northern Norway. Melkøya was home to Europe’s first export plant for Liquified Natural Gas - the northernmost of its kind in the world. The Snøhvit project on Melkøya was one of Omega’s largest consultants projects of all time.

After a year-long break from Omega, Marcus Renås returned as our 1000th employee on 19 September

“This was probably one of the best parts of my career since joining the oil industry,” says Marcus, who, along with many other Omega consultants, was based outside Hammerfest, the northernmost city in the world. From 2006 to 2008 he was part of the construction project for the reception plant for gas from Snøhvit, a gas field housing 193 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

“We were a good team up there, working through the nights in midnight sun. Even though we were far away from the Omega offices, we were frequently visited by the Managers from head office in Ølensvåg; they came all the way up to us in the far north. We understood we were part of something big and even though we were located so far away from Omega locations, we still felt pretty close.” On 21 August 2007 at 02:10 pm, gas from the Snøhvit field came into the plant for the first time, starting the planned, 28-year-long gas production from Snøhvit. At the time, more than 100 Omega team members had been on assignment on the Melkøya plant.

Close to consultants

After his assignment on Melkøya, Marcus's next job was with Aibel in 2008. Marcus was working in the Haugalandet region, on the southwest coast of Norway. The region is still one of Omega’s busiest, boasting several new projects for clients such as Aibel, Gassco and Statoil. However, Marcus's assignment was focussed on a project further north on the Norwegian coast, where a new and important catchment area for Omega was under way.

Marcus worked on upgrades for the Veslefrikk platform off the city of Bergen. At that time, Omega already had 90 team members in the region, and Omega's fourth Norwegian office opened in August of that year, following the establishment of our Oslo office nine months earlier.

The new regional offices were a natural next step as the Omega population grew in both the Bergen region and around the Norwegian capital. With a presence on the ground in Omega's largest cities, we were better positioned to meet the expanding demand for our services from several.

Maintaining a close proximity to consultants is key in this business, says Marcus.

"The competition for qualified consultants is tough, and it has been for some time. Consultants like us, who have quite a few years of experience, get several new job offers each week, and it is quite a challenge for companies to hang on to consultants. Two hundred percent follow up and easy access to an organization and its Consultant Managers are musts, but this level of service is unfortunately not always a given. The level of service at Omega has been maintained from when I started out as number 340 until I came back as number 1000.”

Only a number

When Marcus first joined the Omega team in 2006, it was full speed ahead in Norway. At the same time, it was both a goal and a challenge to establish a stronger presence for Omega around the world. While Omega slowly but surely approached 900 team members, Marcus took a break from assignments in Norway and the North Sea in September 2011. When he returned, Omega was working out of seven international offices and had secured several new frame agreements, many of which featured opportunities outside of Norway. And, he was now part of a company of 1000 employees.

However, volume, says CEO Petter Aalvik, has never been what Omega is about. The essence of Omega is the job each and every one of us does every day.

“Employee numbers and growth for growth's sake are not our focal points, but, with a team of 1000, our services are more actionable and attractive than before. Regardless, our focus is on each and every one of our team members," says Aalvik. That was the business concept our 1000th employee approved of in 2006, and what saw him return in 2012.

“Ever since my first day the concept seemed to be a great one; a combination of systems, well-qualified consultants and an unwavering strategy of 200 percent service from the organization, without any sign of arrogance – that’s the way to do business. And the development since 2006 seems to have proved it right.”