The 'hours' conundrum
SAS
It's no longer the case that you can use flight hours as a measure of 'competence'.
The problem is that your 15,000 hour man may in fact have 15,000 times the same hour (Please note the word 'may' before you kick-off) and the young lad with a thousand hours can do the job extremely well because he was able and had been well trained and supervised during his formative spell as a commander.
We have to get away from the mindset that the guy with thousands of hours is automatically better than the one with less. Take a look at his competence then make your judgement. Unfortunately, as you imply, the oil companies (not the ones with aviation departments but those without in my experience) have perpetuated the myth that competence can be measured by the number of flight hours. Shell had a scheme by which low time people could be used subject to evaluation so there was at least a little flexibility.
Competence requires an effective training regime and it presupposes that it includes scenario-based LOFT training by training staff that are themselves truly competent.
G.