Talent & Succession Planning

America needs an energy policy today that will bring together our best and brightest, harness the limitless capabilities of our research institutions, and invest whatever it takes to ensure America’s leadership in clean energy technologies. The result will be to create billion-dollar industries and millions of new jobs.

Utilities can attract a new generation of employees by emphasizing the transformation the industry now faces, and the immense opportunity it creates. Matching mature workers’ vast experience with new technologies can provide unique perspectives that knowledge of new technologies alone can’t provide.

Sustained performance improvement is often a difficult objective to achieve in a large company. Many such attempts involve various cross-functional initiatives that leave companies with unfinished projects, lower morale and disappointing results. Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) has found that the key to sustained performance improvement is the establishment of a cadre of high-potential managers to address company-wide initiatives full-time.

Can new nuclear power plants get approved? Will wind generators get production tax credits? Will West Coast companies be allowed to re-permit their hydro plants? Will cap-and-trade legislation endanger the coal industry? And who will pay for the transmission of renewable energy? These critical questions still remain unanswered, but utility companies must forge a business strategy through the murk.

Several of the industry’s top-performing companies have been guided by CFOs with an expansive sense of what the finance office should offer to the business. Increasingly CFOs are developing the skills and capabilities to move beyond the traditional role of traffic cop to the more valued roles of business partner and enabler.

The U.S. nuclear power industry faces a yawning talent gap. Half of the industry’s employees are over 47 years old, and more than a quarter of nuclear workers already are eligible to stop working. Meanwhile, as the baby boomers retire, there will be far fewer available replacements with nuclear knowledge.

With upward of 50 percent of the utility industry’s workforce approaching retirement, the industry’s leadership, at all levels, must come to grips with this enormous challenge. This looming demographic challenge is not simply a human-resources problem. For most of the industry, it poses a very real threat to the bottom line and touches upon the fundamental ability of the company to pursue its mission. The path to survival will require non-traditional thinking around all the people levers—staffing, work planning, compensation, work processes, performance management, development, job and organization design, and, most important, leadership.

New talent is scarce. And keeping the old talent takes imagination. How are utilities handling changes in personnel markets? We speak with several leading HR consultants to get their views.

This month’s cover story focuses on how utilities intend to find the talent they’ll need over the next few years to replace all those retiring baby boomers. And part of that puzzle naturally involves executive pay: how to attract the best and brightest without going overboard on rewards for performance.