A Unique Set of Challenges
Lawrence Jones is Senior Vice President of EEI International Programs.
Electric companies work diligently to ensure that they have the dedicated and passionate workforce needed to meet the opportunities and challenges that our industry faces. These challenges include rapidly rising demand for electricity, increasing frequency of extreme weather events, and rapid technological advances that are changing how we do business and how our customers use electricity.
The energy workforce is navigating a unique set of challenges, as are the electric companies that are working to ensure that the talent pipeline is robust enough to handle many retirements as the workforce ages.
To overcome these challenges and ensure continued success, the energy workforce can adopt innovative frameworks, including by advancing brain capital.
Defining Brain Capital
Brain capital, as explained by Dr. Harris Eyre of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, encompasses “brain health across the lifespan and brain skills.” When he spoke at EEI’s Global Electrification Forum last year, he explained how the health of our brains has a tremendous effect across society, and vice versa.