Importance of Utility Workforce Succession Planning
Image courtesy of Focal Foto under Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic Deed, resized to 700 x 391 pixels.
The utility workforce is aging, which means that utility workforce succession planning is critical for all sectors of the industry. One of the most common issues throughout the industry is that institutional knowledge is oftentimes concentrated within the older demographic of the workforce, with no formal succession plan in place to ensure the transfer of this knowledge to younger workers. And as you might imagine, this is a major problem as it relates to both functional expertise as well as emergency operations.
Tips for Utility Workforce Succession Planning
First and foremost, utility workforce succession planning must be a top priority for leadership. Without support from the top, succession planning will be suboptimal at best, or a complete failure at worst. Simply put, there must be a commitment from leadership to ensure skills and knowledge are transferred, and leadership voids are filled with qualified employees, whenever there is turnover.
With the necessary support, planning efforts can move forward. One of the first logical steps in this process is to identify and focus on the highest-priority positions – for example, the COO, field directors, IMT leads, compliance officers, safety czars, etc.
Once these highly critical positions are identified, those that are at risk of being vacated should be highlighted. This could be done by scanning for retirement ages, or by identifying high-turnover positions.
Next, it’s critical to identify the core competencies of each high-priority position to help identify successful attributes for each role. This is called competency modeling. Along with this, if appropriate, levels of each role should be identified (i.e., individual contributor, first line supervisor, middle manager, strategic leader, etc.).
Once this ‘succession structure’ is documented, you’ll have a clear picture of the impending talent gaps facing the organization. From here, you can develop strategies and tactics for training, coaching, development, knowledge transfer, and talent identification.
The bottom line is that utility workforce succession planning is not easy, but it is certainly necessary. Good luck!
