By Wayne Bishop Jr., OMICRON electronics

The issue of an aging and retiring work force has become an unprecedented problem in the electric power industry. Up to 50 percent of electric utility employees in North America will be eligible to retire in the next five years. Recruiting and retaining employees is becoming a huge challenge. The number of undergraduate engineering students in the U.S. continues to decline. In China and India, those graduating with an engineering degree number 40 percent, whereas in the United States, only 4 percent are graduating with an engineering degree. What’s more, retirements are happening at a record pace in our industry.

If this brain drain is not addressed, there will be huge financial consequences to the electric utility industry. To prepare for the wave of retirements coming and the consequential loss of knowledge, electric utility managers should prepare. These preparations include assessing their existing talent pool and identifying those who will be leaving in the next three to five years, identifying where the utility might have worker shortages and deciding how those shortages will be filled.

Utilities must identify critical skill areas. For most, the jobs that will experience the most retirements during the next five years also are those that will be the most difficult to replace. Utility managers should identify which knowledge is most critical to their business and whether cross-training positions could assist in the knowledge gap. One of the most important actions to prepare for the knowledge loss is communication. This includes having dialogue with younger employees about their career development plans and with baby boomers about their retirement plans. Career paths should not be a mystery, and employees should receive honest and regular feedback on their strengths and weaknesses.

Another recommendation for all organizations is documentation. Identify your most critical job functions and document them. Involve those who perform the job function and younger workers, which will result in a learning experience with some unofficial knowledge transfer. Remember, younger employees also can give a fresh look at a task.

Succession planning and knowledge transfer are key elements of your organization’s avoiding brain drain. Recommendations include:

• Assign a key person to address the issue,
• Conduct a work force analysis and assessment,
• Document all knowledge,
• Develop a succession plan,
• Increase interest in the electric utility industry profession,
• Implement leadership development programs and career paths for existing utility employees,
• Conduct knowledge-transfer programs along with formal mentor programs.

At the end of this process, a utility should be able to answer:

• Do we have a strategy to address our worker shortages?
• What knowledge is most critical at our utility?
• Have we documented our most critical knowledge?
• Have we discussed career paths with our key employees?
• Are there programs for succession planning?

Wayne Bishop Jr. is the business development manager of OMICRON USA. He is a graduate of Merrimack College, Harvard University and the Executive MBA Program at Suffolk University in Boston.