Why? It’s impossible to separate the employee experience from the customer experience, as employees are often the face and voice of the utility. It also represents an opportunity for an increased focus on the employee experience: As utilitieshave been investing heavily to improve their customer experience, they are missing a key ingredient to making these investments work-and that is an increased focus on the employee experience. While this reality is a major challenge, it also represents an opportunity for utilities to re-envision roles, and to emphasize digital skills in the way that they hire, train, and retrain talent. Couplethat with the impending retirement of a generation of utility employees, and it’s easy to grasp the looming workforce challenge-where utilities need to attract a highly competitive talent pipeline to execute the industry’s transformational goals. Indeed, the young and digitally savvy talent who are propelling companies into the digital age are not flocking to traditional industries, like utilities, for jobs. Like other traditional industries, utilities now need to compete for skilled talent with more “attractive” and well-known employers like Amazon and Tesla. Engineers must have data skills to manageĪ more dynamic power system. More digital skills are needed-across all utility roles-to support the product and service innovations that are transforming the industry. Utilities are facing a number of challenges to attract and retain the talent they need for the future. Also, 42% of younger non-utility workers said that more flexible working arrangements would make a utility career more attractive. Over 60% of utility workers indicated that their workplace technology needs at least some updating. Employee experience has room for improvement.Utility workers generally felt that leadership priorities should be almost the opposite of what they currently seem to be. Far more listed customer service (78%) and reliability or quality of power service (75%) as top priorities. Just over half (52%) listed employee experience as one of their top priorities. Employee experience might need to be a higher priority for utility leaders.Nearly half (48%) believe their recruiting may not be enough to meet future needs. A mere 6% of leaders believe their utility is performing excellently at recruiting younger/technical talent. This might surprise a few utility leaders: Only 20% of leaders believe their workers feel very satisfied, while 66% believe their workers feel fairly satisfied. Over one-third (36%) of utility workers feel highly satisfied with their jobs, and 55% feel fairly satisfied. The utility workforce has generally high satisfaction.Over 80% of younger non-utility workers view utility careers positively, and nearly 70% would consider working for a utility. Utility careers have a good reputation.We also found opportunities for cultivating a digitally skilled workforce that can address emerging industry challenges. In our surveys of utility leaders and employees about the utility workforce and workplace, we found generally high levels of job satisfaction, with some room for improvement.

The Future of Diligence in Private Equity Portfolio Value Creation for Private Equity

Smart utility systems internships