Idaho Power provides electric service to nearly 460,000 customers in a 24,000-square mile area in Idaho and eastern Oregon. In April, Idaho Power selected a performance management solution from Plateau Systems to assess competencies, measure performance, target training and development and facilitate career and succession planning across the company’s workforce. By taking a holistic approach to developing, managing and actualizing talent, the company is establishing itself as a leader and innovator in increasing workforce productivity and business operations performance.
James Kelley, performance management project leader at Idaho Power, sat down with Power Engineering to discuss workforce development issues and share a few of the utility’s strategies for achieving success in performance and talent management.
Power Engineering (PE): What job titles and job functions at the power plant level are currently being affected by pending retirements and which are likely to be affected in the coming years?
Idaho Power (IP): The aging workforce is impacting all jobs, at all levels and all job functions across our company.
PE: To what extent can personnel and skills be shared across the company to achieve cost-competitiveness goals and maintain adequate staffing? How can a workforce management strategy close the skills gaps?
IP: Our company is a predominately hydroelectric generation operation that is geographically dispersed across a river system stretching over 400 miles. Some of these facilities are located in remote areas. While we do utilize some resource sharing across the property, the distances between hydro facilities creates unique challenges in our ability to take greater advantage of this opportunity. For instance, after six consecutive years of drought combined with record customer growth, our company has added a couple of natural gas plants to its generating capacity. This has created greater mobility for employees and increased opportunity for resource sharing, cross-training and temporary duty assignments for personnel at both the hydro and thermal plants. This scenario is just one example of the workforce management strategies we’ve utilized to maximize efficiency throughout the company.
PE: What is the chief concern at the plant level when considering workforce replacement and development?
IP: In our case, we are primarily concerned with recruiting and retaining employees. It’s critical to attract and retain the qualified personnel who are willing to work and relocate in some of the remote areas we are required to cover. The best talent may originally reside in high-density areas, but for our business, location cannot dictate quality.
PE: Describe briefly the range of strategies the company has in place to address workforce replacement issues at the generating plant level?
IP: Idaho Power has an expanding apprenticeship program for developing skilled generation personnel. Based on the success and increased level of interest in the apprenticeship program, we’ve determined it to be a positive step in addressing replacement challenges. In the future, we will explore the need and feasibility of adding more job positions to the program.
PE: What effect do issues such as equipment upgrades, heightened environmental standards and competitive power markets have on workforce development and recruitment?
IP: Those issues are extremely crucial for workforce development and recruitment. Idaho Power is ahead of the curve and already operating in an environment that carefully measures these issues. Doing so has required our company to become even more strategic and deploy a stronger, systematic approach in developing a recruitment-to-retirement strategy across all our human resources functions.
PE: What steps should the power generating industry take in addressing workforce development and recruitment issues in the next several years?
IP: Over the next several years, the power and energy industry needs to collaborate with educational institutions to plan for workforce challenges of the future. Responsible companies must work hand-in-hand with local, state and federal agencies, as well as legislators, in the development and expansion of training programs. This forward-looking responsibility will provide foundational skills for entry-level positions as well as continued development to maintain competence for all generation functions as technology changes.
PE: What advice would you give to other power companies considering implementation of a workforce development and recruitment strategy?
IP: Begin with the end in mind, and then execute the plan accordingly. The most critical element of a performance management strategy is development of an overall, well-defined human resources philosophy that is evangelized throughout the organization. The plan must be carefully thought out and include a change management implementation effort that recognizes, respects and takes advantage of the influence and impact of the organizational goals and culture.
PE: Does your workforce development strategy include a performance management component?
IP: Our performance management effort is part of Idaho Power’s overall strategy of aligning key human resource employee functions around competencies. For us, those critical HR functions are recruitment and selection, performance management, training and development, career planning, succession planning, and reward and recognition.
At Idaho Power, competencies are defined as the knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes required to do a job and are broken into two categories: technical (learned skills that are necessary to perform a job) and behavioral (how a person applies those learned skills.) Combined, they define what success looks like within a specific job position. All competencies at IP must be both observable and measurable.
By focusing on competencies, we plan to leverage our performance management strategy to gain a competitive advantage in our ongoing efforts to build and maintain an engaged workforce
PE: Can you discuss the role succession planning has played as you prepare for your aging workforce to retire?
IP: Succession planning is going to play an increasingly important role within the company. To date, we’ve taken an informal, ad-hoc approach to succession planning. With our aging workforce, however, the strategy currently in use will not satisfy the rapidly growing need to identify and develop potential candidates for key positions. We are in the process of implementing a more consistent approach to succession planning across all of our business units.
PE: In what ways does a workforce strategy help you achieve mandated compliance requirements?
IP: Compliance must be included as part of the workforce strategy. The only appropriate workforce strategy or initiative is one that leads to a stronger likelihood of full compliance outcomes. Energy and utility companies must consider compliance requirements in any workforce strategy, whether that strategy is simple or detailed.
PE: How has technology helped your workforce prepare for the future?
IP: Technology is a facilitator, but not a guarantor, of effectiveness and efficiency of a company’s workforce. A workforce development solution is a tool that allows us to better understand our skills and competency gaps. Such a solution also provides opportunities to analyze where we are today and bridge how to get there tomorrow. The tools to align learning, performance, career planning and succession planning around competencies are available today, but they’ll only be successful for energy companies if human resources strategies are established at the onset of a succession plan.