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A New Useful resource is Equipping Hydropower Organizations With Instruments That Can Facilitate Seamless Succession Planning and Promote Strong Data Sharing Practices
The excellent news: Hydropower’s reliability means it performs—and can proceed to play—an necessary function within the electrical grid, supporting variable renewable power sources like photo voltaic and wind. And present and new hydropower initiatives are anticipated to play a pivotal function as we transition to 100% clear power within the electrical energy sector. That might imply substantial progress within the hydropower workforce.
The dangerous information: The hydropower trade’s workforce is experiencing main transitions, because it’s seeing an rising variety of staff retire. The trade now faces the troublesome challenges of not solely guaranteeing that it could actually recruit sufficient staff to fill all the required roles, but additionally minimizing organizational information loss from employee departure. This organizational information loss can have main implications, reminiscent of misplaced productiveness as new staff come in control on organizational practices or elevated strain on present workers, which may trigger dissatisfaction and doubtlessly result in extra employee turnover.
A brand new useful resource developed by the Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory (NREL) and funded by the U.S. Division of Power’s Water Energy Applied sciences Workplace may also help hydropower organizations put together for employee turnover and cut back information loss to make sure hydropower continues to play a serious function in a clear power future. The Data Sharing and Succession Planning Toolkit outlines a five-step course of that can be utilized by any hydropower group, irrespective of the place they’re of their workforce transition, to ascertain a system and tradition for information sharing.
“When we began this project, we realized that there are very minimal resources specific to hydropower regarding succession planning and knowledge sharing,” mentioned Adam Kanter, workforce growth researcher at NREL and the lead creator on the toolkit. “But we can see that hydropower is one of the industries that needs this kind of help the most.”
To construct the toolkit, Kanter spent months gathering experience from different workforce growth sources, then solicited suggestions from members of hydropower associations and organizations.
“We had a good mix of perspectives—some technical hydropower people, but also human resources workers who already had some experience with knowledge sharing and succession planning,” Kanter mentioned. “Their input really strengthened the toolkit.”
How To Use the Toolkit
The toolkit encompasses two necessary ideas mandatory for profitable workforce transitions: information sharing, or the method of capturing abilities and knowledge and making that information accessible to all workers; and succession planning, which helps leaders establish essential positions inside organizations and put together workers to fill these vacancies as incumbents retire or transfer on.
These ideas are embedded within the toolkit’s step-by-step method, which first shepherds organizations by means of assessing, documenting, capturing, and sharing present information. The device then guides them in making mandatory modifications and drafting a plan to revisit every matter usually.
Every of the 5 steps embrace downloadable instruments, templates, and checklists that simplify the method of evaluating organizational information sharing practices. Examples of accomplished worksheets are additionally included in every step, so the group can see the kinds of data they need to be gathering.
However the great thing about the toolkit is its flexibility, mentioned Kanter.
“People can use it chronologically, from Step 1 to Step 5, or they can skip directly to building a job profile,” Kanter mentioned. “One of the major considerations when we were creating this was making sure it’s useful to people regardless of where they might be in this process. If they’ve already assessed their organization, and just want to make sure they’re doing it right, they can use this to validate their ideas.”
The toolkit was made publicly accessible in April 2024, and it has already been shared with many hydropower trade companions, from which Kanter is continuous to hunt suggestions. “One of the big benefits of having the toolkit online is that we can continue to update it to fill gaps and respond to industry input,” Kanter mentioned. Hydropower trade companions will even be capable of arrange one-on-one periods with Kanter to request help, get questions answered, or present suggestions.
“This toolkit comes at a time when hydropower organizations need help to ensure they have a qualified, knowledgeable workforce ready to help hydropower take its place in the clean energy transition,” Kanter mentioned.
Discover the Data Sharing and Succession Planning Toolkit, go to the Hydropower STEM Portal for data on hydropower-related job assets, and subscribe to the NREL water energy e-newsletter, The Present, to ensure you don’t miss a water energy replace.
Courtesy to NREL.
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