Benchmark study identifies areas of opportunity for utility training and operations
The 2022 Energy & Utility Future of Training benchmark study published by workforce consulting firm Mosaic revealed interesting findings related to the state of workforce training in the natural gas industry, particularly regarding the alignment between training and operations.
“Workforce recruiting and retention challenges, combined with continuous change and the demand for more modern learning methods, are putting new pressures on the training organization. It must become more adaptive and nimbler,” Rachel Collier, Mosaic’s chief marketing officer, told American Gas. “In this new environment, you can no longer expect an employee to stick around doing the same type of work for 10 to 20 years. Training is having to adapt to prepare people for the changes they will encounter and the upskilling required with so much turnover.”
More than 90 training and operations leaders from 44 utility and pipeline companies participated in the study, which was published in May 2022. A recommendations report with specific industry methods was released after Mosaic’s annual Energy and Utility Training roundtable in July. In it are recommendations for expanding training’s purpose from building a skilled and prepared workforce to sustaining an agile and ready workforce capable of adapting to ongoing change confidently and competently.
According to the report, that agility comes from implementing a training system rather than a more static model. However, the study points out that not every solution has to be a big one. “You don’t have to boil the ocean to make meaningful change,” Collier said. “Start by looking at critical rules and tasks.”
Another key takeaway, Collier said, is the need for training organizations to function as trusted advisers and valuable business partners. “We must build up our training teams’ business acumen and core capabilities, especially around measurement, technology proficiency and digital curation,” she said.
Topping the list of operational challenges anticipated over the next three to five years was lack of experience in the workforce resulting from retirements, turnover and less experienced new hires. The top training challenge was training resource constraints.
Training organizations are dealing with these constraints at a time when digitizing training delivery methods—the top training priority—requires significant investments in technology. That’s why, Collier says, building a better business case for training is becoming critical.
“A lot of times, it’s hard for training to get on the top of the priority list for executive budgets,” she said. “Therefore, if training is going to be considered more of a strategic partner to business, learning how to tie training into specific metrics and performance improvements—even [return on investment]—to prove the value of training investments is going to be important. At a minimum, you’ve got to be able to prove a direct impact on performance.”