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A New Useful resource is Equipping Hydropower Organizations With Instruments That Can Facilitate Seamless Succession Planning and Promote Sturdy Data Sharing Practices
The excellent news: Hydropower’s reliability means it performs—and can proceed to play—an necessary position within the electrical grid, supporting variable renewable power sources like photo voltaic and wind. And current and new hydropower initiatives are anticipated to play a pivotal position as we transition to 100% clear power within the electrical energy sector. That would imply substantial progress within the hydropower workforce.
The dangerous information: The hydropower trade’s workforce is experiencing main transitions, because it’s seeing an growing variety of staff retire. The trade now faces the tough challenges of not solely making certain 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 up to the mark on organizational practices or elevated strain on current staff, which may trigger dissatisfaction and doubtlessly result in further 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 Power Technologies Office can assist hydropower organizations put together for employee turnover and cut back information loss to make sure hydropower continues to play a serious position in a clear power future. The Knowledge Sharing and Succession Planning Toolkit outlines a five-step course of that can be utilized by any hydropower group, regardless 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,” stated Adam Kanter, workforce growth researcher at NREL and the lead writer 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 stated. “Their input really strengthened the toolkit.”
How To Use the Toolkit
The toolkit encompasses two necessary ideas obligatory for profitable workforce transitions: information sharing, or the method of capturing expertise and data and making that information accessible to all staff; and succession planning, which helps leaders establish essential positions inside organizations and put together staff to fill these vacancies as incumbents retire or transfer on.
These ideas are embedded within the toolkit’s step-by-step strategy, which first shepherds organizations via assessing, documenting, capturing, and sharing current information. The instrument then guides them in making obligatory adjustments and drafting a plan to revisit every subject commonly.
Every of the 5 steps embody 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 varieties of info they need to be gathering.
However the fantastic thing about the toolkit is its flexibility, stated Kanter.
“People can use it chronologically, from Step 1 to Step 5, or they can skip directly to building a job profile,” Kanter stated. “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 stated. Hydropower trade companions may also have the ability to 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 stated.
Discover the Knowledge Sharing and Succession Planning Toolkitgo to the Hydropower STEM Portal for info on hydropower-related job assets, and subscribe to the NREL water energy publication, The Current, to be sure you don’t miss a water energy replace.
Courtesy to NREL.
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