Dive Brief:

• As veteran workers age out of the utility workforce, a “talent storm” is striking companies at the same time they are being faced with other big challenges like technology changes and distributed energy development.
• Add to those factors a huge pension burden for all the exiting workers, and utilities will have less money to compete for the kinds of workers they need. Deloitte Consulting says the sector will need 100,000 new skilled employees by 2015. That’s not a huge number, “but it really is significant because these are new skills,” Deloitte’s Brad Denny said.
• Among Deloitte’s solutions: Cosponsor educational programs with colleges, target veterans, allow flexible work arrangements, have good training programs, and make sure the utility's brand is "attractive."

Dive Insight:

In its annual State of the Electric Utility survey, Utility Dive found an aging workforce was the third most pressing challenge facing utilities, behind only the current regulatory model and old infrastructure.

For about a decade, the term for this problem has been the ‘aging workforce.’ But ‘talent storm’ is a more energizing way to put it, and utilities are used to dealing with storms. The industry has been mobilizing on this issue for some time. In 2006, the Edison Electric Institute and other utility groups founded the Center for Energy Workforce Development, which among other things has formed partnerships with unions, community colleges and others. Its projects for this year include developing and implementing a Troops to Energy Jobs marketing plan and rolling out a veterans registration site.