A New Resource is Equipping Hydropower Organizations With Tools That Can Facilitate Seamless Succession Planning and Promote Robust Knowledge Sharing Practices The good news: Hydropower’s reliability means it plays—and will continue to play—an important role in the electrical grid, supporting variable renewable energy sources like solar and wind. And existing and new hydropower projects are expected to play a pivotal role as we transition to 100% clean energy in the electricity sector. That could mean substantial growth in the hydropower workforce.
The bad news: The hydropower industry’s workforce is experiencing major transitions, as it’s seeing an increasing number of workers retire. The industry now faces the difficult challenges of not only ensuring that it can recruit enough workers to fill all the necessary roles, but also minimizing organizational knowledge loss from worker departure. This organizational knowledge loss can have major implications, such as lost productivity as new workers come up to speed on organizational practices or increased pressure on existing employees, which can cause dissatisfaction and potentially lead to additional worker turnover.
A new resource developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office can help hydropower organizations prepare for worker turnover and reduce knowledge loss to ensure hydropower continues to play a major role in a clean.
