As more of us shift from remote work to hybrid work schedules or even a full-on return to the office full time, it may take us a while to fully reconnect with colleagues — or even connect with new ones who were hired during the COVID-19 pandemic but whom you have not yet met face to face. Maybe there’s … Read More
Roughly 60% of subscribers to EEC Perspectives are women, and many of them are in a relatively early stage of their careers. For that reason, we asked three women at NorthWestern Energy to share their views on skill sets and career paths in communications and marketing within a utility, internships, innovative approaches to organizational design, and communicating during a pandemic. … Read More
Employee engagement continues to be a high-interest topic among our readers. As a more contagious and deadly variant of COVID-19 emerges, utilities and energy companies are trying to decide when office workers will return to the office, and under what conditions. What work policies need to be updated? How shall we perform work going forward? Will our organizational culture help, … Read More
In last month’s blog, I discussed the wide gap between words and deeds among Colorado energy companies on the issue of stakeholder engagement, and how that disparity finally caught up with them in last year’s election. Sooner or later, I believe that same tendency to favor talk over action will hit providers of electricity. I’m talking about the critical role … Read More
Those words might have worked as a rallying cry 75 or 100 years ago, when the U.S. was electrifying (right). Back then, working in the electricity business was a leading-edge, change-the-world endeavor, like working in the space program was in the 1960s or the perennial search for a cure for cancer. But today, many utility employees need a more current, … Read More
Sometimes Saturdays come on Thursdays. When you own your own small business, you have to flex around client needs/crises, deadlines, business development, client management and lots of other to-dos. Going hard for three or four days in a row sometimes means your brain needs a day off. There are times my brain can’t wait until Saturday for a day off. … Read More
Electric utilities across the country are getting PR black eyes on rooftop solar and net metering. The Washington Post, The New York Times and countless local news organizations have run articles on this national trend of homeowners putting solar panels on their rooftops. The controversy arises over net metering: what should homeowners pay to maintain the electric grid and preserve … Read More
Last month’s blog post asked whether your utility could be headed for a culture-based disaster. To help you answer that question, we proposed a simple and easy, albeit qualitative, diagnostic tool: is there a gap between what your utility says about customers, and what it does? Most utilities “talk the talk” about customers, stakeholder engagement, transparency, the importance of communications, … Read More
I hung up the phone and thought, “Wow, that utility’s headed for trouble.” Then I turned on the TV and watched the Washington Redskins get mauled. Again. The sideline reporter kept talking about how cultural problems had turned an exciting playoff team into a cellar-dwelling disaster in one season. That’s why I’m glad I’m not affiliated with the Redskins either. … Read More
Employees are feeling beaten down. Can you blame them? Their commitment to their organizations is being sapped by frozen salaries, staff cuts, organizational inertia, endless reorganizations, and poor quality communications. High-skilled employees depart, opting to pursue more rewarding work elsewhere, leaving fewer people around to do the work. That’s not how you would characterize life at your utility, would you?
