Employee Engagement
Engaged employees feel valued, are confident about our future, excited about their work, and understand and apply PG&E’s values to drive improved performance across the organization—from safety to sustainability. To promote engagement, we are actively creating a workplace where every employee is empowered to speak up, not just about safety but how we can improve the overall employee experience. We also continue to provide opportunities for employees to learn and grow in their careers, connect with the communities where we work and offer feedback on how to make PG&E a better place to work.
Our Approach
Engaged employees share a meaningful connection to their jobs, can articulate PG&E’s goals and understand how they and their broader organization contribute to PG&E’s success.
Governance and Key Initiatives
Our executive-level People Committee drives PG&E-wide efforts to improve engagement and ensure continuous improvement. One of the committee’s areas of focus continues to be a biennial employee survey that provides insights into the employee experience and our culture. In recent years, employee engagement has been a top priority, as evidenced by its inclusion in our Executive Guidance, which provides the strategic framework to guide our planning for the next five years.
We have also implemented engagement action plans driven by senior leaders, a dedicated communications campaign and interim surveys to keep organizations within PG&E on track toward meeting their engagement goals.
We track employee engagement through the biennial employee survey, most recently conducted in 2014, as well as a number of other measures to hold leaders at all levels accountable for driving engagement. The People Committee provides guidance on senior leadership’s role in addressing the survey results to drive continuous improvement.
Collaborating with our Unions
Approximately 60 percent of PG&E employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements with three labor unions: the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245, the Engineers and Scientists of California International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (ESC/IFPTE) Local 20, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) United Service Workers West. A negotiated labor agreement with each union establishes the working rules and other terms and conditions of employment.
These employees support areas critical to our business, including gas and electric operations, customer service, power generation, environmental and land services, telecommunications, and shared services.
PG&E and its unions work closely together in many important areas, such as enhancing technical training programs, fostering health and wellness, building career pathways and implementing numerous initiatives to promote a stronger culture of safety. For example, Pacific Gas and Electric Company and the IBEW reached the first-ever mutual aid agreement in 2015—coming to an agreement on how to respond to requests from other gas and electric providers for mutual-aid after natural disasters. Pacific Gas and Electric Company also reached agreement with the ESC on a new four-year contract addressing issues such as simplified job bidding, uniform pay ranges for certain classifications and changes to time-off benefits.
Engaging at the Grassroots Level
Employee-led initiatives play an essential role in engaging employees. These include grassroots initiatives focused on safety, wellness and environmental leadership, as well as ambassador teams that provide employees with engagement opportunities within their lines of business. More than 5,000 employees—about one-fifth of PG&E’s workforce—participate in our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), each of which contributes to building an inclusive culture at PG&E.
Every year, we honor employees whose work at the grassroots level embodies our highest values—such as safety, diversity and inclusion, environmental leadership, and community service—in our annual Employee Champions Awards ceremony. The event also features the Margaret Mooney Award for Innovation, shining a light on individuals and teams who apply innovative solutions to their work.
Engaging in our Communities
We also drive engagement through employee volunteer and giving programs. Our volunteerism efforts continue to grow, in part because PG&E’s Better Together Giving Program prioritizes initiatives that offer opportunities for employees to volunteer. Our efforts are supported by local employee leadership teams that spearhead engagement opportunities in local communities.
PG&E also actively supports local nonprofit organizations through board service. Among officers who have been with PG&E for more than a year, more than 90 percent serve on nonprofit boards such as the California Academy of Sciences, the SF-Marin Food Bank, the American Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, San Francisco Chapter of the United Negro College Fund and Meals on Wheels. Other PG&E employees are also consistently sought after as members of nonprofit boards for a wide range of organizations.
2015 Milestones
We continued our television, radio and online advertising in local markets, featuring employees from those neighborhoods who are working to make a difference for customers. The ads respond to customer feedback asking for more details on PG&E’s progress.
Volunteerism grew significantly in 2015, with employees enthusiastically contributing their time in the communities that PG&E serves. Whether installing solar panels on Habitat for Humanity homes, cleaning up state parks or volunteering at local food banks, the men and women of PG&E continue to give back.
Month of Service Highlights
In April, PG&E marked it’s fourth annual companywide Month of Service, which featured a broad range of volunteer projects throughout Northern and Central California. Overall, PG&E volunteers donned blue T-shirts and volunteered more than 12,000 hours across PG&E’s service area—cleaning shorelines, planting native trees, helping to build homes and serving meals to those in need. This included partnering with the California State Parks Foundation on Earth Day at 10 park cleanup and restoration projects.
Click on the links below to see photos and details of our volunteerism at numerous locations.
- Month of Service: Join PG&E for Earth Day, Arbor Day Celebrations in April
- Sacramento: Month of Service: PG&E Volunteers Pick Invasive Weeds to Reduce Fire Threat in Sacramento
- PG&E Provides People Power at State Park Earth Day Cleanups
- Redwood City: Brown Bag Build Celebrates PG&E, Habitat for Humanity Solar Partnership
Highlights included the following:
- Set a PG&E record for employee volunteerism. Employees at every level contributed to our total of over 87,000 hours of community service—the most volunteer hours in our history—significantly outperforming our goal of 79,000 hours. When multiplied by the California industry-standard value of $26.87 for a volunteer hour, this represents more than $2.3 million in equivalent labor.
- Created an online tool to help drive engagement. We launched an online planning tool for officers and directors to leverage employee insights shared in the biennial survey, with measures to hold all levels of leadership accountable for driving engagement within their teams. The tool was accompanied by best practices for employee engagement.
- Consolidated numerous governing bodies into a central People Committee. Chaired by the vice presidents of our Human Resources organization, the People Committee was chartered to review and approve long-term workforce strategies, among other responsibilities.
- Earned recognition as an innovative place to work. PG&E was recognized by CIO Magazine as one of the CIO 100 Award winners for its innovative use of technologies to support emergency response base camps. Pacific Gas and Electric Company was the only combined gas and electric energy company on the list. The annual award program recognizes organizations around the world whose teams exemplify the highest level of operational and strategic technical excellence.
Measuring Progress
PG&E’s Campaign for the Community is an annual employee and retiree giving campaign. Employees can pledge a percentage of their salary and direct their donations to schools and nonprofits that are important to them. In 2015, employees and retirees pledged $7.9 million, exceeding our goal and setting a new record for PG&E. Pledges were made by more than 10,000 employees and retirees, an 8 percent increase over 2014. Since 2000, PG&E employees and retirees have raised more than $70 million through the Campaign for the Community, benefitting schools and nonprofit organizations primarily in communities where PG&E employees live and work.
Employee engagement is the emotional commitment an employee has to PG&E and its goals. The employee engagement score from our 2014 survey was 76 percent. More than 83 percent of employees participated in the survey, our highest-ever participation rate. At the same time, this 2014 survey indicated several opportunities to continue improving our internal processes, enhancing the flow of information and helping employees feel valued. Going forward, our 2016 goal is to maintain our Employee Engagement score at 76 percent.
To address these concerns, we launched initiatives both within individual lines of business and across PG&E around these opportunities. This included an online tool to assist officers and directors with developing and implementing targeted employee engagement action plans, with measures to hold all levels of leadership accountable for driving engagement within their teams.
In 2015, the total number of employee volunteer hours more than doubled from five years ago, exceeding our volunteer target by 50 percent. For 2016, we set an ambitious goal of 90,000 hours from employee volunteers.
| Year | Score Footnote 1 |
|---|---|
| 2011 | 67% |
| 2012 | 71% |
| 2013 | No survey |
| 2014 | 76% |
| 2015 | No Survey |
| 2016 | Pending |
- 1. Refers to the percentage of favorable responses to questions on an employee survey that measures employee engagement. New engagement items were introduced for 2014. Return to table
| Year | Target | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 28,875 | 32,585 |
| 2012 | 34,215 | 41,792 |
| 2013 | 43,050 | 47,855 |
| 2014 | 50,000 | 75,000 |
| 2015 | 79,000 | 87,000 |
| 2016 | 90,000 |
Looking Ahead
Spearheaded by our executive-level People Committee, PG&E will continue implementing a companywide engagement strategy, which includes action plans in every line of business to address employee feedback from our biennial employee engagement survey. The effectiveness of our strategy and plans will be measured through the 2016 survey.
In addition, PG&E will collaborate closely with our unions, boost volunteerism and implement engagement action plans led by senior leaders so that we retain top talent, attract the best candidates and cultivate the workforce of tomorrow.