Sustainability Highlight
pge-corp
Amidst a rapid transformation in the energy industry, PG&E is focused on developing a workforce with the skills and expertise to meet our customer needs while operating safely.
Our approach
We take a multi-pronged approach to developing our talent within PG&E. Through our talent identification efforts, robust training offerings at PG&E Academy, and targeted efforts at building workforce pipelines such as PowerPathway™, PG&E remains poised to have the talent needed to meet the evolving needs of our business.
We provide our coworkers a range of technical training on the knowledge and skills required to perform their jobs safely using approved tools and work procedures. These courses help prepare our workforce as we integrate new technologies, systems, and processes into our operations.
We have California state-certified apprenticeship programs for more than 35 job classifications. These apprenticeships provide specialized on-the-job training in conjunction with formal instructor-led and web-based training to eligible, union-represented coworkers who wish to become certified in a particular trade. Upon completion of a PG&E apprenticeship program, coworkers are eligible for certification by the state of California.
Consistent with PG&E’s commitment to ensuring all coworkers are qualified to perform their assigned tasks over the duration of their careers, PG&E also offers a range of technical skill-refresher and coworker-development courses. We use a cross-functional approach to identify training needs, involving PG&E’s training professionals, operational and safety leaders, and union partners to make sure we prioritize the right training based on documented skill gaps and safety trends.
In addition, PG&E’s long-term strategic planning includes coworker and leadership development, as well as succession planning. While always embracing new voices, we also work to promote from within and have a target to fill 82% of management vacancies in the positions of director-level and higher with internal candidates.
PG&E’s PowerPathway program continues to play a central role in our workforce development strategy by providing free, unpaid training for careers in gas, electric, and vegetation management. Students enrolled in the program receive industry-specific training that addresses the academic, vocational, and physical abilities students will need to enter the energy industry workforce.
Created in 2008, PowerPathway targets those who are out of work or under-employed and has a strong focus on enhancing opportunities for women, minorities, and those who have served in the military.
In 2023, we celebrated our 16th year of PowerPathway with programs for both gas and electric operations—one of which was an all-military veteran program focused on PG&E’s effort to underground 10,000 miles of electric transmission and distribution lines. All of the veterans came from communities impacted by wildfires and, upon graduation, were placed as utility workers and traffic control flaggers in their local region.
In total, PowerPathway held three cohorts in 2023 with 56 graduates—71% were ethnic minorities, 39% were veterans, and 16% were women. PG&E hired 98% of PowerPathway graduates in 2023. There have been more than 1,240 graduates since the program’s inception.
2023 milestones
Training:
- Established training alignment committees for our gas and electric operations to better meet the training needs of our frontline coworkers. The committees identify emerging training needs based on safety trends and incidents and review and validate existing training.
- Expanded hands-on refresher training to provide a skill refresh for journey-level coworkers. This included rubber glove and grounding refresher training for more than 1,600 electric operations coworkers and a multi-course refresher training program for gas service representatives.
Coworker development:
- Recruited 77 summer interns from 30 universities with majors in STEM: 60% were a minority, 29% were female, 9% were individuals with disabilities, and 6% were veterans. To promote diversity in our recruiting efforts, we actively partnered with our Engineering Network Groups and external partners such as the National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Society of Women Engineers, Disability: IN, and the Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement Program.
- Cultivated leadership among coworkers by launching Leading @ PG&E—six courses designed to develop leaders. In 2023, we delivered over 21,700 leadership and professional development student training days.
Measuring progress
We encourage our employees to develop their skills by exploring new opportunities within PG&E. We also attract new talent to build our expertise in critical areas.
In 2023, more than 2,600 new coworkers joined PG&E and more than 5,150 coworkers moved into new roles. By promoting health, wellness, professional development, teamwork, and an ability to perform well for our customers, we achieve stability and a low voluntary turnover rate—2.9% in 2023.
As part of our continuing commitment to our coworkers, PG&E delivered more than 1.2 million hours of technical, leadership, and coworker training in 2023:
- ~877,400 hours of instructor-led training, including technical training conducted in the field at coworkers’ yards.
- ~47,000 hours of training via our virtual learning courses, which help us extend learning and training opportunities to coworkers where they work and in a remote setting.
- ~162,600 hours of training for leaders, including nearly 82,000 hours for supervisors.
- ~252,700 hours of training for apprentices, emphasizing technical expertise and implementing safety practices in daily work.
To measure success, coworkers who participate complete surveys and provide feedback on how much the training has increased their knowledge. For courses that teach technical skills or reinforce skills that involve high-consequence tasks, every coworker is required to pass an assessment that covers both knowledge and skills gained. Additionally, for select trainings, we perform field observations of tasks that coworkers were trained on in the months following their training to determine if the training has had an impact on job performance.
At PG&E Academy, our in-house organization charged with enhancing coworkers’ skills and qualifications, we introduced a five-point scale survey in 2014, asking coworkers to rate their ability to use on-the-job training. In 2023, training effectiveness was 4.66, exceeding our goal.