Seven Emerging Energy Hiring & Retention Challenges in 2024

According to a Gallup poll released June 13, 2023; 59% of workers are “quiet quitting,” meaning that they are not engaged with their job (doing as little as possible to stay employed and looking to move on); and 18% are “loud quitting,” or actively disengaged (still employed but have a troublesome attitude with little motivation to improve or move on).

A separate survey released June 13, 2023 from the Bank of America and Georgetown University showed that 68% of young adults “view their work mainly as a way to make a living,” and not as a major part of their identity or personal fulfillment.

The need for hiring excellence has never been greater especially when the disturbing data above is coupled with these seven emerging challenges energy employers are facing below.

Is there a North Star energy employers can rely upon to navigate the frenetic white-water world of hiring, retention, and development?

Emerging Hiring Challenges

1 Hiring -Labor Shortage -Turnover

The lowest unemployment rate in the U.S. during the last 53 years combined with these emerging workforce dynamics; quiet and loud quitting, the hybrid work model, gig work, DE&I; all somewhat spawned and spearheaded and drawn into the spotlight by the Great Resignation are now impacting our approach to hiring and retention with unintended consequences. The energy industry in particular have the added burden of ten thousand per day boomer retirements from senior roles every day for the next ten years. 

Employee disengagement and or disenchantment is at record levels causing some employers to take the costly precautionary step of conducting multiple marathon interviews to ensure they are hiring the right person. This approach is ineffective, costly, and unnecessary. Employers need more candidate data and less interviews. Other employers are casting a wider net to generate untapped candidates having transferable skills by taking an industry agnostic approach to the talent pool.

2 Hiring All Stars: Managers know who their top performers are in a specific role and want to hire candidates that can perform at their level. Is there a scientific solution that a hiring manager can use to benchmark their best people in a role and hire more with their attributes?

3 Building a Diverse Workforce & Unconscious Bias A diverse workforce outperforms a homogenous ones on every level. Discover the competitive advantages of building a diverse workforce. Become a bias disrupter one hire at a time. Let us show you how.

4 Leadership Development: Leadership development demands a new urgency against the backdrop of a tight labor market, boomer retirement, and increasing turnover challenges.  The traditional leadership development model isn’t working for many organizations seeking a more agile effective on demand leadership development model to fill the pipeline. Ask us about the successful approach our energy client has taken.  

5 Remote Interviews: The remote interview has become a staple for hiring whether the candidate is across town or across the globe. The convenience and time savings are irrefutable but virtual interviews are more challenging than face to face. We have a better approach.

6 Hybrid Work what does your personality tell you about your working remotely. Some people thrive and others wither in a remote environment.  You need to know who will thrive moving forward. 

7 Alarming Employer Discrimination Lawsuits Fiscal Year 2023, The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 67,448 discrimination cases many claiming biased hiring and promotion activity. With only 200 workdays a year this equates to over 337 discrimination filings a day and 42 every working hour. Is there a pro-active approach a  enery company can take to reduce the risk of incurring discrimination lawsuits related to hiring and promotions? We have a solution. It is much easier to debias your hiring process than to try and debias mindsets. Contact us for more information.