Organizations around the world are embracing paths to cleaner energy and working toward net-zero targets. This makes it especially important for renewable energy organizations to examine their current workforce, organizational structure, and approach to rewards to ensure they are prepared to meet increased demand in coming years.
WTW gathered and analyzed data specific to the renewable energy industry and identified key trends to watch this year.
Across every industry, organizations continue to grapple with sourcing talent for major roles around the world (see Figures 1 and 2).
| Country | Average voluntary attrition rate |
|---|---|
| Australia | 13% |
| India | 13% |
| United Kingdom | 12% |
| Taiwan | 11% |
| China | 10% |
| Brazil | 8% |
| France | 7% |
| Information technology | Engineering | Sales | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 58% | 56% | 52% |
| India | 63% | 61% | 44% |
| United Kingdom | 61% | 51% | 43% |
| Taiwan | 51% | 57% | 58% |
| China | 48% | 54% | 54% |
| Brazil | 57% | 54% | 47% |
| France | 52% | 57% | 51% |
Because salary affects an organization’s ability to attract and retain talent, this pattern of higher salary increases is expected to continue this year, but employers will be cautious about allocating their budgets (see Figure 3).
In addition, 60% or more of employers in every industry around the world have taken or are considering taking certain specific measures:
Employment within the renewable energy worldwide is continuously growing, now estimated at 13.7 million jobs globally, with China, Brazil and the European Union leading in employment. As organizations prepare for the talent war, Figure 4 reflects the top 3 functions at professional level (P3) with the highest pay across the energy and natural resources sector, where the workforce for the renewable energy industry will most likely be sourced from.
| First | Second | Third | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | Engineering | Project management | Environmental health and safety |
| China | Sales, marketing and business development | Legal | Project management |
| India | Audit and financial/business controls | Financial analysis and tax | IT development |
| Brazil | Petroleum engineering | Well operations | Natural resources exploitation |
| France | Environmental engineering | Production planning and control | Accounting project cost control |
| United Kingdom | Petroleum engineering | Corporate affairs/investor relations | Energy trading |
01
Environmental goals will remain a top priority. As governments continue pushing and introducing incentives for renewables and cleaner air, more investments are pouring in, an that will boost this sector. The industry’s focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) and sustainability efforts will be a focus this year and moving forward.
02
Given increasing legislation around pay transparency, organizations must prepare now to meet regulatory requirements. Objective job and pay structures, robust data and analytics and manager education will likely help your organization confidently deliver a pay narrative to internal and external stakeholders.
03
As energy companies start shifting to renewables, business operating models will be significantly different and will have consequences for job architecture. This also means workforce requirements will be different. It is critical that companies broaden their talent strategies and take a fresh perspective toward their total reward proposition.
04
In response to a competitive job market coupled with inflationary pressures, organizations have increased their emphasis on the non-financial elements of pay, including fringe benefits, skills premiums, global recognition programs, employee assistance programs and so on.
The key asset renewable energy organizations will need to meet the challenges of changing priorities around ESG goals is data. Successfully building teams and attracting and retaining the right talent requires a data-based approach that will be defensible and competitive in the talent market.
