Electric cooperatives are in the midst of a wave of retirements and turnover among their leadership and longer-tenured employees. By and large, the people who are replacing them are younger, highly tech savvy and come with very different expectations about how open, collaborative and responsive they want their workplace and their leadership to be.
The ability for many job roles across all sectors to now be done remotely means co-ops in rural areas often find themselves competing for talent with large companies well outside their territories. And the addition of broadband subsidiaries at many co-ops is introducing the realities and challenges of market competition.
These and other developments are driving a historically broad and rapid shift in the organizational culture of electric co-ops. Those at the forefront of this trend are bringing co-op creativity and innovation to the challenge, adapting everything from onboarding processes to learning opportunities to leadership development.
To talk about these and other strategies for identifying and managing cultural change, we’re joined by Delaine Orendorff, NRECA’s senior principal for management services, and Katherine Domingue, the CEO of SLEMCO in Louisiana.
Listen to the episode below:
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