What It Takes: Talent in the Energy Sector Highlight Reel

First of all, a big thank you to all of our panelists and guests who so graciously attended our #WhatItTakes Talent in the Energy Sector event last Thursday! It was a huge success and I think we all learned a lot.
Thank you Elizabeth from M-KOPA Solar, Tim from Sanergy, Patrick from Skynotch Energy Africa, and James from Brands & Beyond.

As the panelists were fielding questions about the various challenges and opportunities the fast growing energy sector has in the Talent space, I was furiously writing down some of the key insights for them. I didn’t manage to catch everything, but I did write down the responses for a few questions.

I’ve taken a moment to compile them in more legible format than the initial Evernote draft. Admittedly, my notes are quite dense and I’ve lifted some things verbatim from the speakers (so apologies for colloquialisms and informal sentence structure). However, Brave readers! Fear not. There is a lot of information here so keep reading.

I hope you all enjoy and for those who weren’t able to attend the event — be it Talent Managers in the Energy space, or professionals looking to grow your career in that sector — I hope these notes are insightful for you.

What is the biggest challenge you face in terms of hiring people for technical roles and do you offer in-house training to address that gap?

Patrick: One of the biggest challenges for technical roles is the budget. Another one is that we don’t have any training schools for independent training programs that meet the needs of the changing energy sector. We are thinking of setting up a small school in the energy sector to address this but it’s a work in progress.

There are a lot of people who are coming up with workshops. We identify what makes sense to us from third parties for our team. We wouldn’t take the same training that a multinational would. Also as a new frontier, recruitment or third party might not be the best solution for every training because we don’t have budget for day to day specialized training.

We are still far in training institutions for offering market relevant solutions. KenyaPower and KenGen offer courses but they aren’t always relevant.

Also, we would want more support in legal and financial tools for the sector.

James: KEPSA knows the government is trying to break through to help with standard energy agreements. My biggest challenge is the engineer that is going to do a master’s or MBA in what. That is what is killing us. Especially the technical guys who want to be promoted and then are told that without a Masters, they can’t be promoted. We are not improving in maintaining the skills in a certain area.

If you do a technical MBA, make it so that you become the best geophysics or transmission skills. Not some sort of management.

Tim: A challenge we have is that in our organization, we don’t have as well defined roles. We have around 93 unique roles. We have micro-business units within the company. Training can’t be done at the same scale as a parastatal. What we focus on right now is underlying skills that can be spread across the board.

In terms of development and training, we believe the classroom setting is not the way to go. The better way is to interact with people of different experiences and get thrown in the deep end. This guy doesn’t know about civil engineering, but he is experiencing the work and learning from people who have that experience. Learning on the job is a much bigger part of the learning experience on our team.

Elizabeth: Kenya is a place where someone has a degree in biophysics but is in HR. Someone with a degree in psychology might be doing SQL. Our problem is that in high school, you select analytical chemistry but then you realize you are a sales person. We need to understand people’s key skills from a younger age and make sure those teachers teaching your kids are actually the best people to be teachers.

M-Kopa is really open. We focus on understanding a person’s talents. Someone can come in entry level at a certain place, but then we can move them over into another department if that is their strength. So it is on us to channel them in the right direction.

We push employees to engage in higher learning courses and focus on up-skilling our people. We show people with management potential how to be leaders if they have that passion for people. We try to identify those traits early on. What are your key strengths? Let’s develop that. It’s a wide world in M-Kopa, Let’s see where you land.

We also have M-Kopa University to help people more formally with career advancement.

How do you scale your teams rapidly? Are there any best practices in recruitment that you can share with us?

Elizabeth: We realize we can’t do it alone. Some of the people best for the job have a bad CV. I had one person with a CV who wrote “employee” on their CV for all their past positions. So we use other platforms to assess people outside of their CV. I want platforms to assess what promise this person has. To tell me that this guy is in accounting but he should be in sales. I prefer to find ways of doing more bulk recruitments and working with partners to help us grow our team to where we need to go.

I also think it’s about continuous recruitment. Trying to make each and every time you bring something on a new experience. Tweak process to see how you can get the right fit. How do I get better candidates on board? Also, don’t rely on CVs. Im recruiting for a Data Analyst. How do I assess these people aside for them knowing things about SQL? It’s all about asking ourselves how to get our process better.

Tim: Best practices…We tap into the networks we have laid down. We have a good fellows program 3–6 month internship. Lots of fellows stay on as full time hires. That’s a great pipeline from university for us.

James: We have a challenge in measuring what we do. The other day, we were recruiting for an energy company in Djibouti. I had guys from polytechnics there who were able to show what they have done. The other guys were just showing what they were monitoring.

When I was leading the change program at KPLC, you couldn’t quantify what the engineers do. For a cashier, you can manage. For an engineer who underperformed and so a transformer blew up, how do you monitor that? So we sat with the customer to see what they were focusing on — namely, getting power.

We went to Nyeri and started measuring numbers. One substation had constant shortages. The cost of that was calculated and we started breaking down what the engineers were doing by measuring how much money we were losing when engineers didn’t have discipline. Then , a new CEO came in with an HR background and started enforcing it. For the first tine, we saw engineers going home. If you start measuring what you do, that’s a best practice to help improve the sector itself as well as the recruiting.

Patrick: I agree with James, we need to ask ourselves after 4 years what we are doing in the sector. Even engineers aren’t asking themselves, but even generally in the sector, we also don’t do it.

Even if I am looking for a business analyst, if I operate in a sector without information, what do I do? How can I measure this person. We need people head hunting in the sector to get information about the sector to help the companies understand as well. Also, I’m not an expert in everything. Maybe I don’t know everything about making a Job Description.

I also don’t know how to give points that will help make is guy understand why he was picked for this job or not. As we narrow down to the person, also give the guy feedback on the Job Description that fits their background versus the job that hey are applying to.

Any advice for job applicants?

Elizabeth: A tip for job seekers — Your CV is your first interview. If you can tell me who you are on on paper, that’s amazing. I have a favorite CV from an engineer. He had included lines for how many times he got electrocuted and how many products he has innovated. He went through hobbies and said he cycles for causes and I really noticed that all his hobbies had to do with engineering. That guy is hired right now. So thats your first interview. If you can’t put your skill set on a CV, don’t bother.

If you feel you are in the wrong place, try to leverage on your strength and experience. Don’t be afraid to take a few risks. Don’t be scared to start at the drawing board. It’s never too late to make a turnaround. It’s all about self realization. Engineers make the most amazing performance managers. It’s process! A friend of mine is now a big guy in government and he is an engineer. My degree is in analytical chemistry, so I didn’t finish it because I didn’t want to get stuck in a lab with chemicals. And now I’m in HR. It’s never too late, figure out what you want and go for it.

Tim: As an outsider looking at Kenyan CVs, I can say a few things — I don’t care about your marital status or religion. I care about grades but not as much as you think. If you show you have drive and can take it to the next step, that’s amazing. It’s showing me he hasn’t just gone to university and is now here. People can develop how they market themselves. That soft skill will get your foot in the door. For example, one awesome applicant had a patent for an automatic ugali cooker.

James: Jianike, go to these forums (Thanks, James!!). Most people will get jobs through their networks, and these events are the best way to get your name out there.

Patrick: One of the things I’m not interested in is reading CVs. Don’t submit an application if it isn’t a fit. Don’t start climbing the wrong tree. You may find yourself at the top but you’re not happy. It will also ruin my organization because you will be where you are but you won’t be happy.

Lastly, don’t go into the energy sector looking for a job, go to the energy sector looking for a mentor to connect you to an entrepreneurship opportunity.

Thanks again to all of our amazing panelists and guests who joined us for a great discussion and networking session! Also special thanks to the entire Duma Works team who made this event happen.

Get ready for our next event in September: #WhatItTakes Talent in the Real Estate Sector and if you have a job opening you would like to try posting with Duma Works, kindly email me on arielle@dumaworks.com

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Posted in Career Builder Recruiting & Leadership Tags: africa, biogas, Career Advice, career tips, East Africa, energy sector, Hiring, Job openings, job opportunities, Kenya, Recruiting, solar energy, talent, What It Takes

Originally published at dumaworks.com on August 17, 2016.