Skills in the workplace, Highly Commended

EDF Energy - Building a culture of learning and excellence in the nuclear industry

Skills in the Workplace Award - Big Tick 2010
Highly Commended

Embedding a culture of learning across your organisation will have a more profound impact on your long-term performance than any flash-in-the-pan training project ever could. To enjoy these benefits you need to view training and coaching not as an expense, but as a low-risk investment.

Andy SpurrMD, Existing Nuclear, EDF Energy

British Energy has turned around its performance by successfully creating a true culture of learning and excellence which has been independently recognised as global best practice within the nuclear industry.

Nuclear generation requires sustained high performance of plant, people and process to achieve the required levels of safety and to maximise returns on the huge capital invested. This depends on having highly skilled and motivated people who embrace a culture of continuous improvement with learning at its heart.

The story

In 2004 British Energy was emerging from restructuring after near financial collapse and needed to address poor regulatory assessments and other performance issues. The company urgently needed to reduce workplace accidents, fill the skills gap resulting from diminishing supplies of nuclear professionals, and position itself as a global leader.

This was the spur for an ambitious and innovative training strategy. Over the five years from 2004-09 British Energy used training to help turn around the performance of their existing power stations and helped pave the way for future nuclear investment in the UK. This in turn makes recruitment even more competitive, and the company’s reputation for staff development helps them to attract and retain staff.

The strategy included a £40m investment in training infrastructure (including a ‘Nuclear Skills Academy’), succession planning to ensure the ageing workforce is replaced by suitable talent, a new approach to technical and safety training that focused on behaviour as well as skills and knowledge, involving suppliers and contractors in training, the creation of more career progression opportunities, and extensive stakeholder dialogue including a panel of international experts from other safety-critical sectors.

Impact

  • • £100m saved between 2006 and 2010 by reducing power generation losses caused by human error. For example, reducing ‘unplanned automatic trips’ from 25 (2003) to 6 (2009)
  • • Graduate applications more than doubled from 1,152 (2005) to 2,700 (2009)
  • • About 95% of line manager positions and 7 out of 8 power station director positions filled through internal promotion – saving hundreds of thousands of pounds in recruitment and induction costs
  • • Nuclear reportable events reduced from 77 (2004) to just four (2009); all low level

See also

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