Is the Energy Performance Contracting Market killing the Energy & Carbon Management Consultancy market?

Is the Energy Performance Contracting Market killing the Energy & Carbon Management Consultancy market? 

As a specialist recruiter operating within the low carbon & sustainability market place, I’m subjected to great overview of the market. Because I’m constantly talking to hiring managers, business leaders and candidates – the latter of which have sometimes found themselves in the unenviable situation where their talents are no longer needed, I’m able to develop a broad sense of who’s hiring and growing, and who’s not.  In many ways this is one of the ways that we add value as a recruitment partner to our clients – we’re able to advise on what sort of skills are in demand and what skills are on the wane.   We’re able to provide an overview of how a market is developing by measuring a key indicator – the demand for human resource.  When demand for talent outweighs supply this is where talent management really kicks in with retention and succession planning strategies key.

Since I started recruiting within the energy consultancy space about six years ago, I’ve witnessed many changes – some good, some bad.  A recent market adjustment that I’ve been aware over the last couple of years comes in the rise of the energy performance contracting model.

Energy Performance Contracting (EPC), not to be confused with the compliance based EPC’s (energy performance certificates), is essentially when an end user effectively purchases a guaranteed energy saving rather than the energy efficient equipment to deliver a saving.

The rise in the EPC model seems to have come at a cost to those offering solely energy consultancy.  Energy reports and advice obviously have a part to play in an overall energy & carbon management strategy but advice alone is not going to solve a problem or an opportunity, depending on what way you look at it, to reduce energy spend and carbon. 

Businesses need to implement the recommendations that come out of energy audit and it may just be the case that a lot of the bigger businesses have now done the consultancy and advisory part of their energy strategy and they now need to do the implementation. 

Consultancies that are not offering the implementation element as part of their offering are therefore obviously going to miss out and I think we have been witnessing a cleansing of the energy consultancy market place as a consequence.  Some are clearly diversifying and offering implementation through partnering and project management of those with the right capabilities.  Others even have the in-house expertise but consultancy by its very nature is consultative and it’s for this very reason that this market is tailing off for them - consultancy just isn’t required as much.

We are witnessing a shift from energy consultancy to project engineering and, putting in place a new BMS system, energy efficient lighting or voltage optimisation, for instance, costs money.  Money is capital that a business might not have to spend particularly in the current climate, even with the prospect that investing in low carbon and energy efficient technology will “payback”.  Payback periods of course vary and the more a business does with energy efficiency, the harder it gets and the longer the pay back periods.  With businesses wanting to pass on the risk inherent in capital spend on energy efficient technologies, some of which are still relatively unproven, a model that provides guaranteed savings is a win-win situation. 

The US has been at this for years, originally coming out of the public sector, and in the main it’s the US based companies that have been coming to the UK and rolling out the EPC model.   I expect to see substantial growth in this market in the coming years as well as the wider ESCo model, since we are also witnessing a growth in commercial scale biomass, for instance, where fully maintained energy is available at parity or less than the grid.  The green deal also offers a similar framework.  Whichever way you look at it – energy efficiency finance is a growing market and with around 40% of carbon coming from existing buildings in the UK, it offers a great chance for us to make the existing building stock more energy efficient.

Miles Davey is Head of Sustainability Division at Summit Sustainable – a specialist low carbon & sustainability recruitment consultancy. 

The Art of Career Progression For Graduates

The Art of Career Progression For Graduates.

It’s been all over the news – youth unemployment is at a staggering high.  We haven’t seen comparable levels since the late 80’s apparently.  We’re in the midst of some difficult economic times – you don’t have to tell recruiters that – and the youth seem to be coming off worst.

In a recent survey by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), the number of graduate vacancies are predicted to fall by 1.2% in 2012, compared to a 1.7% rise last year and this all means that there is going to be greater competition for jobs.

Summit Sustainable (www.summitsustainable.co.uk) don’t really do graduate level roles – we tend to focus on mid-management level upwards but that doesn’t mean we don’t care.  Far from it – recruiters, businesses, industry & government all have a vested interest in graduates finding themselves in employment.  After all you are the business leaders and technical experts of tomorrow!

It’s widely appreciated within certain parts of low carbon, renewable energy & sustainability sector that, there is a general shortage of candidates with the right blend of skills and experience.  For instance, I’m often tasked to find Energy Managers or Energy Management Consultants who have a few years of experience and there’s a vast shortage at this level.  As you would have (hopefully) noticed in my last blog following on from an HR conference on Renewable Energy, industry is in agreement - there is a massive skills gap that needs to be addressed and a general consensus that, in order to do this, businesses need to train and develop graduates, in addition to accepting talent moving sideways into the sector. 

In reality this doesn’t happen enough and businesses often end up competing for talent which can have an impact on retention and ultimately the bottom line.  However, if graduates can get a number of years experience under their belt, they will suddenly find themselves in high demand.

So graduates need to get experience.  “Catch 22” I hear you say – I can’t get the experience if I can’t get a job.  Well in many ways that’s the difficulty and graduates need to think about how they can differentiate themselves in a busy market place.

Many roles will look for specific degrees. For instance, a business looking for an energy management consultant within heavy manufacturing will look for someone with a process or chemical engineering degree, possibly followed up by an MSc in an Energy Management related subject.  It can therefore be concluded that, in many respects, your career progression will be influenced prior to your A-levels since many degrees will look for specific A-Level subjects, for instance.  My advice here is to consider what career you want to do and to then work this backwards to your choice of degree and A-levels.  As things stand, there’s a demand for engineers and particularly commercially minded engineers. 

If you are already degree qualified that won’t help much but its worth bearing in mind when applying for roles – if you are applying for technical jobs with a geography degree and not getting anywhere you might want to ask yourself if you are applying for the right roles.

Whatever your degree, the big consideration that we keep coming back to is gaining that valuable experience. The good old catch 22.   So how do you go about getting that initial experience?

Do internships

If you personal circumstance allows it, do internships.  Cherry pick the right ones that support your background and where you want to take your career – and yes it is worth knowing where you want to be in five years.  A candidate that has built up around a years experience working in a relevant commercial setting is instantly more employable.

Be Geographical Mobile

If it’s possible, don’t limit the areas where you want to work. It’s always nice to be around friends and family but you need to be selfish here.  The more locations you will consider the more jobs on offer.

Sort your CV out

The obvious one but it needs to be right.  Run it by people – make them comment and encourage criticism. 

There’s no golden rule but from my perspective I like to see concise examples of how you can add value to any given job.  So think about the language.  Edit and Re-Edit. Think – what technical skills do you have – academically and experience wise. What about commercial skills? And Management skills? What does the person who wrote the job advert you are applying for want to see in your CV? 

I’ve spoken to HR professionals in the past that will go through the competencies of a job one by one and tick these off against a CV. If you’ve done it and it’s relevant, for goodness sake – make sure it’s on the CV.

Keep Tabs on your job search

Keep a spreadsheet on your job search.  Applications made; to who and when.  Was there any feedback? Don’t you think you should find out and …

Be Proactive

Don’t’ just register with one recruitment agency.  Register with as many as you can find but keep a view on what they are doing on your behalf so you can keep tabs on your job search.

Get yourself set-up on social media sites like twitter and LinkedIn. These are recruiter’s second homes.  Market yourself.  Don’t be scared to approach people direct.

Utilise your networks

Who do you know in your family that can put a good word in? Where are your friends working?

Get Networking

Get yourself off to conferences.  Take some CV’s with you and approach businesses face to face.  Don’t be shy – this will demonstrate you have the commercial and business sense that they are looking for and your tenacity will impress.

…And once you have a job…

Remember where we are.  That’s when we can help.  Don’t stand still in one role for too long.  You need to progress either for the business you are working for or elsewhere.  Summit will be here to understand what motivates you, your aspirations moving forward and subsequently put the right sort of opportunities in front of you.

Renewable Energy HR Conference: A follow up

Renewable Energy HR Conference: A follow up

I was in London for a couple of days at the beginning of this week at a conference focused on talent management within the Renewable Energy sector.  The conference brought together an eclectic mix of Human Resource Managers, Business Schools, Entrepreneurs and of course, Recruiters.

There seemed to be a general appreciation and focus on the problems facing the industry –namely the talent gap, at mid-management level in particular, and a need to work together in developing solutions. 

Whilst there was a general consensus with the challenges facing talent management within the renewable energy sector, there seemed to be little offered in terms of solutions.  In an industry that is likely to experience even greater demand on limited skills as it grows extensively over the coming years, even the recruiters who spoke gave little away in terms of solutions to the skills gap and how businesses could better attract the available talent.

There was talk around transition skills and graduate programmes and, whilst these seemed a vital part of any talent management strategy, the schemes seemed limited and I certainly felt that companies could and should place more emphasis on graduate and transitional talent development as this is ultimately the only way the industry will benefit in the long term. 

There didn’t seem to be a problem with attracting graduates and candidates with transition skills into the industry – the renewable energy sector seems to be an attractive market to work within due to a combination of ethics, making a difference to climate change and security of supply and the perceived career progression due to a growing industry.

Fundamentally the challenges seem to be focused on the gap in talent at mid-management level and upwards. Whilst a focus on developing graduates and those with transition skills is a necessity for the future, right now there is also a need for solutions to attract and retain mid-management level and upwards talent.

Whether companies involved within the renewable energy sector look to utilise specialist recruitment consultancies or not, they will need to think carefully about how to attract and retain limited candidates in the competitive market.  One presenter at the conference presented a survey that suggested that salary was the main the motivator for candidates looking at new opportunities.  This suggestion came under a certain amount of heat from the conference including myself.  I begged to differ and whilst it’s no doubt important for businesses to offer competitive salaries and benefits, this is generally not the reason why candidates look to move jobs.    

So what factors deserve important consideration when looking to retain and attract suitable candidates in a competitive market? Focusing on the motives of candidates is key.  If, as part of a talent attraction strategy, you can appeal to potential candidates motives you are more likely to appeal as an employer.   When you understand the motives of candidates you can incorporate this into how you communicate your values and culture through advertising, marketing and other forms of communication.  Recruiters can play an integral part in helping to understand the motives of candidates and communicating the values and culture of the business so that the right candidates are attracted.  Because they fit with the culture they are likely to stay longer.  Employers should also always think about what their USP’s are – I always ask our clients, Why would a candidate want to work for you?  

So what does motivate us to move into a new role if its not salary? It could be a number of many things from location, to career progression to culture.  Typically it’s a blend and because we are effectively dealing with people – it’s often complex and varied because everyone is different.  Quite often what we have found at Summit Sustainable that is specific to the renewable energy industry is that candidate motivation is often influenced by projects.  I’d therefore suggest that it’s important, for instance, to communicate what’s good about your projects.

Communication is key and it is important to have open communication with your recruiters.  I’ve worked with many businesses in the pass where Recruiters are cut off from speaking to hiring managers and sometimes even HR.  Sometimes we are just given job specifications to work from.  Here I ask – how can you communicate a culture, projects, values and other USP’s that are likely to appeal to a candidates motives if you don’t know them?

There’s an old proverb within recruitment that you can teach someone new skills but you can’t change their character. So recruiting based on how a candidate fits within the culture of a company is very important.  This is likely to lead to a better retention and a better fit with how you operate. 

So to summarise, understanding motives and communicating how your company can appeal to those is key in attracting and retaining candidates but there is also the rather large task of identifying candidates in the first instance as well and I’ll look to focus on this in a later blog.

Summit Sustainable are always happy to talk through your talent management needs.  With more and more businesses developing inhouse recruitment teams Summit Sustainable are always available for ad hoc consultancy should you require insight into how best approach and set up these teams.  

Renewable Energy HR

Summit Sustainable are looking forward to attending Renewable Energy HR on December 6th & 7th 2011 and rubbing shoulders with a number of key players within talent management from Siemens to Suntech. 

Renewable Energy HR is the first two day conference to focus on the critical issue of recruitment and retention in the Renewable Energy Industry.

The growth of the renewables industry continues at a strong rate despite economic challenges in some markets.  One of the big challenges facing the industry is whether it has the personnel, ranging all the way from offshore wind turbine maintenance engineers to senior managers, required to support and maintain the industry’s rapid growth curve.

As partners to the event, Summit can offer a 10% discount to our network.  Just quote SSR10!

For further details go to: www.greenpowerconferences.com/renewablehr

Solar Power UK, FiT's, CRC and all that Jazz

We've been busy.  We visited Solar Power UK last month which was a solid three days of networking with many new and old contacts across the solar pv industry.

It was interesting to listen to Greg Barker speaking on the Feed-in-Tariffs and promising TLC, not the tender loving care that we are all familiar or not so familiar with as the case may be, but Transparency, Longevity and Certainty.  Days later a dramatic cut in the FIT’s were leaked on the Energy Saving Trust website only to be quickly taken down but it was too late – everyone’s SMART phones who I knew and spoke with at the time were going berserk with emails and rumours.  Twitter too was full of tweets around the impending FIT cuts –surely DECC can’t bring this forward to December as anticipated?  This would ruin the industry? Over the next couple of days it transpired that there was truth in the rumours and now the Solar industry is left to pick up the pieces.  One thing is for sure, there is one hell of a rush on now to get installations in place prior to the December 12^th cut off and a lot of the wholesalers and manufacturers I speak to are pretty much sold out of panels and inverters etc.

I suspect there be job cuts come the New Year or even before, which will be difficult to take around the Christmas period.  There are reportedly 30, 000 jobs or so in the market at the moment and I can see this reducing dramatically. 

But with Grid Parity getting closer it will be interesting to see how the Solar market plays out.  Some are tooting 2016 or 2017 as when grid parity will be reached but others, and these are people who have worked in within the big six, think that parity could come even sooner – 2013 perhaps – and with this we all get to look forward to increasing energy prices. It will be interesting to see, but with little finance available because of the ongoing financial crisis in Europe, it may prove difficult to deliver on the immense opportunity that the solar sector represents.

We’ve also seen the first CRC league table published.  Many would not have.  The interest was so great that the Environment Agencies Website crashed.  Today I’ve heard they may look to alter the CRC again.  That must be the TLC that Greg was talking about. 

This industry needs certainty.  Lets hope we get it.

The Case for Developing Talent...

Businesses generally recruit when they are looking to solve a problem or benefit from an opportunity.  This is particularly evident in the low carbon economy where rapidly evolving regulation, changing consumer patterns, security of supply and scarce resources, for instance, lead to an abundance of threats but also opportunities for business.

For instance the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) provides an incentive (or perhaps more of a stick now) for businesses to reduce energy consumption, thus saving money, whilst at the same time providing an opportunity to improve their brand through a high placing in the league table.  Admittedly the league table might not necessarily portray the whole picture and organisations that have made vast reductions & effort may find themselves further down the league table.  However, the point is, that poor performance in the league table will be a risk to a corporation’s brand and this needs to be managed somehow, either through effective communication strategy or through improving an anticipated league standing.  These opportunities and threats to a business require particular skill sets and, in this instance, would usually come in the form of hiring an Energy Manager or outsourcing to a consultancy, energy supplier, FM provider or similar.

Once a need has been identified, the usual scenario is that I’m requested to find a candidate(s) with a specific skill set.  There is always a focus on experience, education and a general tendency to find a like-for-like replacement, assuming of course it is a replacement role.  In the situation where it’s a new role for the business the situation is the same – there is a preconception that you need to employ someone who meets a certain criteria in terms of years of experience & skills.  This might be stating the obvious but, essentially, if a business is recruiting an Energy Manager, they tend to want a ready made Energy Manager. 

To expand further, there seems to be a widely taken approach across industry to employ individuals that already meet all the requirements of a perceived role and/or to find an exact replica of the predecessor.  For instance, a business will often reach out for someone from one of their competitors – someone who has operated in a similar capacity.  This is very much a tick box approach based on what it is perceived the business not only needs but will benefit from. 

There seems to be a lack of appreciation that the business might actually benefit from hiring an individual who is stepping up or transferring across from a relevant discipline.  There is a likelihood that they will be more efficient, more passionate, more driven to succeed and this is all likely to lead to a better retention rate and increased productivity within the team and business.

There are also knock on consequences.  Most of the businesses I recruit for have some interest in the sustainability and low carbon industry.  By taking up a strategy of development when hiring new staff, you will effectively benefit what is fundamentally a candidate short industry by up skilling.  If you have strong CSR commitments, you will be benefiting the economic and social aspects of sustainability by employing staff that would otherwise potentially be overlooked.  Whilst it’s understandable in the current climate that many opportunities are oversubscribed to and employers therefore benefit from a wide selection of applicants, in cases where there are limited suitable applications in the first instance, businesses may benefit from taking a chance on developing someone.  In fact, rather than taking on the war for talent face on and taking a few months indentifying, competing and attracting talent, employers might find that time, effort and money is better spent developing and training. 

Insights from our first three months...

Summit Sustainable (www.summitsustainable.co.uk) officially launched in January this year and it's been all systems go since then.  We've been networking with a vast amount of sustainability professionals on a global level, looking to raise awareness of what Summit Sustainable is all about and essentially why we're different. 

So if you haven't already heard about us already, who are Summit Sustainable and what do we do?  Whilst you can dress it up in many ways; Search & Selection, Talent Acquisition, Headhunting...we basically do recruitment and specialise in the low carbon and sustainability sector.  Low carbon and sustainability is a vast area so to be a little bit more precise about what we do and summarise our key focus: We provide interim and permanent recruitment solution across the following areas:

-          Energy Management

-          Carbon Management & Climate change

-          CSR and Sustainability Strategy

-          Renewable Energy

-          Sustainable Buildings

-          SMART Metering

There are a number of so called specialist sustainability recruitment consultancies on the market so why are we different?   I think our main USP is our technical disposition - we don't just say we are specialists and will understand your needs, we truly will and do.  This is based on experience recruiting in the sector for a number of years as well as relevant educational and industry exposure focusing on areas such as climate change adaptation.  What's more, when you are speaking to industry leaders on a daily basis for years and making an effort to not only understand their businesses but also their requirements, you tend to pick up a fair amount of knowledge. 

Secondly, we're a smaller business and this means that you won't be just another customer.  We'll take time to understand where you are coming from and what your expectations are.  In a way, we're looking for our customers as well as our potential customers to feedback to us what they want from a recruitment partner.  Since we're small and growing, we can adapt to your needs and evolve with you as well as the market.

The market takes some evolving to as well.  We only have to look at the recent review of the FiT's, the change in the CRC, the announcement of RHI, the introduction of a floor price for carbon and the green deal, to name a few and to gain some insight into what's been happening in the market recently. 

Don't get me started on the Feed-in-Tariff - this was a big set-back fro us as it was for many in the renewable energy sector.  Since we are based in the South West, this offered huge potential for us on the larger scale solar farms.  The review caused massive uncertainty and whilst there may be significant opportunity up to 50KW, this will no doubt have a negative economic impact for the SW economy - an area of the country that needs it most.  I don't think I was the first to speak to Dan Rogerson, MP for North Cornwall about this...

On a more positive note I was delighted to be invited to the re-opening of Delabole Wind Farm - the first commercial scale wind farm in the UK I believe.  I also attended Ecobuild which since I first attended five years ago or so has evolved immensely.  If you've spoken to anyone who has attended I am sure they will reciprocate my thoughts that the focus on Solar PV was astounding.

So finally, as you can imagine, its been a rather busy three month here at Summit Sustainable so this Blog is probably quite long overdue.  I hope to update you on further movements over the coming weeks and of course, it goes without saying, if you feel Summit Sustainable may be able to add value to your business or personal circumstance please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Cheers for now,

Miles

info@summitsustainable.co.uk

01566 776 888