With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/526329
Perhaps the top HR challenge facing BC Hydro is not the size of its territory, however, but the age of its workforce. Jobs key to "keeping the lights on" will be hit particularly hard by mass retire- ment, according to a 2013 B.C. Utilities Commission report. Approximately one-third of current Hydro employees will be eligible to retire in the next five years. The number is even higher for line technicians, at 38 per cent, and dam and power station technologists, at 43 per cent. Hydro's 120-person human resources department is well aware of all this—and is planning for the future. When Debbie Nagle, BC Hydro's vice- president of human resources, sits down with her senior-level counterparts, the conversation about who is needed where—whether for an executive role in Vancouver or on the ground at an upgraded dam in Campbell River—often takes place five to 10 years before a hir- ing decision is made. "We try to recruit apprentices from where we need to hire them," says Nagle, who notes that engineers and electricians often visit local high school classrooms to make the pitch for a career with Hydro. And early outreach programs aren't only for the trades. The utility recruits students in programs as diverse as biology, for- estry and electrical engineering—even students with no relevant training—to spend a summer in the field shadowing current employees. 104 BCBusiness July 2015 Biggest Private Employers RANK COMPANY STATUS STAFF 1 Jim Pattison Group Private 15,287 2 HSBC Bank Canada Private 3,354 3 Vancity (Vancouver City Savings Credit Union) Private 2,539 4 Paladin Security Group Ltd. Private 2,150 5 Paper Excellence Group Private 2,000 e 6 Seaspan ULC Private 1,933 7 Ledcor Group Private 1,862 8 Coast Capital Savings Credit Union Private 1,600 9 Coast Hotels Ltd. Private 1,500 10 Kal Tire Private 1,495 Biggest Employers RANK COMPANY STATUS STAFF 1 Jim Pattison Group Private 15,287 2 Telus Corp. Public 8,400 3 Teck Resources Ltd. Public 7,700 4 Providence Health Care Not for profit 6,900 5 TransLink (South Coast British Crown 6,766 Columbia Transportation Authority) 6 BC Hydro Crown 5,500 7 Insurance Corporation of B.C. Crown 4,900 8 BC Ferry Services Inc. Crown 4,214 9 BC Liquor Distribution Branch Crown 3,500 10 HSBC Bank Canada Private 3,354 BC HYDRO'S PAYROLL COSTS 2013/14 2014/15* 2015/16* 2016/17* 2017/18* $848m $864m $900m $963m $1.01b *Projected