Third International Conference on Nuclear Knowledge Management - Challenges and Approaches

Knowledge Management Impacts on Organizational Proficiency in a Changing Demographic Nuclear Industry

8 Nov 2016, 11:00

15m

BoardRoom B/M1 (IAEA M-Building)

oral Track 1: Strategic and cross-cutting KM issues in organizations PL04

Speaker

Mr David Heler (Nuclear Human Resources Group)

Description

The US nuclear energy industry has focused on workforce development and planning efforts over the past decade in anticipation of a large number of retirements taking place. Efforts by the US nuclear industry to replace retiring workers with younger staff to close the knowledge gap and improve organizational proficiency have started. This is resulting in a bimodal workforce distribution, which means that the industry has two workforce peaks. The 2015 Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) Workforce Pipeline Survey results illustrate a significant number of experienced and young professionals, with fewer employees in the mid-career age group. This workforce distribution can pose a challenge for US nuclear industry to ensure it has effectively implemented knowledge management elements (People, Process, and Technology) to improve organizational proficiency and maintain critical skill sets. This technical brief will examine how one US nuclear plant performance dropped, which in part was a result of a significant demographic shift in their organizations. In addition, the paper will explore the challenge organizations may have as they undergo demographic changes without proper knowledge management programs in place.